A Crisis in Modern Advocacy
Much of today’s advocacy is driven by real concern and real urgency. But urgency alone does not tell us how to act. Under pressure, many movements adopt tactics that narrow dialogue, erode dignity, and turn disagreement into moral failure, treating people as obstacles rather than as participants in a shared moral project.
Integrity-Based Advocacy provides a disciplined ethical framework grounded in a simple premise: how we pursue justice matters as much as what we pursue.
What is Toxic Advocacy?
Toxic advocacy occurs when a movement's governing logic shifts from being repair-oriented to threat-oriented. Instead of persuading, engaging, or correcting harm, advocacy becomes focused on control and compliance. It is commonly characterized by:
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Dehumanizing Tools: The use of shame, moral certainty, and social punishment as substitutes for persuasion, accountability, and repair.
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The Identity Trap: When justice becomes a performance of identity rather than an ethical practice, leading to moral rigidity and the suppression of honest dissent.
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Outrage Escalation: A growing reliance on humiliation, exclusion, and moral threat to enforce alignment rather than invite change.
What is Integrity-Based Advocacy?
Rooted in the moral discipline articulated by Martin Luther King Jr. through the concept of the Beloved Community, Integrity-Based Advocacy begins with a clear boundary: justice cannot be built using dehumanizing tools. Instead, it emphasizes:
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Accountability Without Humiliation: A focus on repair, learning, and relational integrity rather than moral annihilation.
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Disciplined Restraint: The regulation of reactivity and a refusal to reduce people to their worst actions, even under conditions of urgency.
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Ethical Practice: Creating conditions that invite reflection and growth, allowing leaders to acknowledge mistakes without fear of cancellation.
Featured Essay
"You Can’t Build a Just Society Using Dehumanizing Tools"
Most people want a society that is fairer and more humane. But can a just end be achieved through corrosive means? This essay examines the psychological and ethical disciplines required for long-term repair. It is an invitation to take integrity seriously, not only in our goals, but also in how we pursue them.
Essay Abstract
Much of today’s justice work comes from a sincere desire to reduce harm and respond to suffering that is happening right now. That urgency is understandable. But urgency on its own does not tell us how change should be pursued, or what kinds of methods will actually lead to a more just society.
This essay looks at a growing problem in contemporary advocacy: movements committed to justice increasingly rely on approaches that shame, silence, or punish, turning people into obstacles rather than participants in a shared effort to repair harm.
Drawing on psychology, organizational experience, and the moral framework articulated by Martin Luther King Jr. in his vision of the Beloved Community, the essay argues that justice cannot be built using dehumanizing tools. While shame, moral certainty, and public punishment can produce short-term compliance or visible alignment, they also tend to create cultures that are brittle, exclusionary, and poorly equipped for lasting repair.
This piece does not question whether justice matters. It asks something quieter and more difficult: how justice work shapes the people doing it. It explores whether the habits we normalize under pressure—how we treat disagreement, how we use power, and how we respond to harm—actually move us closer to the fair, humane society we say we want, or further away. Ultimately, it invites readers to take integrity seriously, not only in what justice work aims to achieve, but in how it is practiced day to day.
Turn Division into Impact
Practical support for organizations and leaders seeking to restore mission clarity, ethical discipline, and measurable impact.
Consulting & Assessment
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Organizational Health: Identify ego-driven dynamics, moral rigidity, and internal conflict patterns that quietly stall mission effectiveness.
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Program Development: Help teams move from reactive outrage toward principled, outcome-oriented advocacy that sustains both people and purpose.
Understanding Toxic Advocacy - FAQs
What exactly is "Toxic Advocacy," and how does it differ from passionate activism?
Passionate activism is driven by moral concern and a genuine urgency to address harm. Toxic Advocacy emerges when that urgency overrides reflection and the methods used begin to erode human dignity. At that point, advocacy shifts from being repair-oriented to threat-oriented, with the goal moving away from persuasion and accountability toward neutralizing perceived enemies rather than building a shared moral project.
What are the warning signs that an organization's advocacy is becoming toxic?
Common warning signs include the use of shame as a primary motivator, treating moral certainty as a substitute for persuasion, and relying on social punishment as a stand-in for genuine accountability. Over time, disagreement may come to be framed as a moral failure or a threat to group identity rather than as a potential source of learning, correction, or growth.
Is urgency ever a justification for using dehumanizing tools?
Urgency is an important moral signal. It names the real consequences of delay and inaction. But urgency is not a license to abandon ethical discipline. History repeatedly shows that when urgency overrides reflection, movements often accelerate toward forms of power they have not yet learned to wield responsibly.
How does Integrity-Based Advocacy define accountability?
Integrity-Based Advocacy distinguishes accountability from punishment. Accountability is relational and forward-looking: it focuses on repair, learning, and reducing the likelihood of future harm. Punishment, by contrast, is backward-looking and seeks closure through condemnation and moral finality rather than transformation or growth.
What role does the Beloved Community play in this work?
Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., the Beloved Community functions as a demanding ethical framework for engaging conflict without relying on domination or dehumanization. It asks advocates to regulate their own reactivity, resist reducing people to their worst actions, and remain accountable for the habits they form under pressure. The central question is whether the methods used during struggle are compatible with the kind of peace and community one hopes to build afterward.
Can Integrity-Based Advocacy be applied to corporate or academic environments?
Yes. The framework is designed to be adaptable across sectors where moral pressure, power dynamics, and institutional accountability intersect. It has been applied in activist spaces, DEI initiatives, academic settings, and corporate environments to help leaders recognize triggers for escalation and develop alternative strategies that support ethical decision-making, persuasion, and long-term sustainability.
How can this framework help prevent burnout within a mission-driven team?
Burnout often emerges when justice work becomes an identity test rather than a shared ethical practice. When people feel required to perform moral certainty at all times, there is little room for doubt, learning, or moral fatigue. Integrity-based Advocacy reframes the work as an ongoing ethical discipline, creating space for reflection, course correction, and shared responsibility. This shift makes advocacy psychologically sustainable over the long term rather than emotionally extractive.
Recent Advocacy Blogs
Integrity-Based Advocacy
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Explores a simple but uncomfortable truth: justice cannot be built through tactics that undermine our humanity. While moral conviction matters, how we pursue change matters just as much.