Acts of Dishonesty

What does it mean to be honest? Honesty generally means truthful, sincere, or free of deceit; however, it can take other forms such as an honest mistake for example. A mistake with good intentions, though a mistake, an action with fault. Honor means high respect or privilege, so one can command honor through dishonesty, such as in the case of Dean Makepiece. Though the narrator of Old School blatantly steals a paper from another person, a clear violation of the Honor Code, he achieves a brief sense of honor from his peers as he discovers an honest portrayal of himself.

If asked what rules should a student follow, some of the first on anyone’s mind would be not to lie, cheat, plagiarize, or steal. That each students work will be exclusively his or hers unless a teacher instructs him or her to collaborate with others, to not give inappropriate assistance or take unfair advantage of the work or ideas of others. These seems like basic rules ingrained into all of us, they make up the core of being for students. These also happened to be plagiarized, cheated, and stolen from the Horace Mann Honor Code. Though no one would think that the rules stated were stolen, because they are what people understand and accept as truth. When the narrator first reads the story he honestly believes what he is reading is himself. “I went back to the beginning and read it again, slowly this time, feeling all the while as if my inmost vault had been smashed open and looted and every hidden thing spread out across these pages. From the very first sentence I was looking myself right in the face.” If what he is reading is how he truly feels, then it is hard to call his act of plagiarism a dishonest portrayal of himself. In that lies the ultimate paradox, t...

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...s doing a dishonest action. Though he and many others would believe he is not plagiarizing, but merely telling his truth, he still broke his Honor Code, he had committed plagiarism.

What are we left then, if a truth told by another is a lie from another. If every thought man could have has already been thought it seems as if plagiarism is inevitable. Through the quest of honor one is often subject to dishonesty. We are left with a motto veritas est prevalate, the truth will prevail. Whether he intended to or not the narrator was dishonest in his plagiarism of his story. Though there was a truth in the story, an honest portrayl of himself it was stolen. Through the act of his dishonesty he discovered himself, a prize worth more than a meeting with Hemmingway. “I didn’t have a lot of adjusting to do. These thoughts were my thoughts, this life my own.”