Cheaters Often Prosper

Sharp lessons from youth stand out in my mind, a snap-shot reel of images that play out the crucial scenes from a formative moment.  Although I was only a small boy, I can remember the feeling of the chocolate bar in my pocket, flat and stiff, poking into my leg.  I can remember my mother's face, in the car, when she watched me start peeling back the foil wrapper.  And I most certainly remember her walking me down the checkout aisle of the grocery store I had stolen it from when she made me hand it back to the manager, who smiled at me from under a waxy, black mustache.  It was a stiff reprimand from my parents (my father had also been in the car) regarding the act of thievery, as evidenced by the clarity of the images that I recall.  But what if I had succeeded?  What if I had kept it in my pocket until I got home and opened it in secret?  What sort of reversed moral reinforcement would have imprinted itself?  My mother had, when I was young, often repeated the popular mantra "cheaters never prosper" and, given my own experiences with cheating, I was long led to believe her.

After all, we see the results of failed cheating on the news every evening.  Small time, comically stupid bandits are caught and their mug-shots displayed.  Politicians cheat on the wives in an attempt to appease the innate desire for expanding their genetic progeny, only to see their positions come under question.  Hell, some teachers these days even cheat FOR their students, and these are the folks that society employs to teach children not to cheat in the first place!  But these aren't the only cheaters out there.  They are, rather, those who got caught cheating.  They are, in a sense, those who failed to cheat well.

Doubtless, our society, at large, frowns upon cheating.  Most "professional" versions of it have penalties - ranging from mild to mortal - for those who are caught doing it.  But what is it, in the first place?  Most members of society in the so called "straight and narrow" would probably say that cheating is an act through which someone attempts to get something that they have not earned.  They might say that the cheater is trying to get something that they do not deserve.  Therefore, to properly discuss cheating, the nature of "earned" and "deserved" also require definition.  To "earn" something, as defined by this same, theoretical, good citizen, would be to perform the work required for it through public, majority approved social systems.  Obvious examples of "earning" are in abundant supply in the market economy around us, in the businesses and services that employ the larger portion of our population.  In the eyes of the social majority, people like bankers and carpenters and performers and waiters "deserve" the money they are paid.  They do what is asked of them, avoid actions contrary to those requirements, and are duly compensated.  As exposed cheaters are slowly filtered out of the system via the fine and imprisonment system, the society grows fitter and more efficient, each law-abiding citizen given a better slice of the fairly-earned pie as cheating is reduced on the whole.  Or is it?

Why does cheating fail to diminish in society despite strictures against it?  Shouldn't penalties against it have a socially selective effect on it, causing it to ultimately disappear?  I would argue that cheating's persistence in society reflects an underlying truth:  cheating is often profitable.

In fact, cheating is not in any way an act confined to humanity.  Examples of it abound in the natural world.  Eagles - often touted as the honorable hunters of the raptor world - are just as prone to use their size to scare off smaller birds of prey from kills that they want to steal.

Besides hunting and killing prey, eagles steal food from other birds. The tendency to pirate food led Benjamin Franklin to decide that eagles were birds of "bad moral character."  (http://www.fpl.com/environment/endangered/pdf/eagle.pdf)

In the case of a kill theft, the eagle neither stalks its prey nor wastes the valuable calories necessary to catch and kill it.  Simply scaring away a smaller raptor is easier and, from a natural point of view, more profitable.

Likewise does the the natural world have identity thieves.  The coral snake, for instance, is protected from predators by a potent venom - a fact advertised by its signature color pattern.

Coral snake

Conversely, the milk snake has no such venom but has, nonetheless, come to mimic the patterning of the coral snake in order to fool predators into thinking it a less desirable target.

