Ben Carson or Dartmouth College, the irony’s getting a little thick around here. Coughcough. UD‘s having trouble breathing.
One quick bit of advice from UD, by the way: In general, avoid the word integrity. People who use the word integrity seem to get themselves slapped down a lot. Find another word. Better yet, try to be honest about who you are and what your local culture is.
Carson’s majorly lifted book included cautionary tales about how important it is to have integrity, the way he has integrity, and how people who have integrity do not, for instance, plagiarize… Dartmouth College, which pretends to believe that people like this are chockablock with integrity, allowed some floating lamblike being from the religion department to offer not only a course designed for athletes about sports ethics (in the direct footsteps of America’s best-known sports ethicist, Jan Boxill) but a course featuring that most perfect of ed-tech devices, the clicker.
The clicker boasts all the advantages of today’s cutting-edge classroom devices:
1. It’s expensive to the student.
2. It’s so easy to cheat with that even students inclined toward honesty will be tempted to use it in that way.
3. It’s dehumanizing.
4. It allows lazy professors to avoid any interaction with students.
5. It has zero educational value.
I know you don’t want me to pile on, but the full name of the course was Sports, Ethics, and Religion. With Dartmouth rapidly becoming the nation’s epicenter of vile fraternities and cheating classrooms, UD recommends that it continue offering these classes as a smokescreen (rather in the way Bernard Madoff put himself on the board of trustees of an orthodox religious institution) but add to their names. Next semester: Sports, Ethics, Religion, and Patriotism. After that, Sports, Ethics, Religion, Patriotism, and … Integrity! Und so weiter.
Put Out More Flags. Put a Bird on It.
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UD thanks Dave.
January 9th, 2015 at 2:19PM
As a UNC alum, I’ve followed the whole disturbing thing pretty closely. A lot of people involved confuse “integrity” with “loyalty”…
January 9th, 2015 at 5:01PM
“Character” (in the common synecdotal sense of “good character”) is another word often used by those who feign having it, especially in sports. These are some of many “watch your wallet” word-signals.
I do wonder about the etymology of “integrity” and about the premises its use conceals. It suggests integration or wholeness, leading to thoughts about the possibility of a negative integrity for someone thoroughly evil, or nearly so. Examples readily suggest themselves. Perhaps one might read in to its common use a thought similar to the platonic notion that someone could not, knowingly,do wrong, however convincing that is. Perhaps the notion underlying the ordinary use of “integrity” is a similar, if subterranean, premise that self-integration leads to good actions.