Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

Integrity

I read this a while back and thought it could be of use to some of you.

An extract from 'Integrity', by Stephen L. Carter.

…Very well, let us consider this word integrity. Integrity is like the weather, everybody talks about it but nobody knows what to do about it. Integrity is the stuff we always say we want more of. Such leadership gurus as Warren Bennis insist that it is of first importance. We want our elected representatives to have it, and political challengers always insist that their opponents lack it. We want it in our spouses, our children, our friends. We want it in our schools and our houses of worship. ….

The word integrity comes from the same Latin root as integer and historically has been understood to carry much the same sense, the sense of wholeness, a person of integrity, like a whole number, is a whole person, a person somehow undivided. The word conveys not so much a single mindedness a completeness: not the frenzy of a fanatic who wants to remake all the world in a single mold but the serenity of a person who is confident in the knowledge that he or she is living rightly, The person of integrity need not be a Gandhi but also cannot be a person whole blows up buildings to make a point. A person of integrity lurks somewhere inside each of us; a person we feel we can trust to do right, to play by the rules, to keep commitments. Perhaps it is because we all sense the capacity for integrity within ourselves that we are able to notice and admire it even in people with whom, on many issues, we sharply disagree.

Indeed, one reason to focus on integrity as perhaps the first among the virtues that make for good character is that it is in some sense prior to everything else: the rest of what we think matters very little if we lack essential integrity, the courage of our convictions, the willingness to act and speak in behalf of what we know to be right. In an era when the American people are crying out for open discussion of morality - of right and wrong - the ideal of integrity seems a good place to begin. No matter what our politics, no matter what causes we may support, would anybody really want to be led or followed or assisted by people who lack integrity? People whose words we could not trust, whose motives we didn't respect, who might at any moment toss aside everything we thought we had in common and march off in some other direction?

The answer, of course, is no: we would not want leaders of that kind, even though we too often get them. The question is not only what integrity is and why it is valuable, but how we move our institutions, and our very lives, closer to exemplifying it.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35776

That was interesting.

Although I'm not going to comment on the subtext.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

Thats ok smug, no comments needed.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

Americans do, indeed, want to be led by people who lack integrity, who don't have the courage of their convictions, who will trade in their beliefs for political expediency at the drop of a hat.

We know this because we have created a system in which this sort of conduct is rewarded. The American voter has always had it in his/her power to send politicians to Washington who stand up for their beliefs. However, these people never make it out of the primaries. They are seen as "extremists," or, even worse, as "judgmental." Heaven forbid that we send people to Washington who are willing to make judgments! Let it be boldly proclaimed: he who desires integrity can NEVER use the term "judgmental" in a pejorative sense.

We end up with an endless series of bland, namby-pamby centrists whose core principle is political expediency, who wouldn't know integrity if it came up and bit them on the ass, which it did in Bill Clinton's case.

This, to me, is a great practical reason for Libertarianism. The individual cannot be held responsible for the mistakes of the collective; this punishes the individual with intergity, holding her hostage to the mistakes and indecisiveness of the masses. When the individual has the maximum degree of autonomy, the rewards of integrity for that individual will be maximized...as will the punishments for a lack thereof.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

nice post Jr.

Just - perhaps to play devils advocate, I thought I might tell you about a discussion I had with a good friend of mine.

This friend is the spokesman for law and order for the NZ libertarian party (libertarianz) and currently their number 3 list MP.

I was discussing his role with him one night (albeit drunkenly over several pints of speights) when he proclaimed that as the spokesman for law and order his was the only job that would 'pay off' under a libertarian system. His justification for this was that due to libertarian policy, no government official position other than his own would be justifiable, hence, he would be the sole elected representative.
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My response to this was 'so, in essense, you would be a dictator' - I was being facetious.

However, he replied, quite seriously 'of course, isn't that what ALL politicians secretly aspire to'.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

Hehehehehehehehehe...

Yes...it's all a secret plot towards the goal of a totalitarian future under our ruthless command.

It's not working out quite as well as we'd hoped, obviously.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

Hmm...I seriously wonder where the line would have to be drawn with libertarianism. Clearly there are limits to just how non partisan a government can be. It would only take several instances of parents taking advantage of a libertarian type state in order to use/abuse their children to further their own ends before the majority would cry out for not only state intervention, but for legislation to be drafted preventing this sort of thing happening again.
Same with drunk driving resulting in death, and lots of other stuff I would imagine.
It's all very fine and dandy to say that you are an advocate of minimal government in theory, but in practice it is easier to legislate against these things, rather than to expect voluntary samaritans to pick up the pieces of irresponsible individuals.
Libertarianism could only pull the line back so far on issues such as this before they started to look surprisingly egalitarian in their approach to politics. The difference, to me, seems to be primarily one of economics. Industrial capitalism however, isn't something I would advocate.
Where would you draw the line Jr?

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