Disintegrity

Description

Marvin Brown:

'Disintegrity, like disunity or dishonesty, is primarily a violation of a basic norm; in this case, the norm of integrity. If integrity is what holds things together, disintegrity separates them. If integrity represents the integration of all the parts that belong to a larger whole, disintegrity excludes some of the parts, or denies the whole. It is atomistic rather than holistic. It has various manifestations; in daily life, in economics, and in politics. The report from the New Hampshire primary that young people were attracted to Ron Paul’s ideas is particularly disturbing. Paul’s libertarianism is a classic form of disintegrity that has a long history in Anglo-American thought.

The philosopher who many consider the father of libertarianism, John Locke, had an almost lethal case of disintegrity. Locke believed that individuals existed alone, not belonging to anything but themselves, and then as individuals they formed a government to protect their individual property—themselves. For Locke, people do not belong together, but rather get together to protect what belongs to each one of them, and then they assume that whatever they have, they have acquired by themselves. This is the worst aspect of the libertarian notion of individual freedom, which is infected with disintegrity from top to bottom.

So how can we treat it? First of all, we can tell the whole story of our nation rather than only the story of property owners. American prosperity has been just as much the result of slavery, and the exploitation of land and labor, as it has been the result of hard work, ingenuity, and luck. All these are parts of our nation’s story." (http://www.civilizingtheeconomy.com/2012/01/disintegrity-and-how-to-treat-it/)