integrity and ambition, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 299

299

If a man is obsessed with food and talks fervently only about food, then he is in all likelihood starving.  Perhaps he even craves an identity which can only be achieved by starving himself.  
A possible solution:  He secures enough food, abates his hunger, and secures a new goal – a foundation upon which a new identity can lean. 

A man who is obsessed with the notion of integrity and talks fervently only of its achievement may only be starving from his own sense of moral inadequacy.  He may only be capable of integrity because he baits himself with a suspicion of lacking it: “If I really had integrity, I would....”  What he actually craves is an identity ... an adequate rank.  And being denied a direct gratification, his system redirects the craving to a new sort of identity ... one whose rank is to be judged by that higher standard pointed out by his act of integrity.  He often brings about much good in the world, but just as often, his low regard for consequences ends in disaster.  He is also invariably miserable: his integrity is only a temporary salve to an enduring private frustration.


A possible solution:  He secures a few vices, and of the advantageous sort, sates himself with indulgences outside of morality, and does not neglect to secure a new goal – an ambition – a foundation upon which a new identity can lean.  He renounces integrity to become whole again.

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