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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2230 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 30, 2025

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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.

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?

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.

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