I read this post by David Callahan, who wrote a book called The Cheating Culture, and has a Weblog to discuss (and, of course, promote) it.
There are dozens of comments on it thus far. Some of them refer to a paler shade of cheating — that is, cheating is OK since it’s prevalent in that environment, where it is acceptable and everyone is an aware participant. An equivalent of the “little white lie”, if you will… everyone does it.
From what I’ve glanced at, Callahan seems to be talking particularly about cheating on tests, not spouses, although it will probably be discussed in the book (if I were inclined to buy it)…
There are all kinds of situations in which people are regularly caught in some form of cheating:
* road tests (people sitting in for others)
* drug-enhanced sport
* university exams
* driving as a single occupant in the HOV lane
* sneaking into the cinema
* copying software
* queue-jumping
* job applications
* ticket scalping
… et cetera …
Some situations seem more benign than others — how upset are people going to be when you sneak your own food into a cinema (unless it’s really pungent or offensive)? Probably not a bit. But if you were waiting in the passport office with a roomful of others in a 3-hour queue, and your friend the passport officer waves you over, imagine the lynch-mob mentality that could ensue…
My question is, when you engage in cheating-type activity — and we all do (I’ve committed the above two offenses, I’ll say that) — then how do you rationalize it to yourself? Maybe another way of putting it is, how do you judge it OK/not OK to cheat? Or, do you say it’s never OK?
I’ll go first.
1) Guilt factor: how many people can this affect? I’d rather cheat a big, faceless corporation than people I know. (I’ll put a rebuttal to myself: cheating costs are passed to the consumer.)
Your turn. (I’ll understand if you prefer to be anonymous, but if you say you’ve never cheated, we all know you’re telling porkies.)
Tuesday, 17 February 2004
I took the survey on his site, and find myself to be An Ordinary American!
Kind of an interesting topic. The guilt factor is big on me if trying to cheat/lie on another. I’d relive the event over and over and feel bad about it. But would I have the same feeling of guilt downloading a song? No.
(Of course, I grew up in a religious house. As a young kid, whenever I used bad language, I always prayed for forgiveness afterwards. You can still see that in my blog with my liberal use “f’em” as if that somehow is OK! LOL.)
Wednesday, 18 February 2004
i will cheat except for the following:
-i don’t cheat on my friends/family
-no one (or cats) will die
-after that i still can sleep at night.
Wednesday, 18 February 2004
I grew up in an extremely conservative religious home, so I have a very overactive guilt complex! My parents raised us that any and all forms of cheating were wrong and sin. So I’m the person that pays the skytrain fare to take the skytrain for one stop and so on.
I won’t cheat on people I know or do anything that could hurt someone else. I don’t like to cheat on corporations either but I also have less guilt about that.
About school cheating - I won’t cheat to get the final answer or pass someone else’s work off as my own - that goes against my personal ethics. However, on more than on occasion, I didn’t bother memorizing formulas that were supposed to be memorized for exams. My rationalization then was that it wasn’t really cheating because if I ever in real life needed to use a formula - I could look it up.
Wednesday, 18 February 2004
Intentionally cheating is too hard to do. There’s always the guilt factor and the worry that you’ll get caught anyway. However, there’s the passive cheating where you’re charged less for an item at a store but you don’t call the cashier’s attention to it. Or that the train conductor passes you by and doesn’t ask for fare. Somehow I’m able to rationalize those situations as being lucky. But morally, that’s still cheating.
Saturday, 21 February 2004
dear gail,
i’ve cheated on all of the above including whatever the etc. stuff is. possible reasons: no time, no money, no energy, or just doing it for the sake of getting a sick thrill (most likely with fellow sick thrill seekers.)
oh yeah, i’m the only person i know who’s never cheated in a relationship. go figure…
Saturday, 21 February 2004
I must admit to have cheated the gas company out of six months supply whilst in rented accomodation, (this however was not intentional I was registered at the address!) surely it’s not my fault if a multi billion pound company can’t send me any bills!?? I am however a firm believer in Karma, what comes around goes around aso I am waiting for it to rear up bite me in the bottom one of these days!
Hope it’s not soon!