During the past few weeks, a combination of personal reading, life experiences, and academic discussions has left me mulling over the idea of integrity.
It's easy to do the right thing when its consequences are in your favor. It's a lot harder when you know there's nothing in it for you. Or even worse, when there's a direct certainty that taking the moral high ground is going to detract from your private happiness/security/satisfaction. How many of us have the nerve to go ahead anyway?
As our culture hurtles toward narcissism acute individualism, it's bringing along a shift in our code of ethics. I'm not overly-fond of the trendy bashing on Millennials that goes on,* but I am disturbed by this pervasive attitude amongst those of my generation, that the ultimate rule of morality is personal fulfillment. We seriously consider moral dilemmas like: "I want X, but it belongs to Y. Is it less moral for me to take X from Y or for me to be forced to go the rest of my life without having X?" This scenario alone is thinly-veiled theft. Our ethical code is teetering on the edge of chaos; how can you have a functional society where we all are out, first and foremost, for our own interests?
The very core of virtue is its selflessness. It places the needs of others above those of the self. It does not feel entitled to anything. It recognizes that good transcends immediate happiness. It is humility and hope.
One of my deepest regrets, as an English person, is that the word "charity" has fallen out of use. There aren't any other terms that encapsulate the kind of love motivating true virtue. It's the caritas of Latin and the agape of Greek. It's old Christian theology. Which, for me, will always be a point in its favor.
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*Beyond the hastily-broad generalizations, I believe that most of the time, the legitimate problems cited are universal issues
associated with coming-of-age, not just with those born between 1985 and
2000.
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