t a mime? A diploma or a lie written on embossed paper? A ballplayer or a chemistry experiment? Hard to say.ö
Pitts maintains that in the wake of a growing acceptance of cheating or artifice, it is difficult to tell the truth from the fake these days. Pitts supports this claim by revealing a number of infamous incidents to provide his point and to convince his audience. While I agree with PittsÆ contention that there is a growing acceptance of cheating in American society, I donÆt believe cheating is a new social phenomenon. Yet I disagree with Pitts in some aspects of his claim, like when he says cheating is not considered a bad thing. We can see how people are always making choices to satisfy their own desires without regard for the legality of their action, morals, ethics or the impact of their behavior on others. If people benefit from cheating, then it will be an ordinary course of behavior for them to do so. Pitts (Para 9) provides an example of this when he reveals a student said ôCheating is almost not wrong.ö
PeopleÆs inability to accept defeat often prompts them to cheat in American society. People work tirelessly to find new ways of cheating and to avoid losing what they desire. Some of these ways are legal and some are unethical or immoral. When they act illegally, individuals often examine the law and then look for gaps or loopholes in which they can subvert the law to their own aims. This makes me disagree with the writer that peopleÆs bad behaviors are not the most significant reason for the increase in acceptance of cheating. The writer does make a valid point when he says ôYou could no longer automatically assume that people would understand cheating to be a bad thingö (Pitts, Para 9). We often see this in the example of many modern corporate CEOs convicted of illegal and unethical behavior in the name of self-profit.
In the main, however, I feel the examples provided by Pitts are not ...