A Difference of Opinion

Cheating, Poverty, and the Foundations of Morality

The United States Medical Licensing Examination is a series of tests all medical doctors must pass to practice medicine. These tests, called Step Exams, are given throughout doctor’s training. Step one is issued during the second year of medical school, Step two during the third or fourth year, Step three during residency. Step one is a pass/ fail exam, most students pass (96% in 2023). Step two is scored and one of the primary metrics residency programs used for acceptance criteria. A high step 2 score can ensure you will be matched to a strong program. The stakes are high, after spending 20 years getting an education, failing, or scoring low on a step 2 exam can end your medical career before the big payoff. The USMLE issues this exam not only to all US medical students, but to international students who wish to practice medicine in the United States. They keep detailed records and announce regional averages every year.

A statical anomaly occurred in the Nepalese Step data. These students were excelling. Year after year the US medical students score at the top of the pile but in 2023 Nepalese students scored on average 15 points higher than US students. This put Nepalese students’ averages in the 96th percentile. These remarkable numbers prompted an investigation. The investigation showed proctors of the exam were selling the answers. The students, with some help from their medical schools, arranged into study groups to memorize the answers. This practice started a few years prior but by 2023 nearly every student in Nepal was cheating on their Step exams. The USMLE invalidated the exams from 832 test takers in Nepal. The newly minted doctors and medical students were outraged. They challenged the ruling in court, and they lost. Why did this phenomenon occur? Why was cheating so widespread in this country?

To answer these questions, we must explore the foundations of education in the far east. The ancient Chinese empires were highly stratified. Many eastern religions and philosophies spoke about the divine order of social status. The caste system in India lasted over 3,000 years. It laid out a social structure that was built upon a religious view of reincarnation. You were born into the rank your previous life deserved. Imperial China viewed its place in the world as the middle kingdom, halfway between heaven and the sullied earth. Their rulers were closer to heaven than the mere mortals born as peasants.

China introduced an interesting way to break free from the constraints of a low birth. The size of their vast empire demanded an army of educated bureaucrats. To fill these roles the empire allowed anyone to prove their worth by passing a civil service test “Subject Recommendation.” These were a series of intense exams, quizzing students on Chinese history, literacy, penmanship, philosophy, and the Chinese classics. If you could pass all of the exams up to the highest point of “Advanced Scholar” even a peasant could live as a lord. These were highly esteemed positions, as court advisors, bureaucrats, even regional governors. There was no other path for social advancement barring a taboo marriage or a political revolution. The cultural foundation of a formal education was the pursuit of social advancement, a tradition they spread throughout the region.

The history of western universities is quite different. Louis Pasteur once said, “The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. Science brings men nearer to God.” Christianity believes that to study creation is to study the creator. As far back as the 6^th century, Cathedral houses, ran by nuns or monks, educated the European elite and the clergy members. They taught mathematics, logic, philosophy, theology, astronomy, and grammar. In 1088 the University of Bologna opened its doors marking the birth of formal universities. Many of the oldest universities in Europe owe their existence to monastic orders, being converted Cathedral houses. These early universities taught the seven liberal arts, the trivium: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, and the quadrivium: Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music.

The religious origin of the west’s university systems has shaped our culture’s view on the purpose of education. Many of the first students took vows of poverty, dedicating themselves to the monastic order that taught them. Dedicating themselves to God and the study of his creation. Education was a good in and of itself. It has given us some characteristically western values, like a disdain for cheating. The purpose of an education is not to advance, but to learn the material. Cheating corrupts the very purpose of an education. Cheating does not bring you closer to understanding or knowing God.

What does cheating mean when education is merely a tool for social advancement? Getting a degree through less than honorable means brings you to the same station. Learning the material is secondary. This gives rise to a culture that does not view cheating as immoral. It does not corrupt the purpose of an education. Across modern US universities perplexed international students are reprimanded for cheating at many times the number of domestic students. In the world of higher research, China has the highest number of fraudulent scientific research papers redacted. In the world of business and technology, Chinese firms are accused of stealing billions of dollars’ worth of Intellectual Property.

To the western reader it seems nearly impossible medical schools would have organized study groups to cheat on important exams. At heart there is a metaphysical difference in world views. The basis of what an education is, is completely different. These metaphysical foundations are often ignored, but the differences make moral conversations nearly impossible. Explaining to the Nepalis students that cheating on an exam is immoral doesn’t translate, but we have these same disconnects at home.

