I think in the past it was easier to rebound from a set back. In 1970, have a 3.5 average? You are still a top student and you can still get into Harvard or your choice of medical school. You didn’t need to have played club sports for 8 years to get a college scholarship or even make the team.
When the Kennedy boys were accused of cheating or failed a class, they just transferred to another school. Most students don’t have that option so they might cheat to stay in the school they are in (or cheat to get in).
In the Varsity Blues scandal, it was almost always the parents who were cheating and not the student. It meant so much to the parent to please the child (or please themselves) that they were willing to cheat, bribe, do anything to get an advantage for their kids. For some it may be for bragging rights, but I believe that for most they just wanted to give their kids what the kids wanted.
For a lot of things these days, you can pay to get to the front of the line. At Disney, buy a pass to skip the lines. Have an American Express card and get priority to buy concert tickets. Pay extra and get to board the airplane early. It isn’t defined as cheating, but it is not a level playing field.
And none of this is new. Which is why some of us are arguing that moral standards are not declining. Cheating goes waaaaaay back. The inclination to do something immoral when you perceive you haven’t been adequately rewarded for the effort you did put in? Well, there’s this old story about a guy who felt bad that his brother’s sacrifice was more appreciated than his own…
If you say enough times to the kids that we’ve always had cheating vs you shouldn’t cheat regardless of the other guy cheating – those are two different messages. And I think it has gotten worse. Too much moral relativism. Post modern thinking.
Who is talking “to the kids” in this conversation? You think they shouldn’t read stories in the Bible or other stories because there is cheating and they might get ideas? I don’t think that’s how teaching morality works. Of course the message is “you shouldn’t cheat” but I don’t think gaslighting kids into feeling they’re the first bad generation (“declining standards”) is the way to do it.
Or purchase some politicians to get or preserve special tax cuts / deductions / credits for your business…
Or (back to colleges) make a big donation to a college and get your kid very special consideration in admissions…
When stuff that reeks of corruption or is of dubious ethics is common (even though it may not be technically against the rules), that sends a message to society as a whole that the way to get ahead is to do such things that are just a hair away from cheating. It is not surprising that some cross the line from gaming the system to cheating the system.
It would be surprising that some wouldn’t cross the line in the other direction. In fact, it’d feel almost natural, wouldn’t it? If someone cheated her/his way through college, would s/he decline an opportunity to game the system later in life?
Yes, if a cheater sees a way to get the desired benefit by gaming the system technically within the rules, it would not be surprising if the cheater games the system instead of cheats the system in that instance, though the cheater may still cheat in other instances.
On the other hand, some gamers choose to be very careful to stay technically within the rules in order to avoid the possible consequences or penalties of being caught cheating. But others may not be so “scrupulous”. Of course, if the penalty for cheating is less than the benefit to the cheater, that may tempt some gamers into crossing the line.
So if I say that one should put less pressure on oneself so that one doesn’t have to cheat, I need to examine my privilege? :-). That is an interesting perspective to say the least.
I’m glad you find that perspective interesting, but it isn’t what I’m suggesting.
My point is that it can be a privilege to be able to choose how much pressure to put on oneself. There are those (international and FGLI come to mind) for whom pressure is not entirely under their own control. To me, it’s worth considering that some external stressors may affect such groups without an easy remedy like choosing another college. An example might be concern over meeting family financial responsibilities. I sense that might lead a student to take on more college stress than someone in other circumstances might.
It’s just my own thought. You of course don’t need to do anything at all about it.
First clearly the bulk of cheating is not in this space. Second if you are international, you don’t need to come if you need to cheat to come. Third, most of the rest of the world is seriously poor – are you saying being poor is reason you can cheat? Arguably they are as honest as the average American.
I understand some pressure is exogenous. Nobody is saying life doesn’t throw curve balls at you. I am just saying a lot of pressure is self-imposed. If this is what is causing someone to cheat, they should look at the situation again. For their own sake. It is unpleasant to go to sleep in the night. Why does this even have to be spelt out?
I needed it spelled out because it seemed you initially asserted something different about pressure. It was that initial point to which I was responding- glad to see I read it wrong.
This was just on our local news. A company is trying to develop AI to generate questions to determine if the student actually wrote the paper. This is different than a plagiarism check.
Until recently, teen have not had access to this information, and were a lot less aware of just how unfair life was. In fact, Gen-Zs have a better moral compass than previous generations, and that is one of the reasons that they are willing to break rules. Not because they believe that they do not need to follow moral imperatives, but because they feel that these rules are immoral or were written in a manner which allows the rules to be circumvented by those with wealth and power.
If it’s not cheating or theft for the wealthy and powerful, why should the rest of society feel that it’s cheating or theft for them?
This would also depend on the previous generations they are being compared to… and would also depend on cultural factors. My H emigrated from the Soviet Union along with his parents who are now quite elderly, but still living. His parents’ moral code is significantly different from what people in the US consider to be a good or strong moral code, and I have struggled with this a lot during the 20+ years we’ve been married (my H himself became more American in his value system due to spending a lot of his formative years here). I always have to remind myself that their early life was very hard and they grew up in a very different system. They simply don’t see any problem at all with cheating or lying, as long as it “doesn’t hurt anyone” (which roughly means that they can’t see any reason why it could negatively affect anyone they know). If they see a way to effectively cheat the government, taxes, a big corporation, or any other large institution, they will do so without any feelings of guilt because it “doesn’t hurt anyone.” They feel a very strong moral imperative to help friends and family to the best of their ability, but they don’t feel any moral imperative to follow the rules of large institutions, or to help strangers (including future generations of strangers) at the expense of people within their social network.
My kids on the other hand were raised with American values in an environment of abundance. They have basic beliefs about fairness, following rules, helping everyone in the society, etc. They also have a stronger sense of the fragility of the environment than my generation did, which I think makes them even more conscious of thinking of others (including future generations) than what I saw in teenagers when I was growing up.
I think it’s over-exaggerating to say you could waltz into Harvard with a 3.5. In 1976 I was turned down by Middlebury with a 1490 SAT and 5/1000 in my class. I’m guessing it was needing financial aid and almost no EC’s because I worked.
In any case, this oh it was so easy back then stance sure doesn’t ring true to me. (My H, same SAT and val of his class, turned down by Yale. He played sports, band, and was EIC of school newspaper, among other things. Also needed FA.)