[Dialogue] {Spam?} Re: Matthews on Secondary Ethics (Integrity)

[Diann McCabe]

This discussion reminds me of MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail."  See
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf

In particular, I'm reminded of his exploration and explanation of the
difference between "just" and "unjust" laws.  He's writing to ministers who
published a letter in the paper criticizing him for coming to B'ham,
breaking the law (marching w/o a permit), and not waiting for the white
establishment to act.

---Diann McCabe

On 8/23/07 2:32 PM, "Charles or Doris Hahn" <cdhahn at flash.net> wrote:

> 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
>> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20070823/9acfcb71/attachment.html