One of the most frequent reasons given for the why people in the U.S. so widely voted to oust Republicans on Election Day had less to do with political affiliation and more to do with an issue that transcends political party: Integrity. The way the voters put into words their change of heart had to do with being fed up with scandals. Are the American people beginning to wake up to the fact that putting people in office who have high integrity is more important than their politcal party or ideological beliefs? I sure hope so. How about you?

Non-self-responsibility means denying any part in what happened between us or claiming that what I did is not my fault.

Example of Unintegrity Through Non-Self-Responsibility: From Early Childhood

This version of Unintegrity is so well-understood that I will offer only one example. Before I do, I want to lighten things up for a moment because I know that all this Unintegrity stuff can be pretty disheartening to read about all in one place.

So, I will tell you humorous but instructive little story about non-self-responsibility. It is a story about how young we are when we start learning the low art of Unintegrity. This example is not only about non-self-responsibility but about lying (Unintegrity variety #1).

I was maybe three years old. I was, if anything, an overly well-mannered and overly responsible child. One day, I was playing in the living room and bumped into a sofa side table, knocking off a vase. It fell to the floor and shattered.

By the time my Mom came in to find out what had happened, I had already put as much distance as possible between the vase and me. She calmly asked me, in a non-accusing tone, how the vase broke. I will never forget my response. I innocently replied, “It did it by itself!”

Another Example of Unintegrity Through Non-Self-Responsibility: The Litigation Epidemic

We all know how rampant the litigation epidemic is. Ask any judge how overburdened the court system is with litigation issues: individuals suing individuals or companies or the government, companies being sued by groups of individuals (class action lawsuits) or the government, businesses suing other businesses, and individuals, businesses or countries suing other countries.

With the caveat that sometimes litigation is truly a proper course of action, let us briefly look at the Unintegrity that lives beneath the other litigation suits (the majority of them, it seems to me).

Litigation comes about when one party believes they have been wronged by another but that party will not take responsibility for having done this – or at least not as much responsibility as the party who feels wronged wants them to take.

Here is the essence of the non-self-responsibility that leads to litigation: “It’s not my fault. If it’s not my fault then it’s yours. You therefore owe it to me to take care of me. And I am going to make you do this.”

There are two main non-self-responsibility variations:

1. You won’t own your part in what occurred or you won’t do your part to make it right.

2. I won’t own my part in what occurred and I want you to do both your part and my part to make it right.

Not taking responsibility is largely about perpetrator-victim mentality. The perpetrator disowns responsibility by saying, “Let me see how much I can get away with,” or “It’s someone else’s fault that what I did was wrong, so don’t look at me,” or “You had it coming to you.” The victim disowns responsibility by saying, “You should make me whole because my part in this is small or irrelevant compared to yours” or “Others like you have wronged me in the past but I could not make them pay, so I will try to make you pay not only for what you did but for what they did too.”

If you look closely at the perpetrator’s position and the victim’s position, there is very little difference between the two. They are both about narcissism (self-centeredness) and entitlement (I am innocent and you owe me).

The litigation epidemic illustrates how non-self-responsibility goes hand-in-hand with the lying and obsession forms of Unintegrity.

Frivolous litigation, no matter how socially sanctioned it has become, is unmitigated Unintegrity, plain and simple. Case closed.

I offer you a couple of warnings before I launch into the examples:

1. This is Not About Blame: As I said above, the purpose of this chapter is not to lay blame but to expand your awareness of the range of ways in which Unintegrity expresses itself. Because I see the Unintegrity Pandemic as a systemic problem, I hold to blame no one individual, culture, religion, organization, business, profession, political party, governmental agency, country and organization of countries. I propose instead that each one of us has a huge role to play in solving this problem. Each individual, culture, religion, country, organization, business, profession, political party, governmental agency, country or organization of countries. So, as you read the rest of this chapter, I ask you to not dwell upon the question of who is at fault. Rather, simply open your eyes to how pervasive the Unintegrity problem is, so you can begin to focus on the solution (an integrity revolution), instead of continuing to view each of these illustrations as separate problems needing to be addressed separately.
2. Refrain From Despair: While it might be tempting to throw your hands up in despair as you read about the magnitude and pervasiveness of the Unintegrity Pandemic, please keep in mind that this book is about a solution to this problem. Only this chapter is about the problem itself. I therefore urge you to treat this chapter as a call to consciousness and as a means to motivate, not as an invitation to despair.
3. Examples Cross Categories: I have placed the examples you are about to read into individual categories to make it easier to understand each category. In reality, though, most of these Unintegrity illustrations could just as easily have been used to illustrate other categories as well. So, if you find yourself thinking, “This example could have been an illustration of arrogance as greed,” that is probably true.