is cheating justified?

[Climb01742]

ok, right up front i'll admit, as the jerk says, i have no clue what its really like to be a pro racer in europe. and i'm honestly not trying to judge whether they are right or wrong.

but what i do believe is wrong is asserting that cycling is a separate ethical universe.

here are two situations i do know about, first hand...

in junior year in high school i took chemistry. it was spring semester. i was failing chemistry. staring an F in the face. my teacher, guidance counselor and parents said an F would screw my chances of getting into a good college. so i better "buckle down". its hard to remember accurately how big of a deal it was to a 17 year old to get into a "good" college. folks made it seem like if you didn't, life as you knew it would end. kids were cheating on exams left and right. test papers were floating around everywhere. i was trying my *ss off to get chemistry. i was totally buckled down. but i was, and still am to this day, a total idiot about science in general, and chemistry in particular. i had an F written all over my future. so what did i do?

cut to present day. with two partners, i'm running a small business. 3 years old, about 35 people. if this business fails, i'm screwed. totally screwed. everything i have (except my bikes ) are tied up in this business. as any business person knows, and faces every day, there are tons of ways to cheat if you own a business. cook the books. over charge clients. subtly screw your employees out of salary or benefits. cut under the table deals with suppliers. get a shady accountant. as the talking heads said, when it comes to my life, my mortgage, my alimony payments, my daughters schooling, how this business turns out ain't no party, ain't no disco, ain't no foooling around. as literally as any pro's financial life is on the line, mine is too. so do i cheat?

look, i ain't noble, i ain't a saint. i've done stuff i ain't proud of. i'm not holding myself up as holier than thou. but my mother and father pounded two things into my ethical soul...you don't quit and you don't cheat. they were both children of the rural south in the depression. they grew up with less than nothing. you ain't seen poor till you've seen poor in the south in the 1930s. they lived walker evans photographs and james agee words. but they worked themselves, and thank heavens me, into the middle class. they did it the old fashioned way, the way millions of poor americans always have. hard, honest work.

growing up, i thought my folks were hard *sses. they were tough. today, and every day, i thank them for being so tough, so unyielding. you don't quit and you don't cheat. i got an F in chemistry. somehow i got into a good college, probably because they had a sense of humor and had a quota for serious under achievers. and my partners and i are running a honest business.

by living example, i was taught that if you don't earn something the right way, its just not worth it. that's how i try to live every day. again, i ain't bragging or nothing. i'm thankful. if my daughter comes to me someday, staring an F in the face, and says all the other kids in school are cheating, and wants to know if that makes cheating ok, i'll know what to tell her. not because i'm a brainiac, or a saint, but because i had good parents. if my daughter grows up without an ethical compass, it won't be your fault, or society's, or TV's, or the internet's, or her teachers, or politician's...i'll be mine.

you don't quit. and you don't cheat. thanks, mom and dad. and someday little sophie, you're welcome.

[Kevin]

Very well said.

Kevin

The CEO of the company I used to work for constantly reminded us that "It is not just what we do, but how we do it." Thanks for the ethical reminder!

Its not that pro cycling is an ethically seperate universe -- far from it. Its part of our culture, part of our shared moral sphere, what Aristotle termed *phronesis*...the shared community context for ethical judgment.

If you take EPO, you cheated. Full stop. However, I think the point some of us have tried to make is that the righteous finger-pointing is problematized by our participation in the cycling community. We buy the ****. We watch the Tour. We fan gossip about Lance, and Jan, and Tyler, and, if we're nuts enough, about Serge Baguet and Jurgen Van Goolen. Even if we just read VeloNews online now and then (we don't even buy it), or buy a Bontrager tube at our LBS, we participate in the cycling commodity culture which drives racing as a promotional tool, and which racing drives as a site for consumption and profit. Although reflexive-role distance for moral judgment *is* possible, in our case (as consumers and fans), it is not unproblematic, or as cut-and-dried as some would like it.

