This subject I touched on in last month’s blog post, but it’s time to dive deeper on the matter. I’ll try to make it clearer, however, the answer to this question mixes objective and subjective views in a complex way. You could ask 4 people about the Banquet and Ball, and you would get 4-10 answers that either clash offensively or harmonize beautifully depending on how long ago they last attended and what they had for breakfast that day.
Here is the objective experience summarized. The Banquet and Ball is a New Year’s Eve ball, where the attendees spend a couple of days learning etiquette and how to treat someone with honor, and do some work to pull the specifics of what the ball will look like together. This ranges from arranging dance cards to organizing the seating for the banquet. Then on New Year’s Eve we attend a multi-course banquet and then dance into the new year.
At its face, it sounds like it could be pretty fun, if a bit stuffy and pretentious. And indeed, if you are the sort of person who buys their books for the covers, that is all it is. A fancy dance with fancy food attended by fancily dressed people preening pretentiously at one another, pretending to be in an episode of the Bridgertons. But if that’s all this is, why hasn’t this died out or been a one-time thing? Because let’s be honest…
That sounds cringy.
The answer lies in what actually happens at the event. Again, I ask you to keep in mind that I can only speak to my experience, and that once again everyone is going to have a different answer.
What happens when you take men who have been told that, by committing the crime of existing, they are nothing but disgusting horndogs or beta cucks who deserve nothing but ridicule and to be treated like garbage for their entire lives, so they might as well be the monsters they are portrayed as?
What happens when you take women and tell them they are competing against one another to be the most desired by men, that there are no rules, and that only if they beat the competition by hypersexualizing themselves are they worth something? So if they aren’t at the top they might as well just give up and be worthless?
Now, take those men and women, give them an education and an opportunity in Honor to find their true value underneath the crap of life that got heaped on them, and put them in a situation where Honor is not only expected of them, but is also given to them regardless of who they were walking into the event. Just imagine what that could be like.
To me, the Banquet and Ball is at its core an experiment in the practical application of honor. An experiment that has no reservations or requirements other than meeting a dress code, paying for a ticket, and agreeing for a couple of days to abide by a code of ethics. And now that normal registration is now live, my question for you, dear reader, is this:
What will your story be?