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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2230 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 30, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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This post on "izzat" an Indian cultural honor system, went viral recently. I know we have at least a few Indian users here - how accurate is this characterization? Of course it's probably hard to generalize too much given the fragmented nature of India along cultural, linguistic, religious, and ethnic lines.

Here is the text in a non-image format from /r/askindia - the wide range of responses is interesting.

Doesn't resonate.

The kiwi farms post has me going full Sgt Doakes. Hindi/Urdu trace their etymology either to Farsi or Sanskrit. Urdu prioritizes Farsi loan words, Hindi prioritizes Sanskrit. Izzat is a thorough bred Farsi word. It only sees widespread use in Pakistan.

zero-sum game of collective honour shared by whole groups of people

In India, the closest analogue would be Khap Panchayats. They're clan based extra-judicial groups concerned with honor culture. They're found in pockets of Rajasthan and Haryana. They're illegal. But, they still hold some power in rural pockets of Haryana and Rajasthan. Tribal honor systems are more explicitly acknowledged in Pashto & Pahari culture in Pakistan. However, I doubt any westerner knows these groups well enough to write a 2 pager on them.

The rest of the post is frankly unreadable.

On the topic of Farsi words in Indian languages:

Mughal patronage for art created a rich and rather romantic literary movement. It's heavily represented in Indian drama, movies and of course, Bollywood.

Non-mughal Indians were introduced to these words through the arts and therefore, urdu words (and concepts) are primarily used for dramatic effect. Real life is usually less interesting, so the words don't find as much use in real life.

Izzat, tanhai (deep loneliness.), aashiqui (passionate love making), mohabbat (longing love), junoon (obsession). These Farsi words are common in dramatized Indian media. But I have never heard them used in real life.

If a friend of mine said he was feeling 'tanhai', I'd first laugh. Then smack them in the head for pretentiousness. And then find him help. Because, you must be real depressed to feel 'tanhai'. That's a strong ass emotion. Bro might jump off a bridge kinda emptiness, yknow. Farsi loan words in hindi/urdu all have this effect.

So if the word 'Izzat' feels really strong in the way its used, then that's intentional. The only time I've ever heard it used is patriach - prodigal son moments in a soap opera. The patriarch will say something like : 'Beta, hamara khandaan ki izzat rakhna'. (Son, please uphold the honor of the family) before the son does something reckless and gets disowned.

Edit: it is a type of an extensive honor/shame phenomenon which is cross-cultural across times and geographies. and it does have a positive effect (even if the news articles show its negative effects, which IMO most news articles highlight).

C'mon dude, this was obviously written by ChatGPT. Don't do this.

sincere apologies.

<snaps fingers impatiently>

It seems unlikely. Cultures that are truly face-driven have very high rates of violent crime, especially homicide (we can argue about whether it’s sanctioned or unsanctioned, so let’s call it ‘killing’ instead). Two major examples are Central America and urban black America.

India has low homicide rates, and while there is some dubious recordkeeping in some rural districts, it’s not bad enough to obscure hundreds of thousands or millions of honor killings a year. In a society of one and a half billion people where (as the KF OP claims) even an argument about garden ornaments quickly takes on life and death stakes, you would expect a lot more deaths.

This reads like someone who's had some really bad experiences and is painting with an incredibly broad brush

Like yeah honor/face culture exists in lots of places but acting like 1.4 billion people all operate exactly the same way because of one cultural concept is wild. I've worked with plenty of Indians who were just normal colleagues, not scheming honor warriors plotting my downfall lmao

The greentext story especially sounds made up as hell. Most of these examples feel cherry-picked to support a pretty harsh generalization

Someone in the thread, and I agree with him. When I first ran into this copy pasta, I was like, what the fuck is an izzat? I've lived in India for well over 20 years without running into it outside of cheesy Bollywood music played over a radio. I know it's originally an Urdu/Persian word, and it's not commonly used here.

Hell, the Wikipedia page is barely worth the TP it's printed on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izzat_(honour)

Maintaining this societal reputation by all necessary means is considered obligatory upon every man and woman, as is revenge or punishment upon those who have or are perceived as having directly or indirectly violated it.

