The Virtue of Integrity

The Atlantic

2 days ago

Jean Guéhenno lived in Nazi-occupied France, where, unlike so many of his contemporaries, he refused to write a word for a publishing industry under Nazi control. He felt shame about the Vichy government's collaboration with Nazi Germany. 'What to make of French writers, who, to stay on the right side of the occupation authorities, decide to write about anything but the one thing all French people are thinking about,' Guéhenno asked in his journal, later published as Diary of the Dark Years, 'or worse still, who, out of cowardice, bolster the occupants' plan to make it appear as though everything in France continues as it did before?'
In an essay for Liberties, Ian Buruma writes that Guéhenno's journal 'is wise, witty, and scathing about his fellow writers' who had elected to proceed as if nothing had changed. 'Incapable of being in hiding for long,' Guéhenno wrote, this type of literary figure 'would sell his soul just to keep his name in print.'
The United States today isn't occupied France, and nothing currently in America is comparable to the worst of Nazism. But any number of regimes, though they fall short of the German Reich, act in ways that are morally problematic or even wicked. Collaboration and capitulation—the selling of a soul—take many forms, including in America.
INTEGRITY IS A VIRTUE on which good character is built. Other virtues can be admirable but isolated. One can be courageous in the pursuit of injustice. A person can be honest but ungenerous, forgiving but lazy. Al Capone, after all, sponsored a soup kitchen during the Great Depression.
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Integrity—whose root word, integer, means wholeness, a thing complete in itself—assimilates other virtues. A person of integrity possesses an inner harmony, a moral coherence. As the philosopher Robert C. Solomon put it: 'Integrity is not itself a virtue so much as it is a synthesis of the virtues, working together to form a coherent whole.'
Integrity is a subject of ancient interest. Plato believed that a tripartite soul included reason, desire, and spirit. For Aristotle, virtue was divided into moral and intellectual categories. Virtue was not a matter of isolated acts; it was an ingrained disposition, an orientation of the mind and heart, developed through practice and habituation. This led to a unified life, which in turn led to the highest human good: eudaemonia, or human flourishing, a life of purpose devoted to the good.
To be sure, people of integrity aren't perfect. But they are individuals who possess an internal cohesiveness among distinct parts. Their values and behavior display a consistency that is the foundation of trust and mutual respect.
'No man is a hero to his valet,' says the 18th-century proverb. Many of those who serve another see a different, darker side to those whom they serve. The closer you get to other people, the more obvious their flaws become. Their public and private lives are at odds with each other. In contrast, a life of integrity works in concert with itself, has a consistency regardless of the circumstances an individual finds themselves in. 'Except for the point, the still point / There would be no dance, and there is only the dance,' T. S. Eliot wrote. People of integrity are still points in a turning world.
I'VE BEEN THINKING about integrity a lot lately, in part because more and more it's seen, certainly in politics, as unfashionable. It wasn't always this way. The central figure in the American founding, George Washington, was universally respected for his rectitude. Even the British recognized the quality of his character. (When King George III heard that Washington might surrender his commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army, he reportedly said that if Washington did so, 'he would be the greatest man in the world.')
Washington was a complex and elusive figure, as his biographer Ron Chernow wrote, full of pent-up passion. But Washington was also a man of sterling character, brave, devoted to his country, civic minded, and possessed of an unsurpassed sense of duty. Although he was given great power, he never abused it. As Major General Henry Lee eulogized Washington at his funeral, 'The purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.'
No other president, with the possible exception of Lincoln, was Washington's equal. But for nearly the entirety of American history, up until a decade ago, Washington set the standard. Presidents had to at least appear to be better than they were, offering the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
No more. Donald Trump's corruption is borderless, in ways we've never quite seen before. But what's also precedent-shattering is that he doesn't try to hide it. His depravity is all in the open.
That his supporters celebrate his bad behavior makes this even more discouraging. Many of them find his behavior thrilling, including large swaths of Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, men and women who worship Jesus with their lips while giving priority to Trump and the MAGA movement in their heart. Add to the mix the craven, across-the-board capitulation to Trump by one elite institution after another —law firms and tech giants, universities and entertainment companies, news networks and once-great newspapers.
All of this ramifies through society. Every day, in a thousand different ways, Trump's corrosive ethic is validated and replicated. Cruelty is the coin of the realm; it's the way to get ahead. Americans ask themselves, and one another, the inevitable questions: If the president can get away with it, why can't we? If breaking the rules helps him, why shouldn't it help us?
The only way out of this wreckage is to rewrite the cultural script, to make excellence in character admired again. And that starts with recognizing the power of moral example.
'Finally, brothers and sisters,' Saint Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, 'whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.'
MY WIFE, CINDY, AND I have recently discovered a compelling and highly entertaining way to think about such things. We've been watching Foyle's War, a British detective series that began broadcasting in 2002, was canceled for a time, and was revived until it ended in 2015.
The series was initially set during World War II, in Hastings, a seaside town on the southern coast of England. The drama revolves around Christopher Foyle, a detective chief superintendent; his driver, Samantha 'Sam' Stewart; and Detective Sergeant Paul Milner. The series, notable for its meticulous attention to historical detail, later shifts to London, as Foyle and Stewart join MI5 after the war.
The plots are multilayered and intricate; they deal with complex moral dilemmas—justice in ordinary times versus justice in wartime, for example, and which moral compromises should be made for the 'greater good' of the war effort—with nuance. But what makes this series so remarkable, apart from the brilliant (and brilliantly understated) acting of Michael Kitchen as Foyle, is that the character is 'a quiet man who makes a religion of honor, responsibility and competence,' as the television critic Mike Hale wrote in The New York Times. Foyle does so without ever appearing self-righteous or moralistic. Rather, he is a good man trying to do the right thing in a fallen world.
It's not so much that we know every ethical line Foyle draws is the exact right one; it's rather that we know he's doing the best he can to pursue justice. He does so even—and sometimes especially—when there's enormous pressure on him to buckle, including from those in power. Foyle's moral compass can't be demagnetized.
Foyle treats those over whom he has authority with respect. He's restrained, not glamorous; wry and scrupulous; a man of quiet strength; and uncompromised. It helps, too, that his private life is unstained. He is, to invoke a rather old-fashioned word, a gentleman. You can't imagine Foyle selling his soul for anything, which makes him particularly anomalous today, when we see soul-selling all around us.
THE SOCIAL SCIENTIST JAMES Q. WILSON, in his 1993 book, The Moral Sense, argued that our moral sense is rooted in human nature. He believed that we have a natural capacity for ethical behavior, but that it needs to be nurtured. 'Mankind has a moral sense,' Wilson wrote, 'but much of the time its reach is short and its effects uncertain.' And so, when it comes to cultivating moral excellence, we must take our allies where we find them.
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The best allies are people in your life who personify integrity, who live with honor, and who show us the way. In my own life, I count such people among my greatest blessings. I think of them more than they may know. But fictional characters can help us too.
In his essay ' On Three Ways of Writing for Children,' C. S. Lewis, who also wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, said, 'Since it is so likely that [children] will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.' Lewis knew the power of stories, and the power of heroes, to mold the character of children, to inspire them, even to help shape how they see the world.
I'd add only that what is true for children is also true for adults. It may not be in quite the same way, but it can still make a difference. We all need to hear from time to time about brave knights and heroic tales—and even, perhaps, about police detectives in small towns on the south shore of England.