(From "Men" Without Chests Revisited, by Prof. Paul Eidelberg)

During aristocratic ages, man's moral center of gravity is the chest -- the seat of "honor." A gentleman's honor was more than mere probity, and far more than prestige. As late as the 18th century, the lexicon defined "honor" as a quality that "supposes in a gentleman a stronger abhorrence of perfidy, falsehood, or cowardice, and a more elevated and delicate sense of virtue, than are usually found in [ordinary decent men]."

A gentleman's honor was therefore his most sacred possession. An insult to such a person, if unanswered, could result in his and his family's ruin. The manly response to offended honor was the duel.

As mankind became less aristocratic and more commercial, dueling, as an affair of honor, was outlawed. The clash of steel was replaced by libel laws, the violation of which might entail monetary loss rather than loss of life.

With the ascendancy of the consumer society, however, man's center of gravity has descended from his chest to his abdomen. Laws against defamation of character have lost much of their efficacy, especially now with unrestrained freedom of speech and press, the pride of flatulent democracies.

Indeed, so sacred and secure are the print and electronic media in an era of unfettered freedom of expression, and so prohibitive is the cost of a libel suit, that certain well-placed individuals can engage in character assassination without risking their lives or their fortunes. Enter "men without chests."

Men without chests are the product of consumptive as opposed to deliberative democracy. Those who control the political institutions and communications media of an all-consuming democracy do not engage their opponents in honest democratic debate but rather seek to destroy them by verbal voodoo. i.e., by one-word slanders. And they do this while posing sanctimoniously as democrats. In fact, it is precisely in the name of "democracy" that one can now defame an individual without fear of retribution.