The importance (or pseudo-importance) of honor

Honor, to have prestige is to have honor. Honor is the "why" behind reputation. Those who maintain a good reputation whether on their Steem accounts or off of Steem are more highly "esteemed". The most basic mechanism behind honor is to keep promises. A promise can be seen as either a formal or informal agreement. Reputation is built over time by successfully meeting agreements which means to keep promises. Some promises are the kind which best not be broken, such as a promise to your mother or child, or the promise you made to your spouse to love them, to not cheat on them, etc.

Marriage itself is built on the ability of Alice and Bob to keep to their agreement. If they agreed to love each other until death then this is the most basic promise behind a marriage. If they define infidelity as cheating then it is in breach of the agreement if Alice or Bob ever violates the rules they both agreed to. So in this way perhaps we can think of any relationship as either an informal agreement or formal contractual agreement.

A contract arises when the parties agree that there is an agreement. Formation of a contract generally requires an offer, acceptance, consideration, and a mutual intent to be bound. Each party to a contract must have capacity to enter the agreement. Minors, intoxicated persons, and those under a mental affliction may have insufficient capacity to enter a contract. Some types of contracts may require formalities, such as a memorialization in writing.

The honorable thing to do

It's of course based on culture and values so this is not prescriptive. One thing I can say is that people tend to trust consistency. If a person typically does what they say they will do then it creates a sense of consistency. For example Dan Larimer did not just take money and run off with it when people paid him to develop Bitshares. Dan Larimer took the money and delivered a Bitshares beyond the expectations of investors. He then delivered Steem which went beyond the expectations of the community. Steemit rewards honorable behavior with Steem Rewards, and punishes dishonorable behavior. For example plagiarism is not likely to be rewarded on Steem if it is discovered. So what makes Steem unique and of value is that it rewards honor in a direct and measurable fashion.

Keeping promises and being consistent produces trustability

If a person is trusted it is often because they made a promise and kept it. They in essence fulfilled the terms of their agreement. If they do this over and over again, then over time this shows as consistency, as a measure of how reliable they are, and this reliability reveals trust. Keeping promises in business simply means either deliver what you promise to deliver or give the money back to your customer if possible. Avoid accepting money from unsatisfied customers and fulfill the terms of your contractual agreement if possible. If you borrow money under the promise of paying it back and now you can afford to pay it back then pay back what you owe. If you borrow in general, in the more abstract sense, and you know you've taken more than you've given under your agreement, then give back if you can and you promised to do so.

And of course, make your signature mean something. A signature is only valuable if it's from a person who honors contracts. An oath is only valuable from a person known to keep oaths. This scales all the way down to the level of friendship or all the way up to running a country. It's all built on promises and commitment. To maintain a good reputation is to maintain a personal brand which broadcasts your worth to others.

Is honor important or pseudo important?

The key here is that it all depends on what you value. If you care about how certain other people perceive of you (you seek respectability) then honor is extremely important. If you don't care so much about what others think of you as much as how you think of yourself then maybe honor is pseudo important. This is an individual choice based on how you see the world. There is also the truth that some people are dishonored according to the rules of their culture in their society, but in another society perhaps these same people are viewed as neutral or attain honor. Honor is important but if you break an agreement in a society which does not frown upon this behavior then perhaps the cost does not outweigh the benefit in that society for that particular individual.

There are many different honor codes. The Bushido honor code for example differed greatly from the Ninja who had a completely different yet successful survival strategy of using the honor of the Samurai against them in warfare. The Bushido honor code of the Tokugawa period was extremely rigid. This rigidity worked great in times of peace but in times of war when deception and resilience are assets to continued survival then we can see where this rigidity of the Bushido code breaks down. The ultimate example being seppuku which was a kind of self sacrifice allowing the follower of the Bushido code to die with honor.

Naoshige says similarly, that it is shameful for any man to die without having risked his life in battle, regardless of rank, and that "bushidō is in being crazy to die. Fifty or more could not kill one such a man". However, Naoshige also suggests that "everyone should personally know exertion as it is known in the lower classes".[10]

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido