When I wrote my series of blogs on the Seven Most Important Virtues, I neglected to add Integrity. Limiting myself to seven, I felt that the seven I identified were more important than any other virtues. This was simply a judgement call. I have been challenged on it several times and indeed I challenge myself on the list. There is hardly a day goes by that I wonder if I should not have numbered Integrity among the Seven. Well, as they say, that is water under the dam. What I would like to do in this blog is discuss Integrity. What is Integrity? Why is Integrity so important? How do we get Integrity? Finally, how do we sustain Integrity?
What is Integrity?
Integrity is everything to lose and nothing to gain, except your self-respect. Integrity is standing up for what you believe is right even when everyone is against you. Integrity is the ability to put compassion and kindness ahead of self-interest. Integrity cannot co-exist with greed. It cannot co-exist with lust. It cannot co-exist with a thirst for power. It cannot co-exist with a drive for money, fame, or fortune. All of these elements are like Kryptonite to Integrity. Kryptonite was the one thing that could rob Superman of his powers. Lust, greed, money, fame, and power all have the ability to rob one of his/her integrity.
One example of a man without integrity was Goethe’s Faust. Faust was considered the smartest man alive. He was a genius and a consummate intellectual. There was little that he did not know about or could not speak intelligently about. Yet, Faust was unhappy. Old age had creeped up on him. His desire for youth and sex overcame his ability to think with the maturity befitting his status. He sold his soul to Satan and in the bargain sold his integrity. His lack of integrity lead to the death of another human being and to his own banishment to hell.
There are many examples of men and women with integrity. I think of the whistleblowers who sacrifice their careers and sometime their lives to report issues that might be dangerous to others. I think of the journalists in countries like Mexico who risk their lives every day to report injustices. I think of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers in countries where criminals have the ability to enact retribution and death when they are charged with a crime. In all these examples, there is nothing for these courageous people to gain and everything to lose by their standing up for what they believe is right. This is integrity.
Why is Integrity Important?
I believe that it is fair to say that never before in the history of America has there been so little integrity shown by our political leaders. Right, Left, Democrat, Republican, Independent, it does not matter. There are too many political leaders who are driven by greed and a desire for power. You may argue with this analysis but when I see even a third of our elected officials calling for term limits, I will recant my assertion. When I see a third of our elected officials with a plan to eliminate paid lobbyists, I will recant my assertion.
Politics is a sham in America today. We have men and women who are elected for life and spend more time campaigning then they do in serving their constituents. Public servants who start collecting money to run their next campaigns within days of winning their present office. We have a system of government where money is the most important factor in who gets elected and who gets reelected. Our politicians are more worried about losing votes than they are in the constitution or in protecting our democracy. What Integrity is there in supporting a riot to overthrow a fair election that every court and every state in America found was fairly conducted? The media seized on the outrageousness of the Big Lie to sell news. The losing party seized on the credibility of millions of gullible supporters to buy the Big Lie and try to maintain their power.
The media in America has become another hallowed institution gutted by greed and a desire for more and more money. Reporters, writers, and journalists in America today are more interested in selling advertising than they are in balanced objective reporting. You can divide the news up by whether they lean Right or Left, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican. Each side has a mirror image on the other side of the political spectrum. CNN is opposed by Fox News. The New York Times is opposed by The New York Post and the Washington Post is opposed by the Washington Times. One side supports the Right and the other side supports the left. This is not balanced reporting, and no truth comes out of the dynamic between the two sides. What both sides have in common are reporters who will report the most useless, tasteless, uninformative stories if they perceive that these stories will sell advertising or if they can figure out a clickbait title that will attract readers and thereby expose them to paid commercials.
I see few solutions to the problems I have noted above except to start holding our leaders and media to standards of Integrity that do not seem to exist. This brings us to the issue of where Integrity comes from.
How Do We Get Integrity?
I do not believe humans are born with Integrity. I do not think that there is a gene or DNA for Integrity. Humans learn Integrity like they learn to speak. The morals, ethics and traditions of any society become part of the fabric of learning that a child goes through. Integrity is a virtue. It may be valued more in some families and cultures more than others. There is an Index of Public Integrity that measures five factors that the developers link to Integrity and is used to assess a countries capacity to control corruption and ensure that public resources are spent honestly. The six scales used in this index include:
- Judicial Independence
- Administrative Burden
- Trade Openness
- Budget-Transparencies
- E-Citizenship
- Freedom of the Press
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f you want more of a description of each scale you can follow the hyperlink above. The USA ties for 10th place with Great Britain on this index. I can see some correlation with Integrity, but I can see many differences. I think honesty is one component of Integrity, but Integrity is more complex than being simply honest. An honest person can still lack integrity if they are unwilling to stand up for what they believe. Cowardice and Integrity are incompatible.
