INTEGRITY

 Integrity, from Latin integritatem, "soundness, wholeness, completeness". Related word: integer.

Two opposing and famous poems come instantly to mind, the first showing a life of integrity, the second showing the consequences of missing integrity. 

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

THE SECOND COMING (excerpt)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats

(Incidentally, Kipling would not call me a man. I flunk out on the third stanza, every line of it. I don't take unnecessary risks, and risking "it all" is (hopefully) never necessary; and sometimes I think I came without a will installed.)

I think of integrity in two ways. One, it's saying what you'll do and doing what you say. The other is being true to yourself and true to others.

We live in a civilization that no longer values integrity and is losing it. The consequences of that are  everywhere.

In Canada: look at Pierre Poilievre. The Conservative leader spent eight terms as an MP, accomplishing nothing of note, before being elected leader in an incomprehensible landslide (68% of the vote; the next candidate got 16%) in 2022. He was all set to slide in to the PM's chair...and then the Liberals deleted Trudeau and anointed Mark Carney, instantly flipping the script. 

Pierre couldn't flip the script. FUCK CARNEY signs replaced the FUCK TRUDEAU signs before Carney even took power. (That's what amounts to...one side of...political debate these days.) This despite the fact Trudeau and Carney are about as far apart in qualification as it's possible to get.

Pierre then proceeded to lose an election and refuse to accept the loss. He booted the winner of the safest Conservative seat in the country out and took  his place. Then his leadership was reviewed.

Normally every party member in the country is eligible to vote in leadership reviews. Not this one. Pierre limited the votes to 3,000 hand-picked attendees of the convention....and demanded an oath of loyalty. Despite this, he only managed 84% of the vote...but acted as if he had 100% of the vote.

Two Conservatives have crossed the floor to the Liberals since. More are likely to follow. Carney and his Liberals are soaring in the polls; Poilievre and the Conservatives are crumbling. All because Poilievre lied to himself, his party, and the country.

Down south, of course, things are much worse. 

To listen to the president, the country is the best it's ever been, except where the other party is in power, where it's the worst it's ever been. Like virtually everything else out of his mouth, both of these are lies. Not just lies; giant whoppers. And they're starting to catch up with him.

You can only hoodwink people so long before the integrity of your reality collapses. Sooner or later people will recognize that no, the economy is not "booming" and their lives are not improving. Lose your integrity and reap the whirlwind. I can't predict how things will go, but I expect the house of cards to collapse spectacularly in the coming weeks.