64. Integrity resides in what you do not do, not just what you do
There is also integrity in what SPs refrain from doing. Doing nothing is a decision to continue with the current situation, and SPs can get their hands dirty by inaction. Since it is more difficult to judge SPs for inaction than for action, inaction is all the more important from the perspective of integrity. For SPs, therefore, it is not only a matter of what they do, but also what they could and should do better, and not only what they know, but also of situations in which they could and should know better.
Integrity, as we saw above, resides in what a person does and achieves. The behavior we see and the effects it has are therefore the object of a person’s integrity. Still, this is just one side of the coin. The other side is that integrity is revealed by what people refrain from doing and the areas where they fail to perform.
Inaction is also a form of action, passivity is a form of activity. Doing nothing involves a decision to do nothing. What people do not do reveals integrity because it indicates that people agree not to act and that they do not consider certain matters important enough to be worth acting on. As Tony Blair said of the choice whether or not to attack Iraq, “Indecision is also decision. Inaction is also action.”384 Doing nothing is a decision to continue with the current situation.
Doing nothing expresses itself in allowing matters to pass by, not standing up for them, and tolerating a situation. It expresses itself in putting things off, handing them on, or shirking, by not spending money, time, and attention on significant matters, and by not developing new policies or executing current policies to the full. As French politician Henri Queuille said, “Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant.”385 At the same time SPs are often criticized for indecisiveness, setting the wrong priorities, and shirking responsibilities. A former cabinet secretary to two European Commissioners described non-intervention as the highest wisdom in the European Commission, because, as he put it, “power counts for everything and morality only applies after the game has ended.”386
It is also tempting to do nothing rather than take action, because it is more difficult to judge inaction. If nothing is done, then in some sense there is nothing to judge. Action provides material for judgment. Decisions are recorded in meeting minutes, but there are no minutes to describe the countless decisions that are not made. So by taking action we make ourselves more vulnerable to criticism, accusations, and repercussions than if we do nothing. That is why non-intervention can be the highest wisdom, because that way you do nothing wrong, make no enemies, and remain irreproachable, thereby surviving.
Just because it is harder to catch someone at inaction, does not make it any less relevant from the perspective of integrity. In fact it makes it even more relevant, firstly because it happens more often (if people do something, then at the same time there are many things they are not doing), and secondly because inaction is harder for others to correct and therefore more dependent on personal integrity. Inaction is important from the perspective of integrity when it becomes negligence. Negligence is a serious threat because, as Irish politician Edmund Burke states, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”387 For that reason inaction can cause us to get our hands dirty.388 For that reason Tony Blair rightly stated, “It is better to try and fail than to fail to try.”389
A much-used tactic for not doing what one should is feigning ignorance. What people do not know will not hurt them. Ignorance is seen as “the best form of defense”.390 However, if ignorance is intended to evade responsibility, then it is very bad from the perspective of integrity, as it causes us to fail to know and do things we should. Integrity is not only about what you know, but also about what you could and should have known. A governor, for example, was criticized when he hid behind the fact that he did not know his officials were not applying his policy properly; the council considered this irrelevant, because the governor should have known.
In judging the integrity of SPs it is therefore not only a question of what they have done and achieved, but also what they have not done, particularly neglected issues that should have been tackled.