The fuck? Obligatory? Where?

The idea of reciprocity, in both friendship and enmity, is deeply embedded in izzat. It is required, for example, that a person goes to any lengths to come to the assistance of those who had previously helped them in their time of need,[5] and to fail to do so is to dishonour one's debt and thereby lose izzat.[5]

If anyone here belongs to a culture that doesn't have the concept of friendship or the concept of reciprocation, I pity them. Let me know so I can hear about it.

Seriously, this is about as useful as that meme of someone going, "oh yeah, in my culture, we loooove our family and food is very important to us."

In other words, the original description of izzat is not a good description of the majority of the country. Honor culture exists in many parts of India, particularly rural and conservative backwaters, but it's fuck all like that in general. I'm not sure if anyone should except better from a KiwiFarms thread called "India is a menace".

Edit:

There was a greentext from 4chan (I don't have it so bear with me). Anon knew an Indian. This Indian would make outlandish claims (he could benchpress 500kg, he was a billionaire, he did arms deals with the US government). Anon said he didn't believe the Indian. The Indian reacted with righteous indignation. The situation escalated to the point where the Indian was emailing Anon death threats. Anon responded by forwarding the emails to the police. The Indian killed himself. Anon was left baffled at the whole situation and had no idea what the fuck just happened.

The fuck? I think the antics of one compulsive confabulist or mentally ill isn't grounds for sweeping statements. Does anyone know >1 Indian?

I was like, what the fuck is an izzat?

My thoughts exactly; “The fuck izzat?” if you will

I will blame jetlag from a long flight for the missed opportunity. I'm smacking myself, it was right there haha.

You aren't the guys they're talking about. Clearly there are Indians that integrate very well into the West. We are lucky and happy to have you.

The label and description is hazy, but the concept of low trust scam, exploitative, backstabbing, win-at-all-costs behaviour is a cultural trait and the reason that India is not Wakanda'ing its way to global dominance. It is not unique to Indian culture. Corruption and low trust cultural behaviours are the reason that non first world countries are not first world.

That's very kind of you to say, but I still think that "izzat" is a poor descriptor for the average Indian.

Almost all of the things described in the original essay are not normal! India is poorly described as an honor culture. It is not like Afghanistan, even if we have regions that are closer to those norms. It would be like coming up with some kind of term for the honor culture in the Appalachians, and using that to draw sweeping conclusions about the rest of the States. Or using SF fent zombies as examples of the average American.

"When two Indians get into an argument, the stakes are always deadly due to izzat"

????

The post takes a small Motte and uses it to defend a ridiculously huge Bailey. Haggling with a merchant on the street or an Uber driver doesn't result in knives or guns coming out.

India is poor and corrupt, but it's not because of izzat. It's for the same reasons as any other poor third world country. Izzat is applicable in Afghanistan, less so in Pakistan, and nigh useless in India itself.

Almost all of the things described in the original essay are not normal! India is poorly described as an honor culture. It is not like Afghanistan, even if we have regions that are closer to those norms. It would be like coming up with some kind of term for the honor culture in the Appalachians, and using that to draw sweeping conclusions about the rest of the States. Or using SF fent zombies as examples of the average American.

There's a weird thing in America where we understand that out of 330mm Americans, there are at least like seven or eight distinct cultures that it would be ridiculous to draw parallels across, and then you take a place like India or China with four times as many people and assume they're all the same.

I watched this explode on Twitter and 4Chan last week. I think it will stick even as people make arguments about how its an Urdu word and not Hindu. People believe it pattern matches too well to a certain type of 'be the winner' or 'get one over them' behaviour so I can't see it disappearing anytime soon. This isn't purely an Indian concept, I've seen this type of thing in mainland Chinese behaviour too.

I see it as self-destructive suicidally empathetic 'white' high trust cultures developing an immune response to low trust behaviour in real time. Putting a label on the concept is just the first step in responding to the Eternal September of Indians (and other cultures) entering the West physically and online.

edit: Should make it clear I'm not Indian and I'm a heritage Westerner.

