Cheating: Chess, Candidacies, Career

The image above should say “Be Honest,” although I share the idea and importance of being kind. I just couldn’t find an image that said “Honesty Matters” or something to that effect. Attempt at a touch of humor here….

I want to talk about dishonesty. And, I also want to address why cheaters assume they won’t be caught…a revelatory insight I think into their superiority complex or their being out of touch with reality. Neither explanation is good.

Chess

Call me naive but I viewed chess like professional golf — competitive yes but replete with smart folks who play fair. I understand there may be cheating in golf outside the realm of pro players. But I don’t think Pro golfers cheat. Maybe there are exceptions. Maybe their clubs or balls are altered. Wouldn’t that happen only rarely?

Chess always struck me as high level competition but no cheating. Yet, a Romanian player was just exiled from a tournament in Spain. He was ranked in the top 40 in the world.

He was found to be, although not yet convicted by his home nation, using his cellphone during the match. Apparently, he took long breaks and went to the bathroom — and there, waiting for him, was his cellphone and some handwritten note the chess player himself had generated. A give away to be sure.

Now, I wasn’t born yesterday and using a bathroom break to cheat is pretty common in high schools. Students in my era left notes hidden in bathrooms and would go into stalls where test answers were located. Yes, happened in colleges and graduate programs too. Thus the presence of proctors.

Seriously, though, in today’s technology world, didn’t this professional chess player figure out he’d get caught? He can plan and anticipate chess moves way ahead but he couldn’t see that his long potty breaks might raise suspicions? My guess: he thought he was smarter than those overseeing match fairness. Seriously. He deemed himself too smart to be caught. Hold that thought.

Candidates and Candidacies

So, is there cheating by political candidates or within elections themselves (say ballot miscounting or ballot loss or ballot discarding)? I’d add, cheating with respect to both is possible.

Two current political candidates (T and V) (add in more if we count some of their supporters) assert there was cheating in 2020 and there will be cheating in the 2024 election. Of course, they aren’t speaking about whether they themselves cheat (to be sure, lying and cheating are not identical).

So by repeatedly challenging the legitimacy of elections and continuing to assert that there was cheating in 2020 (which accounts for why T lost) and if he loses in 2024 (it will because the Democrats cheated), we undermine trust in our storied right to vote in free elections. And sometimes, if you say something enough, the lie takes on an aura of truth.

Numerous courts have said the 2020 election was not rigged. And, as to 2024 with changing rules and outlandish efforts to curb votes that are Blue by those who are Red, it is too early to tell.

But, we do have reason to suspect that T and V and their minions are suppressing votes, challenging voting boxes as fraudulent receptacles and threatening violence for non-supporters. In other words, those alleging cheating are the actual cheaters.

I sense that there has been more cheating than we currently know with respect to the 2024 election. I could be wrong but I see the signs of cheating rearing their ugly heads. Foreign intervention, theft of information, online tinkering, hate mobs … try those as part of a starter list.

Why do candidates cheat you ask? Because they so want to win and consider themselves above the law. Yup. And they assume they won’t get caught. A good defense is an even better offense. Keep shouting cheating and folks will miss that the shouter is actually the cheater.

Let me add a point here about election cheating. It is easy to make the charge that others are cheating. There’s little risk. And it is hard for the non-cheaters to disprove the assertions.

That is not the case with chess cheating. And it doesn’t seem to be the case with plagiarism as described below. In both chess and plagiarism, the accused can fight back. And we tend not to make accusations in the latter two cases unless we have proof. And the proof isn’t hard to find. Disproving election cheating is a harder road to hoe. And we don’t demand that the accusers of voter fraud prove their allegations.

Career

So, people plagiarize to get degrees. People lie on their resumes. People spread false rumors about others to bolster their own capacities. Some people assert that they have licenses and certifications they don’t have.

There actually are pretend doctors and pretend dentists. I assume there are pretend ministers and pastors and pretend psychics. There might be fake counselors. There might be fake financial advisors and fake geriatric care specialists.

Surely, this fakery can be risky for those who pay the fakers. The payers could lose their money or their lives. But it seems particularly bad when there are fake data in scientific studies conducted by well (and less well) known academics. Yipes.

And plagiarizing the work of another is reprehensible within the academy (and elsewhere). For me, it is behavior that cannot be justified. It is reflective of failing to get what scholarship actually is. For me, integrity and creativity and new insights are a big part of quality scholarship.

I know one academic accused of plagiarism who co-wrote a subsequent article saying it wasn’t bad that he copied the words of another in an op-ed or opinion piece; the latter aren’t actually academic scholarship. Are you kidding me? And, this person proffered himself as an ethicist. I’m not kidding. Who actually believes such differentiations?

Yes, pre-Internet, it was harder to track liars and plagiarizers. But it isn’t now and we can go back in time and review work that once passed muster. What would justify the idea that one wouldn’t get caught? Thinking one is too smart for a computer to detect copied words? Thinking one is above the law and codes of conduct?

Bottom Line

Those who cheat — and sadly the list seems long — seem to share something beyond cheating in common: they don’t think they’ll be caught and add to that observation that they view themselves as exempt from the rules by which everyone else plays life’s game.

But, some forms of cheating and plagiarism are worse than others. Faking being a healthcare provider threatens the health of another. That’s bad. So is taking someone’s money. So is taking someone’s vote. So is taking someone’s work product.

Kids do tell lies. They get caught. Students take from Internet sources and claim it as their own. Sure, young folks need to learn and we help kids develop judgment.

But what about grown men and women who lie and cheat and plagiarize? Time to stop tolerating cheaters and liars and plagiarizers. They threaten some things that are essential to a civilized decent world: trust, safety and freedom. Read that again: we need a world filled with trust, safety and freedom.