Professor Stephen L. Carter of Yale Law School points out in his book “Integrity,” one cannot have integrity without being honest, but one can be honest and yet lack integrity. … Integrity in its bare-bones essence means adherence to principles.
You cannot buy Integrity. You cannot inherit Integrity. Fortunately, Integrity does not have a price tag. It is open to everyone. Young people, old people, women, men, and people from different ethnic backgrounds all can find Integrity. I use the work “Find” because you must seek Integrity. It is a treasure, and you must look for it. You can acquire Integrity, but you can also lose Integrity. However, you cannot give it away and no one can steal it from you. It is one of the most unique treasures in the world. So, where do we find this treasure? There are three rules for finding Integrity.
- It must be something you value personally
- You must value it more than your life, your career or anything else that you might ever possess.
- You must not expect applause or accolades. It is more likely you will be criticized and condemned.
If you can accept these three rules, then finding Integrity is easy. Simply establish a set of morals, virtues, and ethics that you believe in and start standing up for them. When they are challenged, you must speak out. Your actions and behaviors must reflect our values. Do not preach one thing and do another. Do what you say you will do. When you feel like taking the easy way out, you must take the road that leads to consistency with your actions and values. The simple formula to remember is that:
Integrity = Morals + Behavior + Consistency
How do We Sustain Integrity?
Integrity can be lost as well as found. There are many examples of people who once were exemplars of shining Integrity but who succumbed to temptations for greed and power. It takes a great deal of fortitude and courage to maintain a life of Integrity. I think of people like Jesus Christ who was not tempted by the devil and went to his death for what he preached. Pilate gave him opportunities to recant but Jesus refused. Socrates went to his death also after refusing to recant his beliefs. I would like to share the example of one more recent person of great Integrity.
“María Santos Gorrostieta Salazar (1976 – 2012) was a Mexican physician and politician of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). From 2008 to 2011, she served as mayor of Tiquicheo, a small town in the Mexican state of Michoacán. In spite of three failed assassination attempts during her tenure as mayor, Gorrostieta Salazar continued to be outspoken in the fight against organized crime. In a fourth attack, Gorrostieta Salazar was kidnapped and assassinated by suspected drug traffickers on 15 November 2012.” – Wikipedia
To this date, there has been no one charged and tried in connection with her murder. How many people do you know who would stand up to a drug cartel after even one attempt on their lives? Maria was a physician. She could have lived a life of relative ease and prosperity simply by ignoring the crimes going on around her. Instead she stood up for the law and standing up cost Maria her life. Who is saying her name today?
Like any skill or talent, you must practice it. Practice is one means of sustaining Integrity. Part of practice is an honest self-reflection. Each day or week you need to ask yourself if you have been a person of Integrity. What did you do that showed Integrity? What did you do or say that allowed you to stand up for your values and ethics? What did you do that was not consistent with your values? How could you be more consistent with your values and behaviors?
There is a popular meme that says, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice! Practice! Practice!” There can be no Integrity without practice, action, and reflection. Stand up for your values and morals and you will be a Person of Integrity. Every person who can say that they are a Person of Integrity is one more person that will help to change the world for the better.
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”- Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”- Bob Marley
Two days ago, I heard a story that is worth being repeated. The story brought tears to my eyes. If you have already heard it, I hope you will not mind hearing it again. I personally would like to hear it being told from every church pulpit, every congressional building, and every auditorium in America. I would like to hear it being told every day until every person in America could empathize with what this young girl went through. I would like to hear it being told until every person in this country would finally speak out and say “enough.”
the issues of Meaning and Purpose that I addressed above relate to a certain position in life. Namely, those of us who are secure enough in our environment that we no longer have to worry about food, shelter, and safety. This is a luxury that does not pertain to all people. In particular it did not pertain to Izzy. She was a girl who because of her skin color and health had to face every day with a battle. A battle designed by others to destroy her peace and serenity. A war waged to undermine her very being by belittling, insulting, and abusing her. Izzy did not have the time to think about the meaning and purpose of her life because she was too busy trying to deal with the very bottom levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy.
