What happened to integrity and character?

8,643 Views | 163 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by Zobel
PacifistAg
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AG
So, perusing another particular board recently brought a question to mind. What has happened to integrity in our society? What has happened to character? Certainly there are many that place a high priority on such traits, but it seems that these have become increasingly non-existent in our politicized culture. No one group has a monopoly on this either.

Is it simply a naive understanding of how we used to be? Did character never really matter? Has it always been acceptable to lie, and lie repeatedly, without any fear of backlash from one's tribe? Or has there been a real shift? What is the cause of this shift?
“Conquer men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of justice to shame by your compassion."
--St Isaac the Syrian
Star Wars Memes Only
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Hmm.

Questioning the character and integrity of others...

Perusing another board...

Was it the politics board? I bet it was the politics board.
PacifistAg
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AG
Please know that I do not have any particular person in mind when asking the question. Just something general I have seen, and yes, it seems to really manifest itself most clearly within the political realm.
“Conquer men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of justice to shame by your compassion."
--St Isaac the Syrian
dermdoc
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AG
As an anecdotal view, young docs and health care people seem to care a lot more about themselves than the patients. My group was not perfect, but we would do anything for patient care. Free visits, house calls, whatever.
Sometimes when I go to the hospital to consult on a skin problem the patient will tell me that I am the first doc that has actually put my hands on them.

And trust me, we wanted money, but it was not the primary objective. We all came to the conclusion that if you gave good care, worked hard, were honest, and followed the Golden Rule everything would take care of itself. I am sure a lot of us could have been richer and/or retired earlier but we sure seem happy and content. Except when the Ags lose.
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AGC
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RetiredAg said:

So, perusing another particular board recently brought a question to mind. What has happened to integrity in our society? What has happened to character? Certainly there are many that place a high priority on such traits, but it seems that these have become increasingly non-existent in our politicized culture. No one group has a monopoly on this either.

Is it simply a naive understanding of how we used to be? Did character never really matter? Has it always been acceptable to lie, and lie repeatedly, without any fear of backlash from one's tribe? Or has there been a real shift? What is the cause of this shift?


Part of what you're feeling is maturity and experience. We are taught basic truths at home and in history classes when we grow up that we believe without questioning. As we age we start to realize that people's motivations are complex and that what we were taught is less factual than we thought.

The idea of MLK as a man of God is less and less true as one understands the expectations of a husband to his wife being based on Christ's relationship to the church. Or maybe you believed that the media was at one point impartial and unbiased, despite Kronkite's outburst and Pulitzer, the journalist, ruining people's lives with sensational unsubstantiated stories simply to sell newspapers.

Of course there's also the realization that you're at war with a worldview but I don't think you'd be receptive to that so we'll leave it there.
dermdoc
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AG
And to further expound on the op, there is no fear of God or parents anymore. So basically there are no absolute rights and wrongs, it is what you can get away with.
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Frok
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AG
We are all crazy and the internet is too great of a temptation for us to open our mouths and say the things we used to only think but not say.

My theory is the internet exposed all our bad sides.

sawemoff2010
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AG
The ascent of postmodernist thought that all truth is self-defined

This is always part of the cycle: Judges 21:25 "...everyone did what was right in their own eyes."
bmks270
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AG
Gen 6:5

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Zobel
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AG
Winner winner chicken dinner
Martin Q. Blank
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sawemoff2010 said:

The ascent of postmodernist thought that all truth is self-defined

This is always part of the cycle: Judges 21:25 "...everyone did what was right in their own eyes."
Agree. What a person of integrity and character looks like to a liberal, conservative, Christian, atheist, etc. can vary widely and often be opposite from one another.
Zobel
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I think it's worse than that. Modernism is like "hey let's challenge the traditional definition of integrity and character". Postmodernism is "who says we have to have character?"
DirtDiver
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Quote:

What has happened to integrity in our society?
I agree with many of the posters above. In order to measure integrity there has to be a standard of morality. There can only be a standard of morality if God exists and defines it. Nobody acknowledges God anymore or agrees with His moral standard, and as one said above, we do what's right in our own eyes.
AGC
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AG
k2aggie07 said:

I think it's worse than that. Modernism is like "hey let's challenge the traditional definition of integrity and character". Postmodernism is "who says we have to have character?"


