This discussion has to start with how we value personal achievement. Our culture suggests that the most important things in school are grades and test results--particularly ACTs and SATs. The college selection process bears that out, and in some ways this makes a lot of sense. Objective, quantifiable results are much easier to judge en masse than subjective things like letters of recommendation. Those subjective items are often used only to break a tie when the objective results are equitable.
But this doesn't stop in college. We've been trained to achieve quantifiable results and that is precisely how we measure our worth. Work productivity is measured in ones and zeroes--or dollars and cents. Those who labor count their worth in hours and minutes. Many people have a threshold to exceed, a goal to make. Whether it's in the workplace or in the gym, we often judge ourselves by personal bests, and always seek better, faster results. Games like chess have a numerical rating system. Play better and achieve a higher rating. That's the goal.
However, this obsession with tangible, numerical results has a sinister side.
We're willing to do anything to get those little edges. It starts out with cutting corners. In chess, for example, players may care more for winning than for learning. They may inhibit long-term gains for the sake of short-term successes. Does this sound like a student who works hard for a grade but doesn't care to retain any knowledge?
I thought so.
In the manufacturing world this approach leads to products of lesser standards that can be sold cheaper. It is the principle of "Walmart-ization." It's also cheating ourselves of achieving great things. Each of us can remember the kid in elementary school who was always cheating in gym class. "No, I wasn't tackled. My knee never hit the ground!" It's the same kid who was always claiming he wasn't hit by the dodge ball, the same kid who would claim that he caught the ball that clearly bounced before he could get his hands under it, and often it was the same kid who would look over others' shoulders in class.
We hated that kid, but worse still each of us had moments where we became that kid. I can remember sneaking answers on spelling tests in elementary school because I hated not being perfect. I was learning the great American tradition of cheating.
There have been two sports stories in the news lately that have brought this to mind for me in very different ways. The first happened last week when Joel Peralta, a pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, was ejected from a game for having pine tar inside his glove. For those unfamiliar, pine tar gives the pitcher a sticky grip, which allows for the ball to spin more on release, adding extra movement to pitches. Pine tar is one of several explicitly illegal substances for a pitcher to have on his person when he pitches. So, when the umpires went to inspect Peralta and found he was using the substance he was removed from the game (and later suspended by Major League Baseball). End of story, right? Well, not exactly.Enter: this clip. The guys you hear whining are television commentators for the Rays, obviously infuriated, but at what? Were they upset that their pitcher had the audacity to cheat? Were they upset that the wool had been pulled over their eyes? Hardly. Their anger was toward the opposing manager, who broke one of baseball's "unwritten" rules and tattled on an opposing player. Now, the thing about unwritten rules is that they are, well, unwritten. The high and mighty attitude that the Rays commentators took is a clear indication of the cheating culture that believes we can do anything we want to gain a little edge, so long as it fits in the "unwritten" rules. Drive five miles an hour over the speed limit? It's an unwritten rule you won't be pulled over. Ask a cop who pulls over somebody going four miles over the speed limit, and they will tell you that the drivers are often indignant that they're doing nothing wrong. They are following an unwritten rule.
Besides being obnoxious, the Rays commentators are also blatantly wrong. Davey Johnson (the opposing team's manager in the Peralta ejection) had every right and, indeed, responsibility to aid his team in winning. Those are the written details of his contract to manage. If he believed Peralta was violating a written rule of the game then he was obligated to follow up on it. Written rules trump unwritten rules, because written rules have been agreed upon by all parties. Cheating is failing to follow a written rule, not an unwritten one. This may seem obvious, but in fact many people in baseball do not believe this. Amazingly, the Rays commentators and manager Joe Maddon were more concerned with who ratted them out than with the actual incident of cheating. They attempted to confuse the issue by leveling blame on Johnson and the Nats coaching staff for violating an unwritten rule of the game. Let me state this plainly: Maddon and the Rays commentators need to be told they are unequivocally wrong. Justifying cheating by attacking the opponent for pointing it out is the true cowardly move.
The second news story is the USADA allegations against Lance Armstrong. This is a complicated issue for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is important to point out that Armstrong has never failed a drug test as far as we know (conspiracy theories notwithstanding). Secondly, the reality is that Armstrong probably did cheat in an era where a large portion of the peloton (a cycling word for the racers in the pro field) was doing just that. And thirdly, the USADA is hardly blameless in all of this. They seem more interested in condemnation than truth-seeking. A disdain for cheating does not mean we have a witch hunt whenever suspicions are aroused; instead, it means that we seek the truth without wavering. The USADA seems to have no such agenda.If Armstrong cheated he deserves to have his titles taken away, but unlike Peralta there has been no clear burden of proof leveled against him. Cycling has been a more corrupt sport even than baseball, though just like baseball it has gone a long way to cleaning itself up in the last decade. Again, as in baseball, there have been significant ramifications from doping. The careers of clean athletes have been cut short because of the cheaters. Peoples' livelihoods have suffered. In a sense, cycling has been a microcosm of the cheating mentality in the larger world.
However, we don't solve these problems by making Armstrong a pariah for the doping age in cycling just as Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are for the doping age in baseball. The significant difference is that nothing has been proven in the case of Armstrong, and the USADA has gone out of its way to subject him to these allegations without releasing any additional evidence. Did Lance cheat? Probably. And in the end it is no real justification that "everyone was doing it." But the burden of proof remains on the accusers, and unlike Peralta there is as yet no proof to speak of.
So what can we learn? Firstly, I wish it were simple enough to say "Don't cheat." You shouldn't, but you have to realize that on your own. The single greatest effect of cheating is that you are minimizing your own accomplishments; you are selling yourself short in a misguided attempt to look better than you are. If you are not proud enough of the true you to face an accurate reflection of yourself then you are already well along the dark path toward self-pity.
My advice is this: Don't sell yourself short by cutting corners. If you're a runner add a couple seconds to your total; don't take them off. If you're a fisherman don't add weight to your fish. If you're a student take pride in the grade you got, not the grade you deserved (they happen to be the same thing anyway). In this life you will have countless opportunities to puff up your chest and follow the "unwritten" rules. Don't. The harder road is the road more worth traveling, because the fruits of your labor on that road will always taste sweeter.
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