55. Integrity does not reduce standards to practice
A serious danger for integrity is that the actual situation becomes elevated to the status of a standard. What should happen cannot be inferred from what is: if this were the case, behavior would be self-justifying. It is therefore important that SPs do not elevate practice to the status of a standard and use this as a justification for their behavior. Nevertheless practice implies certain standards for integrity. Knowledge of this helps SPs to handle integrity properly in practice.
Politics is often portrayed as amoral. There is no space for morality, ethics, or integrity in politics. As Russian leader Vladimir Lenin put it, “There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience.”314 German poet Friedrich von Schlegel made the same point: “Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.”315 Politics and ethics are seen as a contradiction in terms, two incompatible quantities. As American writer and social critic Henry Louis Mencken stated, “A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”316
SPs’ beliefs are fed by their images of their field of work, the terrain in which they do their jobs. For example, if we look at politics there are at least two images that feed the irreconcilability of politics on the one hand and morality, ethics, and integrity on the other.
Politics is sometimes compared with prostitution. In this connection Harry Truman once said, “My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”317 In this regard Ronald Reagan said, “Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”318 Politicians apparently sell themselves, devote themselves to satisfying others, dancing to their tune, allowing themselves to be used. By baring all, they exhibit a willingness to serve par excellence.
Politics is also regularly portrayed as war. “Politics and war are remarkably similar situations,” said Newt Gingrich, former chair of the US House of Representatives among other things.319
The only difference between politics and war, according to Winston Churchill, is that “In war you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.”320 In particular by your own friends and party members: “I’ve always said that in politics, your enemies can’t hurt you, but your friends will kill you,” said US governor Ann Richards.321 According to Belgian governor Steve Stevaert the greatest enemies of political leaders are their own parties.322 Mao Zedong, too, states that politics and war have great similarities: “Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”323 Some go even further, as in the case of US presidential candidate Ross Perot: “War has rules, mud wrestling has rules - politics has no rules.”324
This view of politics feeds the image of politicians as streetwalkers,325 thieves,326 jokes,327 snakes,328 magicians (who have to distract attention from what is really going on),329 murderous,330 depraved,331 and experts in the less elevated skills of imperfect human beings.332
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia said that corruption took place in his government.333 Similarly a top European official described in detail how his years of experience led him to conclude that hypocrisy is the father of all success in European politics.334
If politicians describe their experiences this way, there must be a grain of truth to it. Here we are not talking about determining the extent to which these images are true, or whether other types of SPs also see their works as prostitution or war. Those are empirical questions. The question in this chapter is what this means for SPs. That is a normative question. The major danger, after all, is the misconception that the actual situation should be the standard. In response to the Watergate scandal Richard Nixon said, “When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”335 However, behavior does not create the standard. If hypocrisy led to success, this would not make it moral. As philosopher David Hume stated, what ought to be cannot be inf