It is not just contesting.....and very from just the USA.
de Doug KR2Q
A Nation of Cheaters
By Kirk O. Hanson
January 19, 2003
Cheating. What could be more American? From the snake oil salesmen of the late
19th century
to the stock manipulators of the 1920s to the spitballers of modern baseball.
But today it seems
absolutely everybody is doing it. We cheat—or at least try to cheat—in every
aspect of our lives.
One out of four Americans surveyed say it's acceptable to cheat on their taxes.
Former Tyco
CEO Dennis Kozlowski sends paintings he bought to a New Hampshire address to
cheat New York
State out of the sales tax. College bound students cheat on the SAT tests.
Teachers cheat by
giving their students the answers to standardized tests so the teachers qualify
for bonuses.
Athletes cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs. Successful authors cheat
by
appropriating others' writing as their own. Even colleges steeped in honor
codes—the University
of Virginia and the US Naval Academy—have been rocked by massive cheating
scandals in recent
years.
After a depressing 2002 in which corporate executives too numerous to count
cheated
shareholders by fudging their accounts or manipulating markets, we have to ask
whether cheating
has become the new national norm. We have always had a few cheaters among us,
but has the
typical American now lost his or her moral compass? Have we lost our
fundamental commitment to
integrity and fair play? First of all, why do people cheat? There are two
simple answers, neither
very noble. People cheat to get ahead, even if they don't qualify for the
advancement and even
if they can't win a fair competition. Such people don't care about anyone else
but themselves.
This adult lies about the toaster he broke so he can get a full refund. The
teenager lies about
her age to save money on a movie ticket. The other reason is simple laziness.
But there are new reasons why people cheat—and these may give us a clue about
how to stop
the rising tide of cheating. Some people cheat today because they simply cannot
get everything
done which needs to be done. American life has become so intense, so rushed, so
fully packed.
Many shortcuts we seek involve cheating—copying school papers from the Internet
or cheating
our companies by telling our bosses we are sick so we can catch up on housework
or errands.
Some people cheat today not just because they want to get ahead, but more
because they fear
the embarrassment of failure. Parents put huge expectations on children—you are
a failure if you
don't go to an Ivy League school. You have to win; we've sacrificed so much to
make you a
competitive swimmer. Companies put huge pressures on employees—you now have to
do the job
of two, or you will be laid off too. And American culture says again and again
that you have to be
successful and wealthy to be happy. Faced with this fear of being a failure,
too many people seek
a shortcut and falsify their resume, cheat on their SATs, or fudge numbers at
work to look better.
Most threatening, at least to me, is the notion that more people are cheating
today because they
think everyone else cheats. I had to cheat on the test, some students argue,
because everyone
else cheats and we are graded on a curve. Some business students I have taught
and some business
people believe that "everyone cheats" and that you have to do so to be
competitive. The widespread
corporate scandals of the past year, touching so many of our blue-chip
companies, have reinforced
this cynical belief that good guys will finish last.
Finally, an increasing number of cheaters are arguing that they must cheat to
resist unfair new
systems of accountability. Teachers in schools are resistant to
performance-based testing because
it may threaten their jobs. Employees cheat to resist systems that silently
measure their output.
Some welfare advocates resist needs-based tests because they may remove some
people from
the rolls. So how can we reset the nation's moral compass and stem the
troubling rise of cheating?
There are things you and I can do individually—and there are things that must
be done by our leaders
in government, business, education, and the media.
What can we individually do? The first thing is to stand up for fair play in
our own lives. We must resist
the temptations to take short cuts with small acts of cheating. Pay full price
for your child if he or she
is actually 13 and not 12. And we need to become advocates for fair play. Talk
to our children about
how important integrity and fair play is and how cheating hurts them—it does!
We need to support efforts to control cheating. If someone is caught cheating,
support strong penalties.
If our own child is caught cheating, resist the temptation to blame the school
or the teacher. If an
athlete is caught cheating, support the referee or the rules which throw him
off the team. Become
intolerant of cheating around you.
We can turn down the pressure felt by our own spouses and children. It is OK if
your husband does
not get the big promotion; it's OK if your son does not get into the "best"
school. Life is about doing
your best, not just about winning.
There are also important things our leaders in government, business, and the
media can do to help
fight cheating in American life.
The first is to put tougher national laws and regulations in place that deal
with all forms of cheating.
We also need the commitment to enforce those laws and to impose tough
sanctions. This is a job of
Congress, regulators, and the courts.
Second, each of our institutions—businesses, schools, athletic teams, and
voluntary associations—need
their own tough rules against cheating. University of Virginia officials and
its student leaders have
apparently pursued the dozens of cheating cases uncovered recently,
strengthening their own honor
code in the process. But Bausch and Lomb board members weakened the company's
ethical culture,
in my view, when they did not remove Ron Zarella as their CEO after it was
revealed he had claimed
a degree he did not have. Even sports-frenzied Notre Dame knew it had to get
rid of a coach that
lied on his resume.
Third, leaders in government and the private sector are going to have to invest
in new systems to
enforce standards against cheating, at least for a time. Government regulators
and tax officials will
have to do more audits. Employers will have to check the accuracy of all
resumes. College teachers
will have to use new on-line systems to check for plagiarism in papers.
Finally, I believe all our leaders—particularly those in the media—must
contribute to building a new
American culture in which wealth and celebrity are not the defining marks of
success, but instead
old-fashioned values such as integrity, faithfulness, and service to those in
need. As long as Americans
are chasing a dream defined by winning above all, they will continue to find
new ways to cheat their
way to the finish line.
The article appeared originally in the Boston Globe, Jan. 19, 2003.
Kirk O. Hanson is the Executive Director of the Markkula Center for Applied
Ethics at Santa Clara University,
and University Professor of Organizations & Society.
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