[Dialogue] Secondary Ethics

[David Walters]

What was the primary and secondary integrity in the decision last
year to fire the entire program staff by the ICA/EI board. Their
decision-making process seems to me to be fraught with multiple
perverions

David Walters


No disrespect intended for Marshall, but his reasoning regarding the
well in Maliwada makes him a prime candidate to be Karl Rove's
successor.  I too was a part of the "sell the well" activity, in my
case the well in Bayad, not Maliwada.  The practical problem with
that is, in the face of short term gain, the funding sources sooner
or later discover you have no integrity, i.e. you do not do what you
say you will do, the funding dries up, and the reputation follows you
around the world.
 
But the moral problem is in the assumption that appears to be behind
a group of elites believing they know what's good for everyone.  "You
don't have the ??? (big picture, vocational commitment, spiritual
depth, or whatever) to know what's needed, but I do, and I'll tell
you whatever I must to get you to do what I've decided you need to
do.  I'm a 'spirit person' and you're an ass, the 'donkey on the
bridge,' an 'infidel.'"  From this kind of "elitism," the approach
becomes coercion and manipulation from a "subject" to an "object," an
"I and it," rather than persuasion between two "subjects," an "I and
Thou." (Buber)  In time this infects your internal relations as well
(elitism within the Order) and the whole system becomes corrupt as in
Nazi Germany or what this country begins to look like after nearly
eight years of Bush's thinking the American people don't have the
sense (or whatever) to be trusted with the basic freedoms afforded
under the Constitution.
 
I think Marilyn is onto something when she compares primary and
secondary integrity to Bonhoeffer's understanding of responsibility. 
For Bonhoeffer, responsibility was not a choice between to be free OR
to be obedient, but to stand in the tension between the two.  When
you collapsed obedience and stood only on the freedom pole you were
the "irresponsible genius."
 
So with intergrity--it is not a choice between primary OR secondary,
but to stand in the tension between the two.  When you abandon
primary integrity for a perverted version of secondary integrity, you
become Bonhoeffer's "irresponsible genius."  Maybe it plays out this
way.  If I have decided that digging a well in Bayad (or Maliwada) is
the "necessary deed" and I can't persuade you to see it that way so
that you provide the funding (primary integrity), then I don't become
"dissuaded" by your argument and end my quest. Instead, if I believe
it's really necessary, I go find someone else who will see it my way
and commit to pay for it (secondary integrity.)  History will decide
if it was indeed necessary.
 
I agree with Dick.  I have pondered for a long time that we did often
operate from a perverted understanding of secondary integrity and
that it did hurt our effectiveness externally and our morale
internally as an Order.  I'm glad we're talking about it now. 
Perhaps some more "fools" will "rush in" to participate in this
conversation.
 
Randy Williams