For the moment, let’s put aside the horrifying fact that such a bill was even earnestly discussed or advanced in Congress, or that indefinite detention without a trial of anyone is something we’re willing to entertain as acceptable.  Let’s put aside the disturbing practice of folding fundamental changes to U.S. military and legal policy into what are essentially administrative budgeting conversations.  And let’s pretend that the president didn’t sign such a groundbreaking bill on a holiday, a Saturday when most of the country was known to be preoccupied with celebrating the particulars of the Gregorian calendar.

All those things aside, President Obama still signed a bill that he says he disagrees with.   That’s fine if the bill says that unicorns might exist or that the White House will be painted green; sign it, put it in a file somewhere, work out the details later.  But a bill that authorizes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial seems like it deserves a lot more than the “I don’t like it but I guess it’s what we have to do” treatment.

President Obama tried to reassure us by saying that his administration won’t actually USE these new powers, and that he’ll work tirelessly to change the parts that concern him.  ”My Administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded.”

I don’t know about you, but the times we’ve left the questions of “interpretation” and “implementation” to the preferences of individual leaders seem like the times where we’ve done the most damage to civil liberties or to a national sense of security about the aspects of “American life” that are core to our identity.  In this case, the starting point is that the reckless and dangerous provisions of the Patriot Act from ten years ago have been expanded and then made permanent.  Even if Mr. Obama faithfully steers the entire federal government and military-industrial complex to resist taking advantage of these new powers, what happens when the next president decides it’s not such a problem to lock up a few people — FOREVER — without a trial?

I think the president had on obligation to veto this particular bill.

It was the one option on the table that would have forced revisiting of the discussion about this ground-shaking change with the urgency and attention it deserved.  Now that it’s law, we’re left with incremental attempts to clarify the language of the bill to hopefully do less harm and court challenges that could take years to get to a Supreme Court that isn’t known for its civil libertarian leanings.

Some will say that this is an unsurprising move in a broken political system that already facilitates the amassing of power by a few to the detriment of the ordinary citizen.  Others will say that it’s not such a big deal and that surely in the end it will mostly be used to legitimately and necessarily fight terrorism.  Both of those may be true in some regard.

But for me, it’s a new low for the promise that was the Barack Obama presidency.  For a man who campaigned on such clear ideals when it came to civil liberties and the role of the U.S. Government in protecting and maintaining them, the signing of the NDAA represents a true lack of integrity that no signing statement or philosophizing about “this is the way the world works” can explain away.  There are a lot of wonderful things about the Obama presidency, and there’s a lot of good that’s been done on his watch.  But I can’t begin to imagine how, with decisions like this one, the president will make the case to progressive Americans for his re-election.

What a world of pure and unflinching justice we could then live in!  To walk around knowing that the slogans and invitations on billboards, newspaper ads and television were all required by law to be true, and that onerous fines and the shame of the public eye awaited the occasional miscreant who would stray from this noble code.  No need to worry about being deceived or misled as a consumer; we could always have confidence that advertisers would stand by their claims.

Like I said, I was young.

But at the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I do think there’s been a notable shift in the standards we hold marketers and public figures to when it comes to truth in advertising.  Seems like somewhere around the mid 1990′s, we kind of gave up on it.

Was it when the Coke vs. Pepsi wars heated up?  Or maybe it was when product manufacturing was being outsourced to other countries and business owners became disconnected from quality controls in their production processes?  Or maybe it was when we stopped expecting politicians to tell the truth and started betting on just how outrageous their lies were.  Or maybe The Internet made it so much more difficult to police advertising claims that no one even bothers anymore unless it’s a particularly egregious case.

But there are more important things to worry about, right?  Caveat emptor and everybody for themselves, and let’s focus on the national debt or poverty or obesity, right?

I’m not so sure.  I think deceptive marketing practices deserve more of the blame for the state of the world than they get. I’m glad to hear that some high schools and colleges are teaching young people to be more aware of how marketing influences their buying choices, but the majority of us are still very much subject to the power of the marketing machine.  And when that machine is telling us to do things that are against our own best interests, it matters.

