Since the dawn of the ancient world, historians, anthropologists, and scientists have generally agreed that we have been at war with one another, somewhere or another, for ninety-two percent of that time. This staggering statistic, bearing in mind today's conflict-filled headlines, begs the question: In a world where one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, when is resistance a good thing?

I believe the answer to this thorny question lies in the human quality of integrity that I explored last month.

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to meet Adolph Hitler at his private mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. Being a peace-loving man who wanted to avoid another bloodbath after the horrors of WWI, he believed that he could institute a policy of appeasement, which involved allowing Hitler to expand German territory unchecked. At the time, Chamberlain was greeted with much fanfare and relief as it was seen as an extremely popular solution for the war-weary British. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, Chamberlain is seen as weak and naïve because Hitler had no intention of keeping his word, something which Chamberlain couldn't conceive of.

What are history's great lessons here? Firstly, we may have all the best peaceful intentions in the world, but we must learn the lessons of the consequences that can come from naiveté. We can't assume that everybody has integrity and is looking out for the greater good because they don't, and they aren't. It's dangerous to mistake pacifism for love and compassion because peace at any price is always costly for some. 

Secondly, we can't afford to shelve our integrity by cynically or ignorantly behaving like sheep by being corralled into destructive tribal behavior that undermines our humanity and distorts the fundamental truth that we are all in this together, whether we like it or not.   

The conflict that followed Chamberlain's failed attempt at peace was the deadliest in human history, during which my father was able to walk this tightrope between naiveté and holding on to his humanity. In a very strained atmosphere of fear and suspicion, he treated the German prisoners of war sent to work on our dairy farm by the War Office as people. Not because he was a pacifist (he had volunteered to fight), but as a man of great integrity, he was discerning enough to judge the POWs, not collectively as the enemy, but on the content of their character. He came to understand that many had been drafted into an unwelcome conflict, which made them victims of the madness, too. This is another lesson that serves us well today: innocent civilians generally pay the highest price in any conflict.

Today, as discussed last month, integrity itself (which had been gently rising collectively) is under attack from those who feel most threatened by its inherent truthfulness. Fundamental human rights we have strived so hard for are under assault. Keeping your word and abiding by your principles are now framed as weaknesses as they are trampled underfoot in the glorification of winning at all costs.

In this dark moment for humanity, we must be highly vigilant because people who lack integrity look to exploit a vulnerability in loving, peaceful people, often mistaking kindness for weakness, and this we cannot afford. We cannot undermine our integrity, so we roll over and play nice. In your daily life, for example, it is not loving, peaceful, or productive to allow others to be non-integrous with you. Giving a person engaged in criminal activity money, lending your car to an untrustworthy person, and allowing somebody to steal from you all undermine your integrity and turn you into a victim while increasing instability for everyone. Our decisions of when to resist and when to desist have enormous implications for us and others.

In the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis' Freshman Convocation at Georgia State University, he said, "When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something…" But how do we discern rightness, fairness, and injustice in today's "post-shame" world, where the opposites of these ideals are cleverly manipulated to look like integrity? Ask yourself, does what's being presented to me honestly have integrity? Does it stand up under scrutiny? Is it transparent? Will it help to improve the situation for everyone involved? In the words of John Lewis, it's our responsibility to take the high moral ground through the integrous discipline of peaceful resistance and get into "good trouble" for the good of ourselves and our world.