College: The place to learn how to be unethical

Two news stories today demonstrate how bad it's getting in US universities. The first is a survey of college student's attitudes about downloading music. The majority don't have a problem with it because they don't think they'll get caught. When asked about stealing outside of cyberspace they said they didn't do that because they think they'll get caught. Free Downloading Not Freeloading, College Students Say. So what we have here is the attitude that if you can get away with it then it's okay and if you're likely to get caught then don't do it. This is just another example of the erosion of the concepts of right and wrong, a goal announced in the late 1940's by the president of the World Federation of Mental Health. The field of education was one of the main areas targeted by the WFMH psychiatrists and as can be seen from this survey they've succeeded.

The other story is about "binge drinking" which is practiced by about 40% of college students: Study Links College Binge-Drinking to Marketing.

College is supposed to be where you go to learn the skills you need for your future career. It is supposed to be where our future leaders are educated. But it turns out that college is the place you go to learn how to get drunk and steal music off the Internet. Where you learn that "right" is what you can get away with and that "wrong" is getting caught.

Perhaps we should change the much used "God Bless America" to "God Help America."