A Place for Integrity

The New Mexico high school where I teach Latin has three foundational pillars that support its mission: “Scholarship, Community, Integrity.” Much is made of the first two which are relatively easy to reference in the context of the daily life of a school. The third pillar, however, “Integrity”, is more difficult to illustrate and one not commonly celebrated today in popular culture. Common usage tends to associate integrity with honesty. The latter sense is often equated with a type of moral goodness, but integrity is something else, and is measured on a more intimate and personal scale. You can have honesty without integrity, but you cannot have integrity without honesty. Integrity is a virtue that is infrequently invoked and is lost in today’s contentious politicized climate.

It is less ironic than hypocritical that behaviors that go unchecked in the greater society are not acceptable in schools. It is dishonest for a student to lie, cheat, or plagiarize. They know that these are punishable offenses that become part of the high school record, consequences which will impact the course of their future. High schools are required to report to colleges cases of academic dishonesty, as well as other egregious offenses. A suspension for cheating or some other serious infraction of the school culture can be a deal-breaker. I know a student whose acceptance to an Ivy League college was rescinded after he was suspended for drinking a beer. I have taught at a school with an honor code where lying is an expellable offense.

As every student knows, the fear of being caught is often the only motivator for being honest. This expedient behavior, however, does not have anything to do with integrity. Dishonesty frequently goes undetected, unpunished, and even rewarded. Ironically, integrity may also be unnoticed, often goes unrewarded and may have severe consequences.

Each year I define and explain the etymology of the word to my freshmen Latin students. “Integrity” comes from the Latin integritas, which means “wholeness” and gives us the word “integer.” When I ask what an integer is, they all know it is a whole number. Asked, however, to define a person of integrity, they reply, “honest” and “good.” I next try to separate integrity from the moral charge or bias that this word seems to hold for them. A person with integrity is not de facto an honest or a good person. Tony Soprano, the fictional TV character, for example, egregiously breaks many laws and kills people, yet he has integrity when dealing with his children and his friends. Conversely, someone lacking integrity is not bad, e.g., one who cheats on their diet.

More accurately, when integrity is absent something in the person is missing or incomplete. I explain that we want our students to be whole and complete individuals, in addition to being good scholars and contributing members of their community. Integrity and justice are intertwined. I illustrate with the familiar example: Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching. If your “good” actions are dictated solely by what someone might think of you, that is neither integrity nor honesty; merely trying to look good.

Integrity, one’s inner voice, so easily drowned out by the din of social media and peer pressure, speaks in just a whisper. I want my students to strain to hear that voice and to listen to it. Sometimes it means being uncomfortable or unpopular. A lapse of integrity, however, is a moment of incompleteness, but one, nonetheless, that is recoverable. Unlike honor which once breached can never be completely restored, integrity can be regained. We all have the capacity for being whole, as well as for replenishing lost integrity. We can do the right thing when no one is watching. It is not too late to recover integrity.

I like to reference an example from long ago, also an imperfect time, but one with different values. My story of individual integrity and civic courage occurs during the Roman Republic. It is the once well-known tale of Marcus Atilius Regulus, a Roman senator and general who was captured by the Carthaginians during the First Punic War.

Regulus was sent by his captors back to Rome to negotiate an exchange of prisoners with the Senate. He gave an oath to his enemies that once he delivered the terms he would return to his enemies in Carthage. Regulus delivered the message, yet also advised his fellow senators not to return the prisoners.

He had weighed the pros and cons of an exchange of several high ranking and fit enemy warriors that would return to the war, for himself, an old man at the end of his fighting days. Certainly, Regulus would have enjoyed living out his final days in his country and with his family. He had given his word, however, to return after delivering his message. Regulus knew that if he failed to secure the exchange, he would himself face a certain and excruciating death. He had to keep his promise, however, to maintain his integrity.

When I first told this story to my students decades ago, they asked in shocked disbelief, “Why did he return?” Even the Romans of Cicero’s time a century and a half later had trouble with this decision to choose integrity over self-preservation. Cicero explains Regulus’ choice:

“For the fact that he returned seems amazing to us now; indeed he was not able to do otherwise in those times; and so, that laudable act was not of the person, but of the times” (Off. 3.111) (emphasis added).

With his famous plaint, “O tempora! O mores!” (Oh the times! Oh the morals!)” (Cat. 1.2), Cicero famously bemoans how far the Romans had drifted from the times of his ancestors, their “Greatest Generation.” Was there once a time of universal virtue? Probably not. There were, however, times and places where there was societall aspiration toward it. Cicero, for one outstanding example, devoted and subsequently gave his life to defending and serving the democratic principles of the Republic. His writings on duty and democracy are not just expository rhetoric. He believed in the integrity of the human spirit. He also knew that it takes work.

Years ago, as an idealistic young teacher, I used to say that I wanted to be still teaching when no student had to ask, “Why did Regulus go back?” They still do not get it. Integrity is not a concept that is in today’s youth culture. Integrity is not a virtue that is of today. We live in “unprecedented times,” but if we look back far enough, there is a precedent for when justice and integrity were “of the times”. Integrity is a civic virtue whose time has come again. Like Cicero, we can reinvoke integrity and work toward a new age whose times will not just foster the honest and the good, but also demand the whole and complete.

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