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By Dr. Dave Watson (Published 6/04)
Although the incident occurred more than twenty years ago, I remember it as if it happened only yesterday. My wife's younger sister was with us as we picked up take-out at the drive-up window of a local fast food chain. The register clerk took the money I offered and returned as change exactly ten dollars more than I expected to receive. I pointed out to her that she had given me too much change, and handed her the ten-spot. The window worker argued but complied, since she knew as I did, that if I were correct and she were wrong the money would come out of her too-small paycheck. Later, as we were driving home, little sister asked me why I returned the money. I told her the story of honest Abe Lincoln, who, it is said, walked several miles to return few cents to a customer who had overpaid his bill at Lincoln's general store. My teenage sister-in-law laughed at this, but, I hoped at the time, took the lesson to heart. Then, as now, I wonder about the level of honesty in our society? To ask it plainly, are we cheating more? All the signs are there of course, that what politically correct pundits call "ethically challenged behavior" is becoming more common. Let's have a quick look.
A recent book entitled "The Cheating Culture", by David Callahan, examines this question, and comes to a not so surprising answer. Yes, the author concludes, lack of honesty is more pervasive in society now than it has ever been. He sites a number of areas where this occurs, including the ethics of professional employees. For example, he points to over-billing in everything from consulting, to advertising, to the legal profession. Athletes are not immune. The recent exposure of steroid use by professional baseball players springs immediately to mind. Newspapers and magazines have seen a number of recent instances of both plagiarism and complete fabrication of eyewitness accounts. Corporate scandals, in a variety of industries, are well known, especially here in Houston, ground zero for the Enron debacle. Callahan blames competition for good jobs, a shrinking middle class, and the media for this problem; as well as insufficient government monitoring of variety professional occupations. The author points to a "culture obsessed with money and saturated with envy" as being at a crossroads, where the desire to get ahead with a decreasing willingness to accept responsibility for one's own actions are together responsible for an out of control disregard for established societal norms. Callahan estimates the cost of this challenge to our ethical bedrock principles at not less than 250 billion dollars to the federal treasury due to tax evasion alone (as reported by the IRS). Routine thefts in the workplace are estimated to cost the U.S. economy roughly 600 billion dollars each year, or about 6 percent of our gross domestic product. In a small study of only 5 unaccredited "diploma mills", it has recently been uncovered by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) that the federal government has paid nearly $170,000 to such "schools" to cover the tuition costs for federal employees. The television program 60 Minutes reported that the largest federal customer for such fake diplomas (usually in the form of advanced degrees), is the Pentagon. The GAO believes that the problem may be widespread within the federal civil service.
So why do people cheat? Kirk Hansen, executor director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, editorializing in the Boston Globe, offers two basic reasons: 1) to get ahead; and 2) nothing more than laziness. While these are not new reasons, Mr. Hansen offers others. These include taking shortcuts to try to get everything done that needs taking care of in our busy lives by invoking shortcuts, everything from copying term papers via the internet to claiming sick days when we're not really sick. Another reason, worrisome to Hansen, is that people cheat because they think others are doing it. Lastly, he offers that people cheat to resist "unfair new systems of accountability." Not being one to simply beat the drum of societal problems, however, Hansen offers positive remedies. He first suggests that we "stand up for fair play in our own lives" and be outspoken in our desire for fairness. He also urges that we not put up with cheating in our daily lives when we see it. Lastly, he advocates for tougher rules and laws to control cheating.
So why did I give the money back to the cashier at the local burger outlet? Along the California coast there is a type of fish that, when the moon is full, comes to the beach to spawn, then throws itself onto the shore to die. One version of a story says that a little boy went walking along the beach and threw back as many of the little fish as he could along a span of several yards, not knowing of course that the fish would die anyway. When told by his parents that he could not save all the fish, he replied "no, but I can save these." I guess I feel the same way. If we each promote honesty where we can, maybe larger changes will begin to happen. We have to reverse this ugly trend.
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Dr. Dave Watson is InDyne, Inc.'s Program Manager for Peer Review for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, as well as Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. In his free time, Dr. Dave serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Pearland Independent School District, where all four of he and his wife Fay's children are currently students.
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