There are so many things we gather up as if we are here to collect things (cars, books, stacks - $, people, degrees, titles etc...), but knowledge for the sake of knowledge should not be one of them. We seem to be becoming more and more about how things look than about the substance of what things are. I have been noticing that people are putting up facades and not real work, and feeling accomplished in it. This leads me to challenge my fellow humans, do we embody the work we do?
I first confronted this in myself because I noticed that many people can parrot the pastor or even recite the words of the Bible, but it doesn't seem digested. I am not even measuring this by the whole book. I am measuring it by the words of seeming conviction that they speak. If it is someone close to me, I ask. If it isn't, I pray. I am concerned about how we don't seem to live our convictions and how people are hurt and dismayed about God as a result. All of this lead me to deal with myself about my integrity, not the moralistic kind so many want to measure themselves against sometimes in bad faith, I am speaking of the "am I who I say I am?" kind.
I am thankful for anyone who is truthful, even if their truth turns my stomach. In the last 5 or so years, I saw a video of a friend of our former president talking about how he takes advantage of other people's failures in business in building his wealth. He spoke about how he feels that book smart people who refuse to cheat or allow someone to use them to cheat will never get anywhere. He says that the actually smart people (by his definition) don't do the work, they hire the book smart people to do it. I get it, making your money while you lay on the beach or whatever. If I can find it again, I will link that video here.
This concept is also found as a thread in the American history of capitalism as is well documented in A People's History of the United States. Some are proud to be stacking cash by any means necessary, the more exploitive the better, apparently thinking, "as long as it is not me or mine being exploited". This toxic version of capitalism is constantly unchecked and wielding outsized influence. Because they are being made to pay their fair share, power and influence should not come with it (crony capitalism). Then there is the kind that has always been able to take advantage of another person's bad fortune (vulture capitalism). I am sure there has to be something out of balance in those we see who stop doing the work which is why these more toxic forms exist. Maybe if the lawyers who advised them in such treachery lost their licenses to practice, that may help. For whatever people have to say about some wealthy people, some are still doing the work, especially the personal growth work. I believe there are ethical ways to build and have wealth, a conversation for another blog. If you are wondering about how this ties into embodying the work, cheating undermines the quality of what we produce and getting degrees and letters is driven by the bag chasing many do by any means necessary because of toxic capitalism.
In the last 10 or so years is when I started to become aware of people who claimed to have masters and doctorate degrees who did not embody the work. They seemed to have letters and degrees in name only. I literally would bump into it. I would take people's credentials at face value only to discover that who they were being was not what the paper denoted. For the longest time I was confounded by this, then I learned more. Prior to that, people embodied their research.
When I stopped being shocked by the incongruency of the performance and the letters behind their names, I started to deduce the possibilities that account for this. I thought, okay, they may not have gone to a top school that required scholastic rigor. Maybe they squeaked by at an adequate school. I mulled over so many possibilities only to discover what I call the rot in our industries - people who cheat their way into opportunities. Before I get too far into this discussion, I must distinguish between people who cheat that can actually do the work themselves and those who cheat just to have power but none of the actual authority that doing the work provides.
The academic violation that cheating is for them is not the issue I am attempting to highlight in this writing. The only sand they throw into the machine of industry is the character flaw potential of encouraging others to cut ethical corners. Some years ago, I did a talk and touched on how cutting corners often comes back to cut people. It is between them and those who certify their education/training to deal with actual cheating. I wonder if cheating gets you kicked out of all reputable institutions like it did in the 80s? It was a high crime in higher education when I was in it.
Some years back, I became aware that people were paying people to write papers and take tests for them. Now I am aware that people are paying people to sit in on class for them and complete assignments for them, called "ghost students". I understand that this is another way that people who don't have to work for their money influence the average person. We wink and turn a blind eye to the ways the wealthy get to cheat those who compete against them or their students. Remember what I said earlier about what is the effect on people who don't do the work? What do you think becomes the affect on society overall? What happens to the average quality of our solutions and production, mediocre at best? Mediocre is as mediocre does.
I also mean to appreciate the lab-type of innovative processes I see that not being filled with "this is how it's always been done" provides. As someone who did not gotten on the treadmill of school debt for advanced degrees initially because I didn't want to be someone who has blood all over my contributions. That may seem like hyperbole, but what do people think they are dishing with their unexamined and unresolved childhood issues running the show? I saw the wisdom in healing thereby enabling myself to bring my best and accountable self to things, ending the performance robot I was on the greased slide to being. I heard Dave Chappelle and Naomi Campbell talk about the mental health crisis that is coming at the end of this chat that they had. It may be coming to them soon, but it is already here and has been here since Reagan cut federal mental health funding. Have we thought of what impact it has had on our industry and society in general to have people who have little to no connection to their humanity captaining industry?
I wonder if the majority of people who cheat do so because of an emotional or mental crisis that has gone unexamined, nonetheless untreated? When I consider that many advanced degrees require research and less test taking, who is really getting the degree, the one paying for it, or the one sitting in class? I say the one sitting in class although the person who paid gets to walk through many doors with that paper.
According to what I have gleaned from observing, people even seem to value people more just because they have that paper/letters behind their name. What about the many people who have it but not the formal education? What if the person has the letters but they are a farce? I can tell a person hasn't done their own work because they lack the skills and language that someone who has done the work would have. Having people in positions who haven't done the work or have subpar educations is causing the rot that this country is experiencing. We need to value education and educators. We need to move education from being an extension of industry only to a visionary opportunity for personal enlightenment.
A fish really does rot from its head.
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