A few recent examples I’ve heard or seen just driving around town:

“Fast and fresh!”
Many fast food restaurants caught on long ago that fast food was associated with unhealthy eating, and that dietary advice was shifting toward recommendations of freshly prepared food with more natural ingredients.  The end result is the self-contradiction that you can have mass-produced food from a restaurant that is both “fast” (because it was pre-prepared halfway across the country in a warehouse and trucked to you frozen or full of preservatives) and “fresh” (because it has a piece of lettuce or tomato on it that was recently washed).  Or, “we have a salad on our menu, so we offer healthy eating options for everyone!” This undermines people who are trying to make healthier eating choices for themselves and their children by convincing them they can have it both ways, and it undermines local/regional food producers who actually ARE bringing you fresh food that you could prepare within a few days for a healthy meal.

“Hurry in to our store to save!”
I heard this one on the radio this morning.  ”Be the hero of your household’s budget,” the ad proclaimed.  They want you to come in to the store and spend money so that you can “save” money.  Buy things you might not have bought otherwise and might not need, so that you can feel good you’re getting them at a slightly lower price than…someone else somewhere else might or might not be selling them for.   This approach twists the notion that “saving money is good” into the idea that you have to spend money to save money.  No wonder we have unprecedented levels of personal debt and bankruptcy.

“For a limited time only!”
This one is tried and true: the idea that a time pressure will almost always result in consumers making different choices than they would make given time to think through the value of what they’re getting.  ”I might not have bought a case of gummy bears THIS week, but surely I’ll need a case in the coming year or two, and this sale ends TODAY!”  Marketers are telling us that rational responses are not to be trusted and that our gut instincts are what we should go with.  Instant gratification is okay because…then you’ll be gratified, and that’s all that matters, right!?

There are many, many more.  And I’m sure none of them are all that surprising to you, because again, we’ve come to accept that marketers are trying to mess with our sense of reality, and that we should just deal with it the best we can.

But why do we accept that?  Why are we willing to subject ourselves to that dance of pain when all we get out of it is some cheap plastic crap, stomach aches and buyer’s remorse?  I’m accepting comments for a limited time only.

I try not to give my my money to companies that practice false or misleading advertising most blatantly. But for me, one of the long-term solutions is to be very, VERY intentional about how I market myself and the products or services I’m associated with.

When I market my own business and our technical services, I try to make sure we speak plainly and clearly about what we can and cannot do, so that no one is misled and no end result is hyped up.

When I tell people who I am and what I stand for, I’m careful to note complexity and messiness where it exists.

When I talk about my qualifications for being voted into elected office, I’m careful not to spin or inflate my experience and accomplishments beyond what’s real, and to give other people credit where it’s due.

When I mess up or say something that might be misleading, I try to go back to correct it as soon as I can.

Sometimes it’s harder to be accurate and honest than it is to be catchy and broadly appealing.  Maybe it’s that younger version of myself still wandering around in oblivion waiting for the FTC to make it all better, but I still hope for a world where we all practice – and expect – truth in advertising at every level.

Must we really become the change we wish to see in the world?

As I try to work in my life and community to create a peaceful and sustainable existence, these are questions that churn in my head daily.

On a personal level, I think a lot of us struggle with living out the values we hold – we have aspirations and ideals about ourselves and the world we live in that can seem hard to enact, even when the path might feel clear.

But when you start to talk about how the rest of the world could be – even should be – the conversation goes beyond issues of self-discipline, time management, or having sufficient support and encouragement. When we talk about sharing a message with others about how we want the world to be and perhaps suggest they change their behavior to get there, it becomes a question of whether there’s a practical or ethical obligation to already first be living out that existence well as the messenger.

Some people say you have to transform your own life first before you can expect others to transform theirs at your suggestion. Do we?

In Favor of Evangelistic Integrity

There’s certainly an issue of credibility that comes with bringing a message of change or new ways of looking at an issue. If you can’t demonstrate that your suggestion is working well for you, how can you expect others to follow? If you don’t follow your own advice, how can you speak with any authority? This is probably why we subject our spiritual, political, and community leaders to such thorough scrutiny and hold them to a “higher standard” – if they’re to lead us in these critical areas, we think their levels of purity and integrity should be above and beyond ours.

Further, people generally look up to other people who model choices and lifestyles that they want to achieve themselves. When someone has fought a demon or barrier that we’re fighting, and we see that they’ve won, it gives us hope and inspiration. Just as we might only expect true solace in the loss of a loved one from someone else who has experienced a similar loss, we tend to open ourselves more to the teachings and suggestions of those who have gone down the path we’re on now and found something good.

