40. Integrity comes down to the price you are willing to pay
The extent to which SPs are prepared to act with integrity shows the price they are prepared to pay. If integrity were free, its value would be unclear, so SPs can only show their integrity by showing the price they are prepared to pay for it. The higher the price, the higher the value they ascribe to it.
Integrity resides in setting principles above opportunistic motives, for instance being faithful to what you stand for and saying no to pressure and temptation to act contrary to your nature and beliefs. SPs sometimes point to the impossibility of behaving in a principled, faithful manner as a reason for opportunism and infidelity. Where people are playing games of divide and rule or dirty tricks, it is impossible to be faithful. In order to survive and be successful, it is necessary to behave unfaithfully, as Machiavelli argues.212 Regardless of the truth of the matter, in the end it is an individual decision whether or not to play along with this, and this choice makes clear the value an SP attaches to integrity.
People who give up on integrity raise not only the question of the reasons for giving up but also that of the reasons for not persevering. The first question relates to their circumstances and the second to their personal motivation. The extent to which we are prepared to act with integrity shows the price we are prepared to pay. This is not only about saying no, being faithful to what you stand for, but also about the lengths you are prepared to go to for it. The value of an issue is revealed by what you keep in reserve for it. As the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche states, “The value of a thing sometimes does not lie in that which one attains by it, but in what one pays for it — what it costs us.”213 If integrity costs nothing, it tells us nothing of its value. If you have never had to pay for integrity, you cannot determine its worth, so as an SP you can only show how you value integrity by paying a price for it.
If integrity has a price, this raises the question of what one is prepared to pay for it. How great are the sacrifices people will make to maintain integrity and at what price will they trade it? The higher the price, the higher the value they ascribe to integrity. When decisions in favor of integrity lead to decreases in popularity, status, and influence, this gives an indication of the value ascribed to them. Truman’s integrity became visible, as discussed in the previous chapter, because his decision cost him a substantial slump in support (only 25% of the population supported him in his decision), making the rest of his term of office difficult.214
Congressman Thanasis Apostolou was also prepared to pay a high price for his integrity when he was the only one in his party to vote against a new law: “I am prepared to accept all the consequences. (…) I don’t think I will be high on the list of candidates next time.”215 So integrity can be so transcendent that people will give up their positions for it. As one politician said, “I would rather die standing than have to crawl the rest of my life,” or as another commented on his refusal to agree to something against his principles, “Over my dead body.” People even give up their lives, as in the case of a Russian mayor who accused several local officials and businessmen of corruption on a local television channel and was subsequently murdered.216
So the question is not so much whether a person is able or willing to act with integrity, but rather what one is prepared to pay to become and remain that way. By revealing the price people are willing to pay, they show the value they set on it. For this purpose SPs can seek out situations which reveal the price of integrity, although such situations will probably arise unprompted in fulfilling their role as SP. Instead of avoiding such situations, we should see them as excellent opportunities to show what integrity is worth.