61. Integrity allows you to get your hands dirty, but only in special circumstances
SPs can get their hands dirty and still have a clear conscience provided they (1) do their best to avoid it, (2) come closer to achieving their ideals in doing so, (3) do not do so lightly or with pride, and (4) do not allow others to dirty their hands more than is strictly necessary.
In the previous chapter we saw that compromise is inextricably bound up with an SP’s position. Getting your hands dirty, or violating values, standards, and principles, is an extension of this. However, this does not mean that integrity is damaged. Just as a surgeon has to make cuts and spill blood to make a patient better, SPs must be prepared to do undesirable things to achieve desirable outcomes. It is possible to have dirty hands and a clean conscience.372
Integrity, however, does not allow us to get our hands dirty without a conscience. When getting our hands dirty we should ask ourselves if this is morally acceptable. What should SPs pay attention to here?
In order to be able to get your hands dirty with a clean conscience it is important first and foremost to be sure that you have done everything you can to avoid getting your hands dirty, and to minimize any dirt.373 That is why you should always ask yourself if it is really necessary to get your hands dirty, whether there is another way. The risk is that you find it increasingly easy to get your hands dirty and fail to realize that things could be different and better, thereby damaging your own integrity.
A second important test is whether, when getting your hands dirty, you are really striving for the ideals you stand for and bringing them closer. For that reason when making a compromise you should understand that what you are giving up is attached to what you receive in return, and that the compromise is not an end point but an intermediate stage. It is also important when it comes to a compromise between several people or parties to make it clear what each party is giving and receiving. Integrity demands balance and reciprocity between what everyone gives and receives. As Angela Merkel puts it, “A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.”374 It is also important that everybody receives a fair share of the benefits. The converse can also be acceptable: where you cannot make a situation good, you should minimize the bad. Sometimes you have to pick the least bad option to limit further departure from the goal or ideal.
Thirdly you should avoid taking dirty hands lightly or taking pride in them (as if you could easily step over corpses or even enjoy doing so). In chapter 59 we saw that conflict over dilemmas is an important characteristic of integrity. It is therefore important only to get your hands dirty with a troubled conscience or sense of shame.375 This feeling can be long-lasting. Ten years after 7,000 citizens were murdered in the fall of an enclave, a former minister of foreign affairs responsible for providing military protection commented, “One way or another the question continues to follow you: did I do enough, did I do what I could in my position? I still feel dissatisfied about it. I cannot make it stop. It remains the case.”376 A troubled conscience, incidentally, is not the same as regret. Regret means feeling that you should have done things differently. Despite a troubled conscience you can still openly account for the choice you have made.
The fourth thing that does not help keep your hands clean is allowing others to dirty them more than is strictly necessary. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, had a reputation for being honest and just, and was unwilling to associate with dirty hands. Instead he had his secretary, Louis Howe, pick up the dirty jobs.377 However, this indirectly dirties your hands, because you give the order or knowingly offer others the freedom to do so.
For this reason SPs taking up office should realize that they will have to get their hands dirty. It shows naivety if you leave as soon as things get messy. Serving the people, as Otto von Bismarck said of politics, is not the art of what is most feasible, but of the “next best”, of second choice.378