I have a love-hate relationship with The New York Times’ “Room for Debate” feature. I know the whole point is to present, in brief, conflicting points of view. It just riles me up. And this past week’s topic REALLY riled me up. “Is Honesty for Suckers?” . I think in our culture, at this time, it probably is. But that doesn’t mean I plan to become dishonest or I envy those who are. It just means I have resigned myself to foregoing some of the rewards that I have seen dishonest people reap for years. And I’m okay with that, as I am very fortunate in many ways, and I’d rather be myself (and live with myself) than go through life the way they do: rushing to grab every advantage, making and dropping “friends” along the way, unable to sustain loving, real relationships (funny how many of these folks seem to have dysfunctional personal lives). If that makes me a sucker, so be it. Honestly.
Middle Aged Rage 
I’m with you on this. Thing is, I think if honesty happens in small ways it will happen in big ones. I grew up in a world where we weren’t fussed about locking our doors at night, left our towels and clothes on the beach or in the changing sheds, and bought our newspapers from Honesty Boxes where you took your paper and dropped in the payment. Well, here we still see farmers selling fruit and veg that way, but the rest has gone. But is the percentage of honest people in the population really that much smaller, or is it that we live in societies that are increasingly fascinated by negativity, duplicity, and crime, so that’s what we get to hear most about?
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Good point! Although I do see higher tolerance for dishonesty in the workplace, such as colleagues baldly taking credit for other people’s ideas or work.
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Bad behaviour in the workplace is rife. The amount of undermining of colleagues, taking credit for others’ work, and being just plain two-faced is unbelievable. A while back I came to the grim conclusion that around 50% of people turn up to do their jobs, and the other 50% turn up to play petty politics. But then I wondered if maybe it has always been that way, but now it’s more out-in-the-open?
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You may be right!
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