I have the most vivid memory of seeing this movie in theaters back around Christmas 1992. If you haven't seen the whole thing, well, you simply must. But the context for this scene is fairly simple. A young man at a fancy prep school, on scholarship, had seen some rich kids vandalizing the Headmaster's car.
He is threatened with losing his scholarship if he doesn't rat them out, and is even offered the bribe of a guarantee to an Ivy League if he fesses up. Will he squeal? Will he sell his conscience to forward his worldly future?
I have spent many, many hours thinking this through. I have always been a supporter of the Honor Code. Yet I see a problem when such a system isn't about actual character, but rather about personal gain. Why we do something matters just as much, if not sometimes even more, than what we do.
"I don't know if Charlie's silence here today is right or wrong. I'm not a judge or jury, but I can tell you this. He won't sell anybody out to buy his future. And that, my friends, is called integrity. That's called courage. Now that's the stuff that leaders should be made of."
Lies and compromises of convenience don't make good men or good women. People are not disposable. We all know what the right path is, however hard it may be. Now we need only choose it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypx1Stz8zN0
Written on 12/24/1994
No comments:
Post a Comment