American philosopher John Rawls invented a thought experiment. Imagine you were to be born in a society at random. You could end up as the poorest beggar, or the richest celebrity. If you could, how would you craft society before you were born into it? Would you make it a fair and equitable place? Would you demand high taxes for the wealthy and a robust set of social safety nets for the poor? What types of religious, ethical, and moral foundations would you want in that society? This thought experiment, dubbed The Viel of Ignorance, can be an interesting exercise justifying one’s own political and philosophical beliefs, but for some, it is a more literal world view.

That’s to say many on the political left truly believe who you are born to is random. As if your soul is plucked from the void and deposited into a newborn at anyplace in the world. They also believe that the soul is of the same quality as all the rest. I know many on the left will chafe at my use of the world soul, since many of them would call themselves atheist, but the implications of this belief demand the use of such language. This odd belief has led to some truly incredible contentions about the world.

The souls being of the same quality means that any disparity in the world has another cause. Tabula rasa, blank slate, is a theory that man is born in a default blank state. That all his faults and successes, his talents and his weaknesses are imprinted on him by his environment. Championed by Descartes, Hume, and Locke, this idea has become a bedrock principle for the modern left. This places all disparities on external causes. Poverty is a condition imposed randomly. Failing test scores is due to a shoddy underfunded education system. Nationalism or love of country is irrational because you could have just as easily been born in a different country. Crime is due to poverty, which is random, so punishing a man for a crime is cruel. It’s a perspective that views man as a passive actor in the world. Agency is stripped, he is but an object being acted upon. Moral judgements make little sense in this framework. A subjective morality takes hold. Every man’s action can be explained by an external source. If they can be explained they can be justified.

Blank slatism must ignore biology. In recent years the left has taken this idea to its extreme conclusion. Gender is just a social construct. I will ignore the semantic argument of sex verse gender because it is just a semantic argument, and because many on the left view sex as also a mutable characteristic. To say a man is really a woman is to say that the quality of a person is beyond their biology. That their body and soul are separate and unrelated. After all their soul was picked from the void and put into a random body, it would stand to reason occasionally this process would be in err and a “female” soul would be placed into a male body. It is why crossdresser has become something of a slur. They’re not crossdressing, they really are women.

Heritability of traits is a sinful concept to these blank slaters. In progressive circles you will often hear the basics of genetics referred to as eugenics. To say my daughter has similar features or personality traits to me, is viewed the same way as the forced sterilization and organized breeding programs of the early 20^th century. Of course, children do have similar traits to their parents, not just in appearance, but in temperament, in tastes in food and art, in intelligence and hobbies. Our DNA gives us predispositions towards behavior and interests. They are predispositions, not destiny written in stone, culture and discipline is needed for a bright young mind to become a scientist or doctor, but in groups these averages can be measured.

 My daughter’s DNA is very close to mine. Her children will share less of my DNA but still some, and her grandchildren more diluted still, but this family relationship will be much stronger than a family born on the other side of the world. It means that the people in my neighborhood in my town, in my state, in my country will be closer related to me than people across the globe. This simple logistical fact gives rise to the different ethnicities. Race then is simply a product of families living in relatively close proximity for countless generations. There is no moral component here. I am simply more closely related to people that have a less distant common ancestor to me. Those differences can be measured, they can cause group differences in appearance and behavior, even if those differences are not very large.

This is an immoral point of view from the progressive mind. I am making a claim that goes against their metaphysics. I am saying that you are not born randomly but you are born from certain patents. Who you are is the product of your family. This world view means all of those other claims about poverty, transsexualism, moral relativism, crime and punishment are also thrown into question. Poverty is not a random occurrence but a cumulation of your life’s choices. I was not lucky to be born into a peaceful society, my society was built by my family and by my ancestors to be peaceful. There is intentionality behind it all. There is agency behind it all. I could not be born anywhere else because my parents were of this place.

If I were to try explaining any of my ideas on crime, or poverty, or trans issues I would hit a brick wall with my progressive friends. It’s like explaining to these international students that cheating on the exam is wrong, our disagreement is on a more fundamental level. Without addressing this you cannot move forward.