In the United States these days, things aren’t going very well. Some of the indications of this are, we have a record number of our citizens incarcerated, when people vote, they rarely find a candidate that they like, and often vote for “the lesser of two evils”. And when they do get elected, we expect them to be dishonest and untrustworthy. There are mass shootings, riots, and lies, scams, and crimes so frequently that we’ve become numb to it – it’s all being “normalized”.

We have an ever-increasing volume of laws, policies and law enforcement agencies designed to control bad behavior in people, including anti-corruption laws, behavioral agreements, watchdog groups, and HR departments with mass power inside organizations.

Our population is more polarized than ever, and in every endeavor, people are expecting to be cheated or abused, and constantly have their guard up.
So, what tools does our society have to deal with this? Traditionally, there are only two institutions that have successfully been able to curb bad behavior amongst people: religion, and government.

Government does this by passing laws, operating law enforcement organizations, and with correctional facilities. Sadly, we’ve discovered that no matter how carefully a law is crafted, there are people who spend a lot of time trying to find loopholes, and the bad behavior continues, but in the slightly altered form. And the rest of us pay for this because living your life becomes a continuous task of dodging arduous laws that seem to touch each and every activity of our normal life. Yet crime rates do not go down.
Religion also attempts to modify human behavior – mostly with threats of eternal damnation. But also with the threat of being banished from the religious group and the community that it offers.

Religion, however, is shrinking at a continuous rate and has been for years. And parts of the world such as Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK religion has all but disappeared. And religion in the US is dwindling at a steady 3% per year. Young people find the notion of eternal punishment to be ridiculous, and give it no heed whatsoever. Plus, their need for community and companionship comes from social media, not from attending church on Sundays. These days, religion is doing a poor job of controlling human behavior.

Religion and government represent only two legs of a stool, and as we know a stool requires three legs to remain upright. There once was a third leg to the stool, but it is disappeared in recent history. However, it can be restored, it can be revived. That missing leg is “honor” – people taking ownership of their own behavior.

First, let’s define the word “honorable” to mean honest, trustworthy, ethical, straightforward, virtuous, dependable, sincere, and faithful. Please notice that I DIDN’T mention rich, powerful, intelligent, popular, beautiful/handsome, sexy, or famous.

Please partake with me in a little exercise. With the above definition in mind, please list up to three living people that you feel are 10 out of 10 level honorable. They must be sufficiently well-known such that they could effectively endorse a person, book, movie, or institution.

Who did you list? How many did you list? Most people I asked this question to can’t list the single name. Think about what a sad indicator that is for our civilization.

In short, my magnum opus is this book which is one of a set of tools to restore honor to the world.

Imagine with me for a moment of what world would be like if most people were honest, trustworthy, ethical, straightforward, virtuous, dependable, sincere, and faithful. And those who weren’t yet were actually striving to be or easily identified as dishonorable. Can you even imagine such a thing?
The first tool to bring Honor back into the world is this book that I’ve been working on for several years called “A Return to Honor”. It’s an all-in-one, easy to follow, guide to how to behave honorably.

Subjects include: how to spot a liar, how to be productively honest, how to communicate clearly, how to listen and understand what people are saying, how to resolve conflicts, how to keep commitments, what are weasel-words, how to avoid being influenced by social fads, advertising, and propaganda, what is a logical fallacy and how to avoid them, how to improve your emotional intelligence, what is denial and are you in it now, figuring out why you believe what you believe and replacing false beliefs with true beliefs, non-verbal communication, cognitive biases, oath taking, understanding science and how to detect bad science, what is “spin” and how does the media distort the truth, fact checking, common incorrect beliefs, common “truths” that are false, and developing enlightened self-interest and empathy in a reasonable balance.

When a person buys this book, does the exercises in it, and practices the principles they will get into the road to honorable behavior – and the self-tests in the book can help them evaluate their progress.

Honor requires a penalty for dishonorable behavior, and that’s where the second tool comes in — the Honor Registry.