As a practical matter, you can get a lot of useful information from practicing what you preach (depending on the topic). If I’m to encourage people to use a rain barrel to collect rainwater for re-use, it helps a lot if I’ve actually set up a rain barrel and put it to use, as opposed to having just read about it on the Internet. I can still offer the initial suggestion, but when they ask “how will I attach it to my gutter system,” and I give them a blank stare, my utility in the conversation is limited.

Against Requiring That You Become the Change First

Why might we not need to practice what we preach? What could possibly justify this seeming lack of integrity?

For one, we might have a sense of urgency about the changes that we’re suggesting, and the overwhelming number of things that need to be changed, such that we don’t think we have enough time to really become the change we wish to see. If it takes me three years to figure out how to be an expert on growing my own food, should I really wait that long to start talking to others about how they grow their own food? If I know that a community tool shed might benefit a friend’s community but I haven’t had time to start one up in mine, should I wait to suggest it? I’m not sure that there’s enough time for such delays.

Another big one for me: if the positive impact you can have by being a hypocrite is greater than the positive impact you can have by demonstrating total integrity, why stand on principle? Doesn’t the practical nature of the need for changes in our culture dictate an imperative to act, even as hypocrites?

Former Vice President Al Gore is a great example of this question in action: the lifestyle choices that are implied in his “Inconvenient Truth” talks would probably suggest that flying around the world using fossil fuels to visit hundreds or thousands of audiences every year is not sustainable. But, if Al Gore didn’t do those things, awareness about climate change would be much lower than it is now. Some have criticized other parts of Gore’s lifestyle – where he lives, what he drives, etc. – but I think it would be hard to deny that he’s significantly reduced the collective carbon footprint of so many people that those concerns fade away, from a purely quantitative standpoint.

I think about this with some the historically environmentally harmful processes that are involved in the production of the high-tech equipment that powers our Internet connected existence. Lots of people, myself included, use that Internet every day to lobby for more sustainable production processes (or name your other favorite social justice/environmental concern), and the irony can sometimes be hard to swallow.

There are myriad precedents for flawed human beings creating significant and lasting positive change, sometimes even in the areas where they were flawed. There are the pastors who guide families of their congregations through moral crises while quietly abusing their own spouses or children. There are the civil rights advocates who changed the world but struggled with inner demons, the political leaders who spread messages of hope and peace while ignoring their own pessimism and violence. It’s hard to suggest that any of the figures who have shaped our lives for the better while failing in some other area should have withdrawn from their messages of change, though perhaps they should have been more transparent about and aware of their failings.

Lastly, living out a certain model of change or personal transformation sometimes requires being surrounded by others who are doing the same, perhaps even in such quantities as to trigger a tripping point before the actual transformation is possible. If I want to get around town by bike more instead of car, I might encourage others to do the same, but I might not actually live that desire out until my community becomes more bike friendly. As much as we can desire change, speak about change, advocate change, sometimes we have to be a part of a movement of others changing at the same time to actually live it out.

Tricky Areas

Some especially tricky areas to think about:

• What kind of a model do we present for our children? Do we encourage them to favor practicality over integrity or vice versa? Will they know where to draw the line?
• The question of the use of violence often brings up these dilemmas. Can I harm or kill one person in order to heal or save the life of another? If I seek peace and abhor war, how do I respond when corporations and governments and polluters conduct war on my community, my water supply, my environment? What does practicing peace look like then?
• We must be careful not to construct such duality in our lives that we can justify any lapse of integrity. Our sense of self and the values we stand for does seem to matter quite a bit in terms of happiness, ability to connect and love others, and more. There may be some joy in preaching successfully, but it’s hard to imagine a fulfilling existence that is only about spreading the word and not benefiting from it.

Conclusions

So, those are some thoughts that fly around in my head when I try to answer that question about practicing what I preach. My conclusions? I don’t have any solid ones to offer, but here’s where I’m at right now:

• I think we can educate and create change from a position of aspiration, without achieving personal perfection in a given area.
• We must be transparent about and vulnerable to our hypocrisy and its impacts, sometimes asking for forgiveness.
• We must respect those who do want to stand on principle and only speak out from a place of successful personal transformation, and they will hopefully reciprocate.

The change I wish to see is bigger than me and my personal struggles with integrity, but all we really have is what we do with our time here…I’ll be content to be remembered as one who struggled, but acted anyway.