An Absence Of Integrity

 

 

During the process of aging, one obsessively ponders about the various physiological changes that are occurring. It’s common to think about mortality as the evolution occurs. A healthier approach would be to restore the ancient link between older age and the uniqueness of character. Think of character as the distinctive qualities of an individual. Beliefs, attitude, irrationality, delusions, illusions and decision-making also enter into the equation. These qualities become a long-lasting history and define the individual, especially noticeable by others. With that being said, one important component, in a healthy character, are the behaviors of integrity. A description of integrity include: “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, moral uprightness; and the state of being whole and undivided.” Emerson stated “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.” References for this essay include: John Beebe’s Integrity in Depth published by the Texas A&M University Press, College Station and Erik H. Erikson’s Childhood and Society published by W. W. Norton and Company Incorporated. This essay address the absence of integrity of Trump.

The Latin root for integrity or integrate means to combine all the elements into one harmonious entity. This makes sense as Integrity has been described as” responsibility, uprightness, standing tall, being untouched, staying intact, completeness, perfection, honesty, moral obligation,  psychological harmony, continuity, psychological and ethical eros, sincerity, chastity, rigidity, obedience, conscience, prudence, purity, constancy, immutability, and holiness. Historical and psychological examples from Cicero, Benjamin Franklin and Erik Erikson follow.

Cicero, during the Roman Republic, used the word integrity in the prosecution of the governor of Sicily. Gaius Verres misused close to $1 million in today’s money from his Sicilian people. Cicero also wrote a book that became a manual for young persons who wanted to succeed. In his De Officiis, Cicero concluded that integrity was central to success in life, it was the right way to seek personal ambition and to win approval. Cicero’s theme in his book was a moral obligation, the standard of reputation as a way of making it in the world. This book was actually written for Cicero’s 21-year-old son who, at the time, was studying philosophy in Athens.  Socrates said that there is a direct shortcut to winning a reputation “make yourself the sort of man you want people to think you are, there are certain methods of ensuring that people do in fact discover what we are like, and I will now suggest what  these methods are.”

Benjamin Franklin arrived in Philadelphia as a young man to escape an endless apprenticeship from his father’s Boston. Franklin then established a way to attain the moral perfection of virtue. He compiled a list of virtues that included: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, and chastity. Franklin later added humility to his original list of 12 virtues. He stated “I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue; but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of.” For Franklin, his struggle with pride, enabled him to achieve a lasting success. He was able to resolve his paradox of using integrity to advance ambition.

Briefly, Erikson postulated a series of 8 crises, in his psychosocial model, that man has to resolve during his evolution in order to become emotionally healthy.  Man’s first stage was being able to develop and confront the emotional crisis of establishing a sense of Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust. If there was successful resolution of Trust versus Mistrust, the next crisis and succeeding crises became easier to resolve. Unsuccessful resolution, in the stage, or other stages results in significant psychological difficulty and emotional impairment. To illustrate the positive, a few of the lifecycle stages relate to various conflicts and to hopefully develop the ability for mastering skills necessary for productive work in our society; the ability to develop a sense of identity necessary for human development and functioning; the ability to develop a loving union; and furthering the care, education and well-being of the young for their generation.

The task in Erikson’s last stage was to develop a sense of Ego Integrity versus Despair. In this final stage, Erikson acknowledged the various triumphs and disappointments that occur during one’s lifetime. An individual has only one shot to become a mature adult. As one ages, one establishes different ideas and recognizes his love for parents have changed. One has to resolve all the previous crises, impulses, frustrations, conflicts, with an understanding of the psychological history of man. With this ego integration, one is now able to have the wisdom and mature participation in religion, politics, economics, technology, arts, and science. When one possesses integrity, according to Erikson, one is now able to defend the dignity of his own lifestyle against the various physical, economic and societal threats. If so, human integrity now stands or falls within his unique style of integrity. If successful, the individual becomes better able to face his future death. On the other hand, with despair one realizes that his time is now too short to start another life as well as to try out alternative roads to integrity. Disgust hides despair and remorse.

In essence, ego integrity implies an emotional integration which permits participation by followership as well as the acceptance of the responsibility of leadership. Moreover, with mastery and resolution of the previous seven stages, the individual experiences harmony, strength, comfort, well-being and accepts his mortality. In Webster’s dictionary, trust the first of Erikson’s ego values was defined as the assured reliance on another’s integrity. With that being said, healthy children do not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.

More about Donald Trump was exhibited with the November 3 presidential election. As in 2016, with the help of Russia, he stated many times that the results of the election would not be accurate if he lost.  He falsely, without a sense of morality or evidence, called the election fraudulent. Was it fraudulent in the states that he won?

During this presidential election, Donald put hobbles on the Postal Service and again with delusion lied that there was election fraud. Benjamin Ginsberg, attorney for the Republican Party and a major figure in the Bush versus Gore election stated numerous times that there was no election fraud then nor now.

On November 4, Trump claimed victory despite the fact that all the votes had not yet been counted. On November 4 and November 5 Trump wanted to stop ballot counting in Pennsylvania but wanted the counting of ballots to continue in Nevada and Arizona. Numerous lawsuits were started as well disinformation coming from Trump’s White House. This was an obvious attempt to subvert and undermine the legitimacy of the election. Somehow, vote counting in the undecided states was called illegitimate.

Mitt Romney called Trump’s election fraud claim wrong and reckless. The Democrats are not trying to steal the election. Further Trump is wrong to say the election was rigged, corrupt and stolen. These claims damage the cause of freedom here and around the world… and recklessly flame destructive and dangerous passions. GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania called Trump’s claim of fraud “very disturbing. There is simply no evidence anyone has shown me of any widespread corruption or fraud. The president’s speech last night was very disturbing to me because he made very serious allegations without any evidence to support it.” Mitch McConnell added every legal vote should be counted.

In summary, clearly Trump does not embrace Cicero’s idea of morality which in part, was stealing from the people; he does not embrace Franklin’s idea of humility or the other 12 virtues; nor is he able to exhibit Erikson’s sense of Basic Trust as well a sense of Integrity. He has no opportunity for “do overs” that classic line in the City Slickers movie. This inauthentic, greedy individual’s despair will be apparent for everyone to see. By now his character traits are well-defined and he is stuck with “who he is.” He does not nor is able to modify his verbal and physical limitations. He’s a sad and mentally unstable individual that is not able to edify his moral, emotional or intellectual behaviors. Over 5,000,000 more discerning Americans voted for someone with integrity. That number is reality and a statement of fact.