46. Integrity means subordination of personal interests but not servility
A willingness to serve is essential to the servant concept and it is therefore a virtue for SPs. This means SPs subordinating their own interests to those of their position. This is both an attitude and a prescription for their behavior.This subordination, however, does not demand servility. SPs should stand up for what they do, and be prepared to oppose the views of others and to educate them.
An SP should be willing to serve, as this is inherent in being a servant. According to Plato, rulers should love their countries more than anything and should never be prepared to act against their interests.249 The power one has obtained should be used for those who have bestowed it and for the purposes for which it was bestowed.250 Willingness to serve also means subordinating one’s own interests to the interests of the institution, office, people, or area in which one is appointed.
An important question for integrity is therefore also the extent to which SPs see themselves as servants and their activities as service, and of course as serving the right interests, namely those of the people.251 This is not only a matter of attitude, but also a prescription, that every decision should serve the right interest. As George W. Bush said, looking back on his presidency, “I believe I got some of those decisions right, and I got some wrong. But on every one, I did what I believed was in the best interests of our country.”252 SPs with integrity can say this of themselves: every decision they make, to the best of their knowledge, is in the best interests of those whom they should serve. On receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Kofi Annan said that throughout his term in office as secretary general of the United Nations he had tried to set people as the focal point of everything he did.253
When people have the impression that SPs are serving other interests than those of the people, such as their own careers, this arouses disgust. Lyndon Johnson was criticized for being too greedy and tactless to be president of the US when he took the oath for himself in the airplane in which John F. Kennedy’s body was transported just after his murder and in the presence of his widow. For the same reason SPs accepting bribes often receive responses of disgust, not only because bribery may well lead to the wrong decisions being made but also because it indicates that they place their own interests above those of the people. This emerged from the demonstrations which took place in Slovenia, in which people pressed for the departure of prime minister Janez Janša because a government committee had concluded that large sums of money in his private bank account could not be accounted for, causing the fall of his cabinet.254 Similarly 33% of voters for the party of South African president Jacob Zuma stated that they were less likely to vote for his party due to allegations that Zuma used about US$20 million of public money to upgrade his private residence.255
Subordination, however, does not mean SPs should be servile, or indiscriminately follow what others think. SPs with integrity do not follow the crowd. Populism is good if it is about understanding and interpreting the voice of the people (the “vox populi”) and the battle against the arrogance of power and the elite, but it misses the mark if it assumes the people are always right and automatically adjusts its attitudes to public opinion, becoming an ideology without values other than an assumption that the people are always right.256 SPs are not representatives of the people in the sense of mouthpieces or conduits. As discussed above, integrity demands that people do what they think is good, what they believe in, and what they support, and that they are faithful to this.257 For instance when Obama talked about the long and difficult road necessary to solve social problems he said to his supporters, “You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear.”258
SPs are more than reflections of their time; they can also get into situations in which they must shape that time, requiring the courage to go against the Zeitgeist. Tony Blair realized that he was swimming against the current when he decided to take the UK into the Iraq war.259 He felt that this decision served the interests of the UK and the world. In this connection George W. Bush remarked, “One of the lessons I took from Roosevelt and Reagan was to lead the public, not chase the opinion polls.”260
Integrity does not chime in with chasing opinion polls and serving personal popularity. Sometimes decisions must be made for which you will be loved less, as when sacrifices are required of society, the interests of citizens are infringed, and serious interventions are made in communities. As US senator John Culver put it, “You can’t worry too much about being loved; at some time, you have to decide, ‘Let’s