[Dialogue] Matthews on Secondary Ethics (Integrity)

Charles or Doris Hahn cdhahn at flash.net
Thu Aug 23 15:32:28 EDT 2007


Hi Janice and all the others in this dialogue,

Janice, thanks for your care filled reflections on
this event (Marshall’s Witness).  Marshall certainly
touched some nerves, and released some minds---and
some emotions to respond.  I can understand and affirm
just about all the responses that have been made;
however, your inclusion of Mathews’ talk from Summer
1977 was most revealing.  His decision not to push the
word SECONDARY was important.  I think he saw that the
idea had been misused and abused.  He chose to stick
strictly with the word INTEGRITY and what that word
had come to mean for him.  I found this piece very
helpful.

I also wonder if we should be working to reclaim the
term, Contextual Ethics.  It makes more sense to me. 
I no longer remember who created or introduced the
term, but I do know that it carries a lot of meaning
to me.  I also know that it calls forth the wrath of
the fundamentalists and biblical literalists.  Can
someone re-establish the origins for me.

Marshall thanks for triggering this dialogue. 

Charles Hahn


--- Janice Ulangca <aulangca at stny.rr.com> wrote:

> Thanks, Marilyn Crocker, for sending this.  Wow!  
> And thanks to all who commented on this thread. 
> Never can tell where it may lead when a clergy
> person (Tom Morrison) digs down into a question for
> a sermon - especially when posing it to this
> remarkable group of people.  Could also start with a
> teacher or a politician, I suppose, or any other
> human.   This talk by Matthews is a keeper, for me. 
> Something deeper here than layers of honesty or
> raising funds for the same well many times.  Still,
> you all raise good points.  Groups that cannot
> criticize themselves can become ungodly, in every
> sense.  The tension between obedience to normal
> rules and absolute freedom can be agonizing but is
> vital ...
> 
> Janice Ulangca
> 
> I just saw Marshall Jones' comments on Primary and
> Secondary Integrity.  They resonate.  I'm appending
> his paragraphs for my keeper file.  Thanks,
> Marshall.
> J.
> 
> 
>   Priors Council 
>     Chicago 
> 
>     7/27/77 
> 
> 
>     PROFOUND HUMANNESS: INTEGRITY 
> 
>     A fine 1ine has been drawn in our time. In some
> ways it has been drawn in the last two years. That
> line has lifted a haze that has been across our eyes
> so we can now see exactly where we have to stick our
> lives. That is a global experience of man. The
> integrity of profound humanness can be talked about
> because this whole year it has been coming to you.
> All you have to do to get at that is to remember the
> reports that have been made in these last several
> days and the kind of work we did here. It has also
> become secondhand knowledge to people that integrity
> is not what we used to say it is not, i.e. rules,
> some kind of quality or merit you might have, or
> values or principles. People know that. They know
> that no one has integrity. I suspect that all you
> have to do is look around the room to see that that
> is true as well. Watergate was a global phenomena.
> It had to do with integrity. Nobody has integrity.
> 
> 
>     There is only one kind of integrity, and we have
> banged our heads on that for a long time. We called
> it secondary integrity at one point. It's the
> integrity that is not you, but you are of it. This
> integrity that is profound humanness is a tent. You
> go and live in that tent and you feel like a human
> being. You are a human being. If you go outside that
> tent, you are a man­dog or a woman­cow. I think this
> year most of us have met strangers that lived in the
> tent. You worked with them like you knew them all
> your life and you did miracles with them. There were
> other people that you woke up in a Town Meeting or a
> Social Demonstration, and they came over to you.
> They wanted to know what this was. They didn't hum
> and haw around it. They came right out and said,
> "What is your secret? How do you keep going? How do
> you live like this?" They wanted to know. In the
> past when people came to us with a question, we used
> to give them a long context. It covered the whole of
> history. You hoped that somewhere in the whole
> thing, they would pick something up. You don't have
> that kind of time anymore. You really have to give
> sort of an answer-unanswer. I believe this is really
> what we have been starting to work on here. Some
> time along the way we will come out with the
> "Sayings of Profound Humanness" that you just say
> and people understand. 
> 
> 
>     There was a fellow named St. Augustine who tried
> that out. He once said, "You love God and do what
> you please." That's an answer­ unanswer that allows
> you to take in a whole lot at once. We know enough
> about theology and temporality to know that we have
> got to do that job ourselves and say for our own
> time what that is. That leaves us with the question:
> "How do I be a human being? How do I be a person of
> integrity?" We all have to find a way to get our
> insides out. That is, to get inside profound
> humanness and know that you are also issuing a call
> for people to step across this line in our time.
