What's your level of personal intergity?

Loretta said:

I

OOC, very excellent points, especially when using th Civil Rights background. :bravo:

OOC said:[quote]Instead of trying to convince

See www.buxiban.com

Are you saying that racism is inherent in Taiwanese culture and that all Taiwanese are racist? Are you saying that tolerance is inherent in American culture and that all Americans are NOT racist? When I hear someone in Taiwan make a racist comment, a student, a co-worker, or a friend, I try to address it (I hope tactfully) just as I would in the U.S. I hope you do the same.

Don’t mean to be provocative toward the legion of English teachers reading this, but the first fact about this place that needs to be appreciated is that the bushiban industry is built on the principle of an educational arms race which in the end benefits a very, very small proportion of children, and greatly benefits that majority of entrepreneurs who are not educators.

It is in this context that complaining about the nastier practices or prejudices of the industry or its less salubrious operators strikes me as rather pat.

It’s an industry with dubious integrity, and reflects an educational system that cannot meet the needs of kids who want to matriculate. It is also an abominable burden on poorer families.

See www.buxiban.com[/quote]

Please mods, delete my previous post and this one altogether, I feel silly now.

Aristotle: The Politics (especially 1280a34-b15); The Nicomachean Ethics (look here 1103a19-1103b2). You can find it here (without the classical pagination): classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html.

Plato: Gorgias. (it’s a quick read, find it at Eslite)

Sartre (on shame and the gaze of others) - Being and Nothingness

A contemporary development of these themes can be found in Martha Nussbaum’s “The Fragility of Goodness” (terrific read)

Dealing with things on a “book level” is not an end in itself. The books are a guide, not an end in themselves. They point out where people dealing with the same issues as yourself have got it right, or wrong, in the past. So, they’re worth a look. For instance, in your little homily on biblical interpretations of unconditional love, consider reading scripture (of any sort) and its commentary before invoking it. You’re not going to find love to be as vacuous as straight out unconditional acceptance…love hurts because it seeks the best in & for others, which ain’t always easy.

Since you’ve referenced the bible consider the Catholic doctrine of purgatory (Dante’s Inferno is a good place to start), or for a high-church protestant view, C.S. Lewis’ comment in A Grief Observed: “What do people mean when they say ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?”

If you’re not really into religion, you can find essentially the same argument being made by Socrates in Plato’s Gorgias when he says that a doctor who cares for you most is the most dangerous… he’ll do whatever is necessary to see that you recover, no matter how much it hurts.

As for believing there’s not such thing as right and wrong, if that’s true, what are you choosing between? If the choices are entirely self-constructed and devoid of reference to others, why do you care what others do in their hiring practices? Why care about society at all? According to the standard you’re professing, it’s got nothing to do with you. (But I still doubt that you really believe ethical codes are entirely subjective.)

[quote=“Namahottie”][quote=“puiwaihin”]
How are we not passing judgment when we are telling another culture that they are being prejudiced? [/quote] You don

[quote=“OutofChaos”]Instead of trying to convince

[quote=“puiwaihin”]
Doesn’t matter whether you tell them tactfully or not, you’re still passing judgement on others.[/quote] No, when you are tactful in expressing a point/concern, you not causing the person to be a risk for losing

I think the core thing this thread seems to be about is that we either agree with Namahottie or have no integrity.

[quote=“Namahottie”][quote=“puiwaihin”]Doesn’t matter whether you tell them tactfully or not, you’re still passing judgement on others.[/quote] No, when you are tactful in expressing a point/concern, you not causing the person to be a risk for losing

You don’t have to agree with anyone. I like the last post Jaboney and a few others have made. Maybe it’s gotten restrictive, but I still want to hear about others ideals on integrity, espcially in this enviroment.

A big part of the problem I think has to do with people’s differing ideas of what exactly is integrity and how it is being used in here.

I like this write up of Integrity

In summary, I think we usually think of integrity with these characteristics:

  1. Integrity is primarily a matter of keeping the self intact and uncorrupted.
  2. Integrity is a person’s holding steadfastly true to their commitments.
  3. Integrity as standing for something.
  4. Integrity as constrained by moral and ethical principles.

IOW, for integrity to exist, there’s a component of a person’s moral and ethics and consistency or unity of this moral and ethical foundation.

Now if I understand what Namahottie is saying, if one’s moral and ethical position is that discrimination is wrong, then a person with integrity should act in accordance with this view. When the person does not act in accordance with that view, then that person lacks integrity. Or perhaps the person doesn’t really believe that discrimination is wrong. It’s only wrong some of the time, but not as a general ethical and moral principle.

