Sadly, it speaks to the spirit of mendacity that seems to have erupted and enveloped our society, from politicians at the top to politicians at the bottom, and in so many other cultural forms An incident at Newton High School @1971 was my first collision with the outward effects of the sex and drug revolution of the '60s, the self-conscious repudiation of the judeo-christian moral and ethical imperative, our own 'French Revolution'. i discovered that a student of mine had plagiarized, her term paper, and for that her grade was 'F'. She would not graduate with that grade. Her mother stormed in and demanded an explanation. This woman was the mother of a childhood friend of one of my cousins. her son was presently earning a PhD at MIT in agricultural economics. in the fullness of her righteous indignation, she demanded an explanation for what i was doing. Interesting, eh? i remained calm and explained it to her. in the fullness of her wrath she hurled at me the lightning bolt of how dare i punish her daughter in such a way, when 'we all lie'. i told her i did not, my father and mother did not, and my sisters did not. thank god, she retreated, otherwise she may have exploded. but, the point was made, and we now live with the vanquishing of truth as a reflexive paradigm in our culture. i do not know how our parents did it, because i never remember being lectured about honesty. their lives were a witness to it, the most powerful of all didactic tools. i remember being surprised by a quiz in Latin, for which i was totally unprepared, in the 11th grade. i dutifully copied all the answers off the paper of Dennis Smith, the redoubtable resident latin scholar in our class, who never had a wrong answer. assured, I would be graded likewise, i sat there stewing in the fumes of the cauldron of the witches of endor. i stood up to hand my exam in, and, as in a dream, i returned to my seat and crossed out all the copied answers, preferring an 'F' to the handle of 'cheater', that i would not ever be able to escape from in the prism of my own mind and memory. what the above story in marashgirl's blog posting today does not capture is the immovable, unyielding principle that we reap what we sow. the grey light of expediency leads to the tunnel of darkness and the river of styx.
that is perfect, absolutely perfect.
ReplyDeleteSadly, it speaks to the spirit of mendacity that seems to have erupted and enveloped our society, from politicians at the top to politicians at the bottom, and in so many other cultural forms An incident at Newton High School @1971 was my first collision with the outward effects of the sex and drug revolution of the '60s, the self-conscious repudiation of the judeo-christian moral and ethical imperative, our own 'French Revolution'. i discovered that a student of mine had plagiarized, her term paper, and for that her grade was 'F'. She would not graduate with that grade. Her mother stormed in and demanded an explanation. This woman was the mother of a childhood friend of one of my cousins. her son was presently earning a PhD at MIT in agricultural economics. in the fullness of her righteous indignation, she demanded an explanation for what i was doing. Interesting, eh? i remained calm and explained it to her. in the fullness of her wrath she hurled at me the lightning bolt of how dare i punish her daughter in such a way, when 'we all lie'. i told her i did not, my father and mother did not, and my sisters did not. thank god, she retreated, otherwise she may have exploded. but, the point was made, and we now live with the vanquishing of truth as a reflexive paradigm in our culture. i do not know how our parents did it, because i never remember being lectured about honesty. their lives were a witness to it, the most powerful of all didactic tools. i remember being surprised by a quiz in Latin, for which i was totally unprepared, in the 11th grade. i dutifully copied all the answers off the paper of Dennis Smith, the redoubtable resident latin scholar in our class, who never had a wrong answer. assured, I would be graded likewise, i sat there stewing in the fumes of the cauldron of the witches of endor. i stood up to hand my exam in, and, as in a dream, i returned to my seat and crossed out all the copied answers, preferring an 'F' to the handle of 'cheater', that i would not ever be able to escape from in the prism of my own mind and memory. what the above story in marashgirl's blog posting today does not capture is the immovable, unyielding principle that we reap what we sow. the grey light of expediency leads to the tunnel of darkness and the river of styx.
This was supposed to be funny!
Deleteand it is funny, as my first line response underscored. however, the humor is drained once the context and implications are made.
Delete