> This line that has been drawn is a line that
> represents the cry for economic justice -- the line
> of 15% and 85%. It's the seven revolutions that are
> stumbling along.
> 
> 
>     Integrity as profound humanness is keeping your
> own conscience. You really can't say much more than
> that. That's about all there is to say. Behind that,
> there's a whole lot. There is an awakenment when you
> found out that you are going to die and you are
> headed for death. You only have one life to live and
> you have decided to straighten up and live it right.
> You find out that there is criticism in life and
> some think this and some that. You began to shape
> your life that way, and it became a ping-pong game
> and you were the ball. You close that game down.
> Then, you decided what you wanted to do. You created
> a private conscience. What you found is that you'd
> turned your life over to your appetites or some
> abstract goal or principles. Then came along a
> moment in your life. We have been through this one
> over and over again. Sometimes it is not the moment;
> it is remembering the moment. I've been struck this
> year at how many people in the course of a
> conversation would say that this human occurrence I
> know when I was four, five, six, seven years old; it
> wasn't something that came, necessarily, late in
> life. It comes over and over again. Hammarskjold has
> a tremendous piece of writing in his book, Markings,
> about this. He says this: 
> 
>     You told yourself you would accept the decision
> of fate, but you lost your nerve when you discovered
> what this world required of you. Then you realized
> how attached you still were to the world which has
> made you what you were, which you would now have to
> leave behind. It felt like an amputation; a little
> death. And you even listened to those voices which
> insinuated that you were deceiving yourself out of
> ambition. You'll have to give up everything. Why,
> then, weep at this little death? Take it to you
> quickly; with a smile die this death and become free
> to go further - and with your task, whole in your
> duty of the moment.
> 
> 
>     Whatever this is that stirs that moment in you
> is what you keep, what you watch over and take care
> of and be careful about. This is what leads you to
> being a human being. You start keeping it just a
> little and you know what happens. Everything inside
> you gets torn up and you fall into a perpetual state
> of self-criticism. While outside, the haze of life
> gets lifted and you begin to see things with
> particular specificity. This "keeping your own
> conscience" belongs you to humanness. It's your
> ticket to the task. It's the only way, finally that
> you have of seeing what you are doing is real. There
> is a story about an old man who had two sons and he
> told them something to do. You remember one of them
> said, "No, he wouldn't do it," and then he went off
> and did it. The other son said he would do it and
> then he didn't go do it. Now, the man who said no
> had this happen to him in the middle of his life and
> he took care of his conscience. When that jarring
> came, he knew what he had to do and he went and did
> it.
> 
> 
>     There is more to this. Integrity as profound
> humanness is hitting the moral issue of our time.
> This line is drawn across our moment. On one side is
> the big haze. The big haze is everything I ever
> wanted. Everything I ever wanted is so much that it
> is a big haze that I can't figure out. On the other
> side is this 15%­85%. And the way I have begun to
> write it is the poor. It's the poor of spirit, the
> poor of body, the poor of mind. It's the humankind
> that suffers. When you see that, you see that the
> issue of which side you are going to be on or which
> is better or which is more loved than the other is
> not a question any more. It's not a question
> anymore. That has already been dealt with. The only
> question that you've got is, "Where are you going to
> put both feet?"
> 
> 
>     We've tried it all. We've tried putting one foot
> on one side and one foot on the other and both in
> both. By doing that, you found out certain things.
> You found out that whenever you keep your conscience
> just a little, and you care about it, somewhere,
> somehow there's a power that comes. You've seen
> yourselves and you've seen others do miracles. Do
> one hundred Town Meetings in a single bound. Raise
> up seven buildings with the speed of a bullet. It's
> hard to get a hold of it, hard to understand it.
> After that, people have come up and said to you that
> the course of the community is changed, that this
> place will never be the same again. When that's
> occurred, you've sensed (That's not a strong enough
> word.) the load of history has come to you as your
> life. You've also known that as soon as you put
> aside this taking care of your conscience, you pour
> cold water on it. You forget it. You don't tend it.
> You don't care for it. It starts off something like
> this: 
=== message truncated ===>
_______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
>
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
> 




More information about the Dialogue mailing list