This is more or less why I wrote the last graph of my response. I think this will be a struggle for RA (though this is said with no malice). Not because he lacks character or integrity, but because he already accepts some of this thought as reasonable rather than antithetical. I know he doesn't like it when I harp on it but the orthodox and historical view of the body (not to mention science) is at odds with the TG movement which relies heavily on post-modern thought.
Athanasius
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AG
All y'all nail it.
Athanasius
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AG
A question on this- is John McCain a man of character?
dermdoc
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AG
I had a patient yesterday tell me we had gone from a "post Christian" society to a "post truth" society. Interesting thought.
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Serotonin
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The more things change...
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7btv14/the_more_things_change_the_more_they_stay_the/
dermdoc
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AG
Definitely something to be said for that. As we get older, we see things differently.

"There is nothing new under the sun"
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An Ag in CO
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I'm getting close to retirement and I can honestly say that the people I work with and interact with, no matter age, have just as much honesty and integrity as I've seen in either the generations older than mine or my own. I'm extremely pleased with how all the young people we hire approach life and society and can say the same for the young people we meet through our children. I know my empirical evidence is based on a relatively small sample, but the company I work for is reasonably large with office in other parts of the country and also overseas. I've recently been through a fairly extensive interview process for some newly created jobs and the candidates either straight out of school or with just a few years experience were phenomenal. I really appreciate how they seek out community involvement and volunteer opportunities above and beyond what I remember from when I started working many years ago.

So my empirical experience tells me that honesty and integrity are at least as strong as they were when I was younger.
Vcat
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Sawemoff nails it.

This is why God gives us a standard of right and wrong so that we have a basis for judging someone's actions as wrong. When right and wrong are determined by culture, there is no basis for determining who is right.

Hence the call to repentance.
PacifistAg
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AG
Some great replies.
“Conquer men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of justice to shame by your compassion."
--St Isaac the Syrian
Sapper Redux
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sawemoff2010 said:

The ascent of postmodernist thought that all truth is self-defined

This is always part of the cycle: Judges 21:25 "...everyone did what was right in their own eyes."


I get the feeling that a lot of people are learning about postmodernism from people who don't understand postmodernism.
Sapper Redux
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AGC said:

RetiredAg said:

So, perusing another particular board recently brought a question to mind. What has happened to integrity in our society? What has happened to character? Certainly there are many that place a high priority on such traits, but it seems that these have become increasingly non-existent in our politicized culture. No one group has a monopoly on this either.

Is it simply a naive understanding of how we used to be? Did character never really matter? Has it always been acceptable to lie, and lie repeatedly, without any fear of backlash from one's tribe? Or has there been a real shift? What is the cause of this shift?


Part of what you're feeling is maturity and experience. We are taught basic truths at home and in history classes when we grow up that we believe without questioning. As we age we start to realize that people's motivations are complex and that what we were taught is less factual than we thought.

The idea of MLK as a man of God is less and less true as one understands the expectations of a husband to his wife being based on Christ's relationship to the church. Or maybe you believed that the media was at one point impartial and unbiased, despite Kronkite's outburst and Pulitzer, the journalist, ruining people's lives with sensational unsubstantiated stories simply to sell newspapers.

Of course there's also the realization that you're at war with a worldview but I don't think you'd be receptive to that so we'll leave it there.


I'm confused by this response. Are you saying there's never been integrity and character and that "war with a worldview" justifies subverting standards of integrity? Or are you saying we should expect less than perfection?
UTExan
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Dr. Watson said:

AGC said:

RetiredAg said:

So, perusing another particular board recently brought a question to mind. What has happened to integrity in our society? What has happened to character? Certainly there are many that place a high priority on such traits, but it seems that these have become increasingly non-existent in our politicized culture. No one group has a monopoly on this either.

Is it simply a naive understanding of how we used to be? Did character never really matter? Has it always been acceptable to lie, and lie repeatedly, without any fear of backlash from one's tribe? Or has there been a real shift? What is the cause of this shift?


Part of what you're feeling is maturity and experience. We are taught basic truths at home and in history classes when we grow up that we believe without questioning. As we age we start to realize that people's motivations are complex and that what we were taught is less factual than we thought.