Milk snake

In regard to snake mimicry, I recall a particularly interesting episode that occurred during my time working for the Bureau of Land Management in Montana.  While preparing for a river patrol one morning, the ranger I worked with called me aside.  He had cornered a prairie rattlesnake in a portion of the river embankment and it was coiled in defense, ready to strike, fiercely rattling it venomous warning.  My partner reaching toward the five foot snake, easily within its strike range, producing ape-like shrieks out of me as I attempted to stop him.  His resulting laughter brought me to an abrupt halt as he stretched the final length and tickled the rattler's tail.  Only, it wasn't a prairie rattlesnake, and there was no rattle there.  It was a bullsnake, a large but venom-free reptile that shares the rattler's habitat and, importantly, its predators.  The bullsnake's mimicry was amazing.  I watched as it opened its mouth with a circular rotation of the lower jaw and undulated its body in a moving coil, causing it to produce a vocal sound that was remarkably similar, if not identical, to the sound a rattlesnake's rattle makes.  The show had been good enough to fool me, a member of a the greatest species of predator on the planet.

So it is that two different species of snake that spend no caloric resources on venom production "cheat" their way to reaping its productive benefits.  But have no fear:  we primates find our way into the cheating game too, perhaps most notably in the realm of sexual relations.  For instance, chimpanzee troops are generally ruled by a dominant male.  Via his physical and social prowess the alpha male is able to secure sexual rights to all eligible, mature females within his troop.  This is a very good deal (for him) and he effectively maintains this situation as "law," physically punishing those males who transgress on his holdings.  However, the sexual drive - the purpose of living - is far too strong a current to resist.  Younger, weaker males are forced to cheat the system in order to have hopes of passing on their genetic package, so cheat they do.

Dandy is the youngest and lowest ranking of the four grown males.  The other three, and in particular the alpha male, do not tolerate any sexual intercourse between Dandy and the adult females.  Nevertheless, every now and again he does succeed in mating with them, after having made a "date."  When this happens the female and Dandy pretend to be walking in the same direction by chance, and if all goes well they meet behind a few tree trunks.  These "dates" take place after the exchange of a few glances and in some cases a brief nudge.

This kind of furtive mating is frequently associated with suppression and concealment.  I can remember the first time I noticed it very vividly indeed, because it was such a comical sight.  Dandy and a female were courting each other surreptitiously.  Dandy began to make advances to the female, while at the same time restlessly looking around to to see if any of the other males were watching.  Male chimpanzees start their advances by sitting with their legs wide apart revealing their erection.  Precisely at the point when Dandy was exhibiting his sexual urge in this way, Luit, one of the older males, unexpectedly came around the corner.  Dandy immediately dropped his hands over his penis, concealing it from view.  (Chimpanzee Politics:  Power and Sex Among Apes, Frans B. M. Waal, 2000)

What's clear in this example is that Dandy knows that he is cheating.  He is performing an action that he understands to be expressly forbidden, as evidenced by the manner in which he attempts to hide his actions when he is on the verge of getting discovered.  It is also clear, however, that Dandy is aware that he will profit if he is skilled enough to pull off the heist.

Cheating, then, with reflection on the natural world, can perhaps be seen in a light different from that in which we are often forced to view it.  Nobody accuses the eagle, nor the snake, nor the chimp, of moral impropriety.  There is no "right" nor "wrong" to consider.  Rather, the matter of concern is merely one of prowess:  are you skilled enough to get away with it?  The penalties can be severe - the eagle might be maimed by a smaller bird that he fails to intimidate; the disguised snake may well be eaten if his costume fails to fool; the amorous chimp will be beaten if caught, mid-elopement - but the profits reaped by the skilled cheater make the venture worthwhile.  The main difference between the successfully cheating human and the successfully cheating chimp is merely that the successfully cheating human is never caught on videotape.

Humans cheat every day in virtually every matter that it is possible to cheat in.  Those who aren't good at cheating get caught, just like those who aren't good at investing lose their money when they gamble in the stock market.  Both of these characters are likely to have their names publicized (especially if the investor is losing someone else's money!) but in regard to the good cheater and the good investor, only the latter's name will ever come to light.  You see, the skilled cheater is made so by dint of his skill at evasion:  its because he's good that you'll never hear of him.

