There is a not-so-old saying that, "Nice guys finish last." I first overheard this from two engineering executives who were dining near me in a small restaurant. While I don't remember much else about their conversation, the context was clear. In a competitive corporate environment, only the ruthless survive. It is reminiscent of another, older saying, "All is fair in love and war."
College may be associated with love and love-ins, but it is becoming more like war. The competition for graduating at or near the top is intense, and just at a time when religious values have been systematically excluded from the curriculum.
Cheating in class is probably as old as the first test ever given. It has become almost an accepted standard --- that if you don't get caught, it's okay to do whatever it takes to make the honor roll.
The justification for cheating is that, if others are doing it, and if they are getting away with it, then the "nice guys" who do not cheat are putting themselves at an unfair disadvantage. What good does it do to be honest, some will say, if your grades are only mediocre, while your academic inferiors are graduating cum laude and getting the really good jobs?
Of course in later years, the honest students seem to have better lives, even if they start out from the bottom, even if "better" may not be outwardly visible. But in the earlier years, young people do not have this perspective. Especially in a job-poor economy, losing that high-paying job to an under-qualified cheater is a painful penalty to pay for personal integrity.
Yes, the pain is worth it, but try telling that to your spouse as you stand in an unemployment line, while the burden of unpaid student loans depresses your family finances.
Even so, personal integrity has enormous benefits on both a personal scale and a societal scale. National integrity is a critical asset, both at home and abroad. When even our enemies know they can trust our word, it is far easier to get them to the peace table than it would be if they thought we would cheat them.
No government can ever be big enough to monitor everyone. Even if it could be, it would fail, if the people in government were themselves among the cheaters.
At some level, the values of honesty and personal integrity must be internalized. Yes, we will always need a certain amount of enforcement. But that can be effective only if the cheaters are limited to those few who have no conscience at all, and those who normally would not cheat but are confronted with a temptation to which they momentarily give in.
Proposing solutions at a personal level, when the problem is societal, when the consequence is national, may seem Pollyanish thinking. Secularists will insist that the answer is to contrive a set of ethics, and to enforce it. Religious teachings, they insist, would be offensive.
But teaching people to be honest simply because a rule says so, would be like making a law to force mothers to love their children.
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Great article. I agree. This as a problem of social engineering. I believe it starts in grade school where some teachers feel obliged to pass failing students for either personal or socially "just' reasons. Admitting students to universities based on diversity and not on merit only encourages this "level the playing field" mentality. This "inclusiveness and diversity" policy has infiltrated the corporate world. These are all forms of accepted cheating. It's no wonder cheating in school, at work or at home has become so prevalent.
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