Can a person strive to be something that he doesn't understand? Take integrity: are you a person of integrity? If so, how do you know? Is integrity always associated with virtue, or is integrity amoral? Does the code of values matter (e.g., is a suicide bomber someone with integrity)? Is there more benefit to integrity than consistency?
FTA:
We are living in a world where dishonesty, corruption and oppression rule the headlines. A world where reality television has become a way for people to live their lives vicariously from the couch. The American people by and large have been taken advantage of by their government and financial system and we need look no farther to politics and Wall Street to define a modern lack of integrity...
The definition of integrity is a strong adherence to a set of values. The set of values being determined by the subject. Most people when asked what integrity means will give you other adjectives to describe it, honesty being a common one, or say something along the lines of doing what is right when no one is looking. If you ask them again to describe or define integrity without using another virtuous adjective you will either get a blank look or a story of sorts that demonstrates the meaning of integrity...
In 2005 Integrity was the Merriam Webster word of the year. In 2009 dictionary.com named integrity to its top ten list. So how does Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com select their words of the year? The answer is surprisingly simple, they take the words that are most often looked up or searched in a given year. The next logical question is why would so many people be looking up the word integrity? Let’s assume it isn’t a spelling inquiry, and that leaves one conclusion; people are interested in the word and unsure exactly what it means. This is understandable because the meaning of integrity is more complicated than its counterparts, honesty and courage. Honesty is directed related to truth, courage is directed related to fear (action in spite of), but integrity is directed related to a set of values. Without knowing what those values are we cannot measure integrity. Therein lies the difference and the cause for this incredible misunderstanding. Integrity is subjective, while other virtues and words with similar meaning are objective. Integrity cannot exist without known values of the subject.
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Sep 10, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=320
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Sep, 2017 update: Although Braincrave resulted in two confirmed marriages, the venture didn't meet financial targets. Rather than updating our outdated code base, we've removed all previous dating profiles and retained the articles that continue to generate interest. Moving to valME.io's platform supports dating profiles (which you are welcome to post) but won't allow typical date-matching functionality (e.g., location proximity, attribute similarity).
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