Unless, of course, he wants to out himself.  My crimes (that I'm willing to speak of!) are not heinous and certainly some statute of limitations protects me from having my diploma revoked this late in the game...right?


I loathed 10th grade biology.  I did well in the class not because I enjoyed it but, rather, because I was studious and applied myself fully to learning what I needed to score highly on the exams and other graded work.  In that sense it wasn't really very different from the majority of my classes, most of which I found vastly less engaging than computer video games and science fiction novels.  I recall that biology class vividly though - like a series of snap-shots in a picture book - because it was there that I learned how to profit by cheating.

Our homework assignments for biology were exceptionally boring, rote work.  They involved answering questions with 5 to 10 line responses that explained some facet of the material we were studying.  I didn't enjoy them but I labored through them, nonetheless; the penalties for poor grades were a brand of socialized disappointment from my parents that I couldn't even fathom being on the receiving end of.  Besides, the answers were all in the textbook if only one took the time to read it.  However, one day, mid-semester, I noticed something strange.  The previous day's homework had been returned to us and the teacher was reviewing the answers for those who had gotten some wrong.  I had gotten full marks for the assignment but read along anyway.  As he read through the answers, however, I was surprised to find that I had actually answered one quite definitely wrong.  I reread my answer to make sure.  Yes, I positively had written about a biological process that had nothing to do with the one the question had asked about.  I glanced over at my table-mate's homework - an act I never performed because he wasn't nearly the student I was - and he had also gotten it wrong...but he had lost points for his error.

I was fascinated, truly, by the turn of events, this fracturing of the approved framework.  I had been rewarded for failure.  I'd simply never imagined that such a thing could be possible.  I recall my teachers round, bald head and his furry brown mustache, covering his lips, as he stood at a raised desk in front of the class, eyes on the homework sheet as he read the next question for review.  He wore a deep green polo shirt over his rotund frame and his arms were excessively hairy.  How could this man, this authority figure, have let this slip?

My fascination turned slowly to analysis as I examined my homework more closely.  No matter how many lines of response I had written, the approving red-ink check mark from my teacher appeared at the end of the first line, in the right margin.  As I scanned the sheet I saw that this was true of each answer, including the one I had gotten wrong.  I looked, again, to my table-mate's paper.  His was marked quite differently.  Not once was a mark made on the first line of any of his responses unless it was to correct spelling or cross out a clear mistake.  What made us different?  The answer was obvious to me:  I was an excellent student, as evidenced by my body of work over the course of the year, to this point.  He was rather the opposite.  Although I did not understand why at the time (it wasn't until I'd become a teacher myself that I would realize that the monotony of doing homework is trumped only by the monotony of having to grade it all), it was clear to me that my status as "good" student had caused my teacher to simply scan my homework, note its completeness, and mark it for full credit, in line with every other homework assignment I'd done that year.

My mind must have been rapidly making new connections that day, recording details at an increased clip.  I remember the lighting in the classroom was dim.  We had earlier been looking at diagrams on a projector and the teacher had forgotten to switch the main lights back on.  It was a revelation to me that some students were treated differently than others, so much so that it got me to thinking:  this wasn't just a difference; this was an advantage.  I had, in a sense, clout.  I had a disguise.  There was a reasonable expectation of me that I had not yet failed to live up to...and I had a lazy teacher who was quick to rely on the continuation of that situation.  Although I did not think of it in such terms at the time, I had a situation ripe for profitable, successful cheating, and all the formative, synapse rewiring that goes along with it.