The idea of MLK as a man of God is less and less true as one understands the expectations of a husband to his wife being based on Christ's relationship to the church. Or maybe you believed that the media was at one point impartial and unbiased, despite Kronkite's outburst and Pulitzer, the journalist, ruining people's lives with sensational unsubstantiated stories simply to sell newspapers.

Of course there's also the realization that you're at war with a worldview but I don't think you'd be receptive to that so we'll leave it there.


I'm confused by this response. Are you saying there's never been integrity and character and that "war with a worldview" justifies subverting standards of integrity? Or are you saying we should expect less than perfection?
Excellent point. The Apostle Paul wrote that Christians should be subject to authorities of their time. While that language may leave some wiggle room, the general principle is subordination to a system whose rulers were both brutal and corrupt, ostensibly because it was better than anarchy. And corruption is pretty much the nature of secular politics with few exceptions.
It is better to light a flamethrower than to curse the darkness- Sir Terence Pratchett
“ III stooges si viveret et nos omnes ad quos etiam probabile est mittent custard pies”
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diehard03
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We are all crazy and the internet is too great of a temptation for us to open our mouths and say the things we used to only think but not say.

My theory is the internet exposed all our bad sides.

I believe it is an "internet" thing. You don't have to look into another man's eyes when you insult or demean them. It's also that "faux community". It has all the trappings of being social without actually being social.
AGC
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AG
I'm saying that our perception of integrity and character changes as we understand the world and learn more about it. It's not that it doesn't exist, but that we romanticize it to a certain extent when we're young and draw lines quickly that fade over time. We fall for hero worship early.

If you're a Christian you recognize and sympathize more with the sinner as you get older. You don't rationalize the sin; you simply recognize just how imperfect the world is and that you can't make every decision in someone's life a referendum of who they are and what they believe, such as judging every DJT or BHO supporter.

A vote for DJT could simply be a vote for a system that allows more freedom and exercise of religion, rather than a vote for a religious person. To see it as a personal endorsement of, and complete agreement with, his personal policies is a fallacy that creates a race to the bottom.

We should not expect perfection from others if we're not prepared to offer it ourselves. Certainly character matters as does integrity, but there are also bounds to it. My self ten years ago is very different than myself now. As a christian you must be just as willing to forgive and offer second chances, sometimes repeatedly, if for no other reason than Christ offered that to us. That doesn't apply to you though.
Aggrad08
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Everyone bemoaning post modernism and lack of faith as a standard seems to forget the obvious, that the OP was likely inspired by reading the politics board, one which is predominantly Christian.
UTExan
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Aggrad08 said:

Everyone bemoaning post modernism and lack of faith as a standard seems to forget the obvious, that the OP was like inspired by reading the politics board, one which is predominantly Christian.


I would suspect OP disagrees vigorously with most of Forum 16 posters regarding POTUS, foreign policy, criminal justice policy and other issues which he can elaborate himself.
It is better to light a flamethrower than to curse the darkness- Sir Terence Pratchett
“ III stooges si viveret et nos omnes ad quos etiam probabile est mittent custard pies”
Aggrad08
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AG
Sure, as well as how to comport yourself with dignity. What's your point?
747Ag
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Humanity has always had a mix of exceptional people and dewshes, with all falling somewhere on that spectrum. The example cited in the OP is very much an online thing, and as noted by other commenters, the internet tends to amplify people's dewshiness because you don't have to look the target of your insults in the eye. The internet removes our filters. Yet when I deal with people in person, people more often than not act with more integrity and character than what we see online.

You can slice that however you want. Perhaps we are no different than our forebears outside of the internet. Maybe we suck more because we have the internet. I really don't think new, competing philosophies (such as elements of postmodernism) are the crux of this tendency, but more of an ancillary thing.
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Sapper Redux
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AstroAg17 said:

Aggrad08 said:

Everyone bemoaning post modernism and lack of faith as a standard seems to forget the obvious, that the OP was likely inspired by reading the politics board, one which is predominantly Christian.
I like when they make fun of McCain's brain tumor.


I made the mistake of reading that thread just now. I'm going to take a long shower.
UTExan
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It is better to light a flamethrower than to curse the darkness- Sir Terence Pratchett
“ III stooges si viveret et nos omnes ad quos etiam probabile est mittent custard pies”
 
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