2nd edit: I'm surprised 'Izzat' hasn't blown up into a CWR top level post yet. Aukat is another key word I've heard mentioned in this context.

A lot of cultures have this pattern of behavior. Especially low-trust cultures. Not every one has a scary foreign word to attribute it to, but I saw it many times. In Russian culture, especially with its lower rungs which are thoroughly imbued with prison culture, this is a pretty common pattern. In Israeli culture, again especially among lower rungs (keyword: ars), this approach to every interaction being zero sum win/lose exists and getting one over somebody is highly valued. I am sure there are a lot of other cultures where the same pattern exists, because it's a common human pattern. Not sure why the Urdu term would be any better to use than any other meaning "honor culture" and describing common failure mode of honor cultures. But pattern existing in a culture and the whole culture (or set of cultures) being subjugate to one and single dominating pattern are very different things.

A lot of cultures have this pattern of behavior. Especially low-trust cultures. Not every one has a scary foreign word to attribute it to, but I saw it many times. In Russian culture, especially with its lower rungs which are thoroughly imbued with prison culture, this is a pretty common pattern. In Israeli culture, again especially among lower rungs (keyword: ars), this approach to every interaction being zero sum win/lose exists and getting one over somebody is highly valued.

Lot of low-trust cultures have strong ingroup preference and honor culture, but it looks like the Indian version is somehow more anarchical. For example, various cultures of the Caucasus have clans, vendettas (which force clan members to police the behavior of their youngsters to avoid murder spirals) and absolute honor of old age (which allows clan elders to negotiate the end of vendettas without risking their lives and losing face). Russian prison culture has its own hierarchy, with the honor and authority of the senior ranking members dependent among other things on their resolution of disputes according to the spirit of the law or the mos maiorum.

Russian prison culture has its own hierarchy, with the honor and authority of the senior ranking members dependent among other things on their resolution of disputes

The actual prison culture does, but street thug culture influenced by echoes of the prison culture doesn't respect any of that. If such thug gets into prison, he'd be either forced to adapt and learn respect, or will be killed. But while they are out there - and many of them are low-level enough to never get to prison - they don't have any such hierarchy.

Every district has a smotryaschiy that oversees local thugs. If they don't learn to show obeisance, they are... educated.

Not sure why the Urdu term would be any better to use than any other meaning "honor culture" and describing common failure mode of honor cultures.

You're correct. The Urdu word was the one that went viral first. It could have been Sanskrit, Bahasa or WingDings, but the first one out the gate normally has the most memetic gravitas.

Funnily enough when the concept started going viral there were many Indians that immediately started to 'Well acktually..' away the accusation which helped Streisand Effect the word into virality (source: go look at the replies to the patient zero tweet)

edit: couple of words and links

This isn't purely an Indian concept, I've seen this type of thing in mainland Chinese behaviour too.

This is also a solid characterization of typical western progressive behavior (and in Eastern Bloc countries under Soviet rule), too, which is perhaps why the two get along so well.

Co-ordination of meanness (of value-finders/productive people) combined with weak state capacity can delete Izzet by deleting its followers when they attack- personal firearms meant a defender could delete an outsized number of attackers, so peace was forced that way- which is why as states weakened coincident with the ability to co-ordinate meanness growing (which is why the Enlightenment happened when it did) Izzet was mostly suppressed in the West.

Once state capacity eclipses the individual's ability to escape it, though, the followers of Izzet tend to be among the first to capture it if the citizenry doesn't wield it appropriately and crush them. This typically requires a monarch, though, since wielding political power that effectively requires a citizenry that is able, willing, and has enough time to do so... and that's not an evolved behavior like Izzet is.

Again, I don't think this is a uniquely Eastern thing- it's visible everywhere you look, should you choose.

Here is the text in a non-image format

The original source is here.

The 'Patient Zero' tweet (referencing the kiwi farms post you've linked) as far as I'm aware is here.

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