So cheat I did.  I began to experiment a bit with short lines of gibberish in my answers (though never in the first line) until I was reasonably sure that it was, indeed, only the first line of each answer that the teacher bothered to look at.  Then I gambled the whole thing, almost sheerly out of curiosity with the project.  I did not even attempt to remotely answer any of the questions on an assignment.  I wrote the first line in such a way to suggest an introduction to an answer and followed with varied excerpts of pure gibberish.  I had always been good with words and language so stringing together sentence structures (subject, object, verb, etc.) with random words to form nonsensical (but structurally acceptable) sentences was an easy venture.  A question that would have taken me a minimum of 5 minutes (and as many as 15 if I had to combine ideas from different sections of a textbook chapter) was now taking me less than one minute, every time.  With a quick scan from my own eyes, short of actually reading it, everything on the assignment looked "correct," and day after day these gibberish-laden assignments came back as full credit.  I had found a loophole.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, no, I was not now failing the exams due to poor preparation.  Everything the homework covered was ultimately also covered by lecture, in class, so I just made sure to listen (a trick that would later allow me to get through college with a minimum of actual studying).  I was still getting the top grade possible and spending far less time in pursuit of it than I had before.  I remember one boy that sat behind me, upon seeing another full credit homework, ask "how do you do it?  You just love school work, huh?"  All I can remember of him is a singular image, leaning back in his chair, precariously balanced on the rear legs.  His wavy, brown hair fell in locks and covered up part of his eyes, matched only by the looseness of his nondescript, brown t-shirt which was draped over his medium frame with an air of nonchalance.  He was the class's biggest pot-smoker and an academic slacker of the highest proportions.  "You just love homework, huh?"  The taunt was soft-hearted.  He honestly was wondering if I did.  "No," I replied, "I don't love it, but I just do it anyway," which was only half a lie.

He didn't know that I was cheating.  The teacher didn't know I was cheating.  Nobody knew (well, until you read this, that is).  At the time I worried that what I was doing was "wrong," but since I really didn't seem to be hurting anyone else, I kept doing it.  Only much later did I start to see the act of cheating as what it really is:  a skill set.  The wise investor is a student of the markets and the companies that comprise it.  A good painter is a student of the landscapes he paints and the colors and shades that populate them.  A good cheater is also a student.  He is a student of social relationships, of system functions, of personalities and programs and possibilities.  In fact, the good cheater works no less hard than the "honest man", at least not in terms of time and thought invested.  If his overall effort is less, is it really a crime?  Or is he merely smarter - simply more efficient - than those who work harder for less?

In the end I squandered the advantage that successful cheating had won me.  I had, on any given night, easily 45 minutes of time to myself that I hadn't had before.  I could have learned guitar or read more books or written pointless, philosophical essays, but I was 15 years old and played more video games instead.  But I had "earned" the right to do so.  I "deserved" that time - and the continuation of my good grades in the class - because I worked to acquire it.  The fact that the work I did would not have been condoned by the powers-that-be has no role in the matter:  it still was work, and risky work at that.  To suggest that a certain path to success is morally invalid is like telling the snake that he shouldn't be allowed to mimic his cousins, or that the low-ranking chimp should accept his fate and resign to not passing along his genes:  its ignorant, self-deceived, circular thinking that doesn't get out of the box that it starts in, and from a socially selective point of view might even be a disadvantage.

As a high school teacher I often told my students "If you are going to cheat, make sure you are damn good at it.  You study and end up below the top and you probably still get at least a B.  You cheat and get caught and there is no consolation prize.  You go from A+ to F.  There is no second place for cheaters.  If you are going to cheat, you need to be excellent at it, just like you should aspire to be in all things you do.  A good cheater has to work really hard."  I have drawn the ire of many people for suggesting to students that cheating is potentially a valid path, but who is worse, he who tells an uncomfortable truth or he who covers it with an idealistic lie?  So long as there is a viable, reasonable profit margin that a cheater can take advantage of, cheating will never disappear from our society.

And we're happy with that.  We love movies and stories about charismatic cheaters and thieves that get away with their crimes.  We root for underdogs that buck the system.  Our leaders cheat.  Our pastors cheat.  Our friends cheat.  Don't believe me?  Just watch the news.  But don't go and follow their examples; they're the ones that aren't very good at it.


Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.

-Joyce Carol Oates