After honor. From Egil Skallagrimsson to Karl Ove Knausgård

Abstract

This article presents how Christianity acquired the notion of honor and that internal honor played as important a role as external honor – at least in the culture of Chivalry and the Victorian gentleman culture. The revaluation in Christian cultures of internal honor leads to the individualization of Western cultural values as well as the decline of Western honor culture. Andersen stresses that modern warfare more or less puts an end to honor culture in the West.