Theory (CRT) comes into this match sporting a record of 25 wins and 25 losses. Both opponents have lost matches to Trickle Down Theory and the Birther Theory. The winner of this match will face the reigning champion, The Theory of the Big Steal.
The testability of the theory’s major tenets
A theory may propose various tenets. That is the theory will assert specific things that belong with the theory. For instance Q’Anon Theory proposes that a group of Democratic politicians who are pedophiles meet regularly in the basement of a pizza parlor in D.C. to plot nefarious schemes for taking over the world. One of the major tenets of CRT is the notion that racism is ordinary and not aberrational. To measure the Q’Anon Theory all we would have to do is find a pizza parlor in D.C. where a number of pedophiliac Democratic politicians meet. This would be an easy tenet to test since the number of good pizza parlors in D.C. can be counted on one hand.
Eliminate all communists
I look out and see lawyers with Magna and Summa Cum Laude degrees from Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, and other Ivy League Universities who can fashion legal arguments designed to circumvent and pervert any sane person’s idea of justice. They have corrupted our Criminal Justice System into a Criminal Injustice System. The winner in a court room is the one with the most money who can hire the best and brightest lawyers. An argument by one defense attorney claims that a self-styled vigilante shooting three unarmed people is a tragic case of self-defense. Another defense lawyer for three murdering racists suggests that the victim in the case was shot because he had come to Satilla Shores “in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails.”
I look out and see corporate executives who will ignore the danger posed to the environment and climate because they can make more money today than by creating a sustainable system. I see too many people willing to “shop till they drop.” A materialistic mentality that supports the greed endemic in Corporate America. A focus on short-term thinking that drains the earth of the resources it needs for sustainability in order to reap mega-profits today. The “hell with the future” is the motto of Corporate America.
Is there any meaning to what I am seeing? Am I just getting too old? Is my brain incapable of understanding things anymore? Journalists are murdered because they report the truth. Innocent people are slaughtered while they watch a Christmas parade. A pregnant woman is shot eleven times on her doorstep. Fifty or more people rob a series of stores in what the news calls “mass grab fests.” A six-year-old child is killed in a car seat by some maniac with road rage. There is no bottom to the bizarre. No one can imagine what the next day will bring. All attempts to discover what is causing these problems or how they can be stopped seem futile. They are meaningless crimes without rhyme or reason in a world that George Orwell would never have imagined possible. Up is down, right is wrong, facts and truth do not exist, everything is fake. There is no sanity.
This morning while doing a 4-mile run in the Casa Grande Mountains, I thought a lot about his advice. I realize that much of what I have said above could be considered a rant. I would like to think it was somewhat of a catharsis. Another friend told me yesterday that I sounded like a man in despair. I resonated with the word despair. I regard optimism as ideologically unsound given our present world. Many people have advised me to stay hopeful. There is a fine line between hopeful and optimism. I am not sure I can manage the divide. Despair on the other hand fits my mood just fine. Despair is defined as: “The complete loss or absence of hope.”
We have elected people that will support an insurrection against free and fair elections. The most important element of Democracy. People that prefer to ignore that on January 6th, we almost had a coup against democracy in America. On November 17th, we had these same people vote to ignore the censuring of one of their comrades who parodied the killing of an opposition opponent.
I look out my window and see a public school system that is being dismantled by racists, bigots, elitists, and sexists who do not want the schools to actually teach anything that might be construed as controversial. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for trying to teach the children of the Athenian elite to think for themselves. Schools and educators are still being attacked for trying to teach children to think. How can our future generations create a better world when they are besieged with information that keeps them in a past that never existed and feeds them myths about the way the world works?
Will the USA survive? All great empires have eventually declined. It took 300 years for the Roman Empire to fall after it began its decline. We are witnessing the decline of the American Empire. How long will it take to fall is well beyond my ability to foresee. If history is any indication, it will take many years and the decline will be gradual but punctuated by episodes of tragedy and elation. The tragedies will far outnumber the elations. Study any system in decline and you can see the gradual disintegration that accompanies all declines. It is already clear that our Public Education, Political Systems and Legal Systems are in decline. Trying to stop the declines is futile. You cannot stop the decline of an old bridge or an old building. You must rebuild from the ground up. Sadly, I see neither the drive nor the desire to do the work that needs to be done to help restore democracy in America.