So as to not be so so off-topic, how does this affect Teachers in Taiwan or I think living and working in Taiwan? I think that as people with certain beliefs and experience, we don’t ditch them here when we live in Taiwan. It’s not like you check part of yourself at the gates to Taiwan when you enter. You bring the whole you. If the whole you means that you don’t settle for XYZ crap in your home country, why would you settle for XYZ crap in Taiwan? We know why, those are rationalizations. But if we don’t always roll over, turn the blind eye, or whatever and stand up when we can, progress might actually be made in Taiwan? :eh: :idunno:

[quote=“Yellow Cartman”]

Now if I understand what Namahottie is saying, if one’s moral and ethical position is that discrimination is wrong, then a person with integrity should act in accordance with this view. When the person does not act in accordance with that view, then that person lacks integrity. Or perhaps the person doesn’t really believe that discrimination is wrong. It’s only wrong some of the time, but not as a general ethical and moral principle.
ctually be made in Taiwan? :eh: :idunno:[/quote]

In that case then I shouldn’t have used integrity, I should have used, morals which now seems more apporapate(sp). So how bout it folks, have you altered your morals to fit the culture you live in or do you try to intergrate them with your own, or do you remain steadfast in the ones you already posses?

Actually, I think you were right to use integrity in the first place. Remaining steadfast to your morals is exactly what integrity is. Whatever your principles are, that’s how you should act, no matter the cost to you.

But you first have to look and see if there really is a moral conflict before you can see if there is a question of integrity. If one person quit their job at Burger King in protest over discriminatory practices, they should do it here where they are making more money. If another person would openly express diapproval in the US at something they thought was discriminatory they should do that here as well.

But different circumstances can cause a person to apply principles in a different way. Conflicts with other principles, ineffectiveness of a particular response, and a more dubious situation will lead to a different course of action. I was responding in that vein-- there may be ways in which our situation in Taiwan will merit a different response because of different circumstances.

But I don’t think the difference between Taiwan and our home countries is that big. If there is an apparent lack of morality/integrity it is likely because people are moving from an idealistic college world to the real world. That’s where the true test of integrity lies. For many here, an EFL job in Taiwan is one of the first they take outside of school.

But I do jaywalk here in Asia when I never do that back home…

In general, I’m very suspicious of people who proclaim they possess this or that set of morals or this or that set of characteristics. For, given the complexity of most people’s personalities, as well as the tendency of the mind to act in the person’s best interests in each individual circumstance, it’s extremely uncommon for people to maintain a rigid set of principles or behaviorisms.

For that reason, I shy away from making blanket statements about what I have done or will do, since the great likelihood is, a day, a week, or a year later, I’ll wind up making myself a hypocrite. Of course, by that time, I’ll have forgotten the Philosophical Pronouncement of that Grand Day, as most people will, whether or not they believe, at the time of writing, reading, or thinking about their next post, that their moral compass is as sure as the summer sun.

To take that a step further, I think people should think twice before exhorting others to adopt a set of principles or behaviorisms which, in all likelihood, that person does not possess. Why lay guilt trips on others when your own house is in need of serious spring cleaning?

Want to change the world? As Miltownkid and I like to say, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

[quote=“OutofChaos”]
The Civil Rights movement in the USA produced a lot of legislation, but minorities quickly discovered that you couldn

[quote]
The movement was more about removing inequality from the legislation so that there was no legal basis for bias, rather than legislating equality.[/quote]

Sorry, you’re somewhat off base. The Civil War Amendments (13, 14, 15) undercut the foundations of any and all legal bias decades earlier.

The problem was a lack of political will to enforce existing legislation (and clean up lower levels of legislation to bring it into alignment with these constitutional amendments), not a lack of legislation. Additional laws were later introduced to address already illegal, but too often tolerated activities (lynching, to take an extreme example).

The SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) (to take one example) employed shaming tactics to force predominently white political institutions to enforce existing legislation–a particularly effective tactic when up against extremists wielding state power, but less effective against more passive forms of discrimination.

The Nation of Islam (to take another) tended to be more confrontational, arguing variously that either 1) the decision of the state not to use its monopoly of violence to enforce its own laws rendered the authority of that state null and void, (enter black nationalism) or 2) that the citizens not protected by the police could take violent action to protect themselves and their communities (militantism).

In neither case did they argue that there were No Laws protecting them. The problem was that the laws were not being enforced.

[quote=“Jefferson”] In general, I’m very suspicious of people who proclaim they possess this or that set of morals or this or that set of characteristics. For, given the complexity of most people’s personalities, as well as the tendency of the mind to act in the person’s best interests in each individual circumstance, it’s extremely uncommon for people to maintain a rigid set of principles or behaviorisms.

For that reason, I shy away from making blanket statements about what I have done or will do, since the great likelihood is, a day, a week, or a year later, I’ll wind up making myself a hypocrite. Of course, by that time, I’ll have forgotten the Philosophical Pronouncement of that Grand Day, as most people will, whether or not they believe, at the time of writing, reading, or thinking about their next post, that their moral compass is as sure as the summer sun. [/quote]

Spot on Jefferson. I think you just described about three quarters of what passes for intelligent conversation in this house of mirrors.