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This-essay is a9708151.htm which is available at the web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom. Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay By-Months By-Years By-Words Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One ========================================================== %PERSONAL INTEGRITY CRITERIA TRUSTWORTHY LEADER 970815 Integrity is not about any form of conformity. Integrity is not achieved through a high level of conformity to any externally imposed set of prescriptions and/or proscriptions. People of integrity fulfill the legitimate goals of prescriptions and proscriptions by transcending preoccupations with them and any alienative judgements which are made in terms of them. True personal integrity has to do with an internal coherence within a person, a coherence which both promotes and facilitates true communal integrity. True communal integrity has to do with an internal coherence within a community, a coherence which both promotes and facilitates true personal integrity. Open and honest communications are essential to both personal and communal integrity --- both of which in turn are essential to each other. Dishonesty, deception, secrecy, coercion, violence, fear, excommunications, alienation and estrangement --- all of these undermine both personal and communal integrity ---by undermining open and honest communications. People and communities of integrity are not necessarily like each other; rather, they are mutually complimentary to each other in their differences. By making creative use of their complimentary differences they do what they could not do in the absence of their differences. Isolated injunctions, prescriptions & proscriptions are inadequate guides to enjoying personal and communal integrity --- for when isolated they do not deal adequately with the importance of the integrity of all that they point to. In the absence of any acknowledgement of, and any understanding of the web of inter-connections and inter-relationships which are the essence of both personal and communal integrity --- no collection of isolated injunctions, prescriptions and proscriptions will give life to inter-personal relationships which are otherwise dying, dead and/or deadly. Personal and communal integrity depend upon the integrity of personal and communal inter-connections and inter-relationships; i.e., upon the vitality and reliability of communications of all kind. When open and honest communications are absent, confused, constrained, resented, avoided and/or perverted --- we cannot enjoy either personal or communal integrity. In the absence of open and honest communications we cannot enjoy any other good things. Yet neither personal integrity nor communal integrity by itself is an adequate criterium for recognizing which people merit our trust and support. Of what use is personal integrity as a criterium to help us recognize people who merit our trust and support as community leaders? Personal integrity is not of much use as such a criterium --- if it is considered in isolation; apart from other complementary criteria. There is virtually no criterium for discerning who is trustworthy --- which is a reliable criterium, if it is considered apart from other complementary criteria. How then, can personal integrity be considered in concert with other complementary criteria to to help us to discern who is worthy of our trust and support as community leaders? Consider an example: Some people might be consistently dedicated to "getting-ahead" as their goal in life --- apparently by being dedicated in a coherent way. They might be single- minded in trying to reach their goal. They might be seeking to achieve their goal with their whole being---and not waver in their efforts. In one sense we might say that they had integrity in their purpose in life. Where is the problem in this vision? The problem is that any single-minded-dedication to "getting-ahead" as an ultimate concern --- is bound to lead to putting self-before-others. Quite often such single-minded-dedication leads to attitudes, thoughts and actions which threaten the integrity of other persons and the integrity of the community. One's own integrity and health ultimately depend critically upon the integrity of one's own communities. Anybody with integrity will admit this truth and take it into account in trying to fulfill their primary mission in life. To deny this truth is to be dishonest, and so to lack integrity. Dishonesty is a sure sign of a lack of integrity. When dishonesty is used as a tool to achieve anything --- the people who so use dishonesty are abusive and clearly lack integrity. As with people who "with integrity" seek to "get- ahead" --- so also it is with people who "with integrity": 1. Seek to be in control of other people. 2. Presume to manage other people's private lives. 3. Presume to be better than other people. 4. Seek to achieve some kind of perfection. 5. Seek to excel in accumulating wealth. 6. Seek to excel in accumulating knowledge. 7. Presume to know God's will and do it for Him. 8. Presume to predict the future of mankind. 9. Presume to use other people as tools/means. 10. Presume to transcend human finitude/limits. In each instance, any consistent effort to achieve the desired goal is bound to lead to patterns of attitudes, thoughts and actions which undermine other people's integrities, and undermine the integrities of the communities within which the efforts are made. Such efforts are bound to entail the use of dishonesty as a tool which is inherently disintegrative because the efforts undermine, pervert, confuse and repress inter- personal communications. The apparent coherence of a person's intentions is not all that counts. If personal intentions cannot be fulfilled within the real world with integrity --- the intentions lack real integrity. Many personal intentions, goals, ideals and values lack integrity because efforts to fulfill them in reality usually undermine the integrity of other persons and of communities. "Good" intentions, goals, ideals and values are often disintegrative of persons and communities when they are affirmed in isolation of each other; i.e., in ways which lack over-all integrity. Affirmations which regularly lead to personal and communal alienation and disintegration --- lack integrity. To be helpful and healthy --- all intentions, goals, ideals and values need to be inter-related to each other in ways which are open and honest; and so contribute positively to open and honest dialogue. When they are affirmed in isolation from each other --- all intentions, goals, ideals and values are likely to be disintegrative. Often fearful people seek to affirm their own intentions, goals, ideals and values by denying other people's intentions, goals, ideals and values --- out of fear that they are inherently inconsistent with each other. Fearful people fear that they cannot be right --- unless other people are wrong. They fall into the disintegrative traps of "either/or" attitudes, feelings, and thinking. All integrative intentions, goals, ideals and values hang together in coherent people's cooperative ways --- and help all different kinds of people to hang together in coherent cooperative ways through open and honest dialogue; dialogue which is free of manipulative threats and promises. All work together to encourage and facilitate the exchange of free gifts of the freedom to be safely vulnerable in open and honest dialogue; dialogue which is free of fear because of lovers' liberations and healing. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================
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