Yes, David Millar cheated. It was wrong. But as consumers of "competition" bicycles, we had a small part to play in this nasty little soap opera...in Marxian terms (to get down and dirty with my jargon), we're part of the ideological superstructure...and although that doesn't make judgment impossible, or erase guilt, it does complicate our speaking position...I think that's the main point jerk and i and I have been hammering away at.

[Climb01742]

point taken, good doctor. yes, in some way, we do participate in the ideological superstructure. to what extent, we can honestly debate without rancor. and to senor jerk's point, it is up to an athlete to choose to dope or not. we all have the free will to do right or wrong. but in most instances, we don't have the power to choose what is right or wrong. simply to make that choice openly and honestly, and then deal with the consequences. what i think would irk most all of the particpants in this discussion is for someone to choose to cheat, and then try to argue that it wasn't cheating. i am a true believer in free will, but free will isn't a blank check to rewrite ethics. to exercise our free will is to take responsibility for it. a lesson lost on almost every politician ever invented.

[shaq-d]

Originally Posted by Dr. Doofus

Its not that pro cycling is an ethically seperate universe -- far from it. Its part of our culture, part of our shared moral sphere, what Aristotle termed *phonesis*...the shared community context for ethical judgment.

oi.. phronesis!

sd

damn it, shaq, now I have to edit for spelling....

[flydhest]

climb,

For me, ethics and aesthetics overlap. Lots of people cheat and know they won't get caught . . . it's not the type of person I want to be and it's not what I want to see when I look in the mirror.

For me, though, it goes further, and here, in part, is where the aesthetics come in. I also don't want to be the guy who can win only because he's always working every angle and going up to the letter of the rules just so he can win. There's not rule in bike racing that says you don't attack the yellow jersey when he falls, but most would agree you're an ass if you do and I'm not the type of guy who would take advantage of it. It's just not my style.

For a lot of performance enhancers that aren't currently on the list of banned substances, is it cheating to take them??? I wouldn't do it, but by the rules it's not cheating . . . is it?

[slowgoing]

I don't think most of us face the same pressures to cheat as these racers. The real question is whether you would cheat if your high paying career would be completely over if you didn't, just so you cold compete against others who are no better than you but are doing better than you because they cheat (Lance being the exception, of course). Balance that against your ethics!

[Climb01742]

slowgoing, don't many people face that exact challenge in their jobs/careers if not on a daily basis, at least at a number of moments each year? the stage isn't as dramatic or public as cycling, but business is (sadly) rife with moments where employees are faced with hard, career-impacting ethical choices. the word "whistleblowers" was coined for the more extreme choices, but many smaller moments occur. i bet a legal career has many of its own, no?

[abqhudson]

Only in war. Never for your ego or comfort.

Jim

[flydhest]

an interesting thought came to me during this morning's stage. All the time, we see riders getting medical/mechanical/tactical aid from a team car and they are holding on for longer than the rules allow. The acceleration of the car while letting go, the drafting off the motorcade on the way back to the peloton. It's a right? I mean, those guys are cheaters according to the rules Where do we come down in evaluating these guys? There's no telling what would happen to their standings if they didn't do this. Having to chase back harder and longer could cost serious time in some stages. Seconds . . . minutes. Or else, the whole team would have to drop back to pull the guy back, again, potential for minutes of loss over the course of the race.

But, there is no real sentiment for cleaning up this aspect of the sport so maybe it isn't really cheating. Sure it's against the rules but everyone knows it happens and allows it to continue.

Is cheating every justified?

[e-RICHIE]

flydhest wrote:
"The acceleration of the car while letting go, the drafting off the motorcade on the way back to the peloton...."


how can you seperate this type of action from all the pushes by the fans given to some-but-not-all riders going through the mountain stages?
e-RICHIE

ps

Let's not get too pompous about this...I think if we really think hard we can think of plenty of instances where we have distorted truths and taken the the law to its limits or even beyond (not just in sport). Lawyers and politicians do it every day for gawdsake. As it has been quite rightly pointed out in a separate thread ...we are only human.
A

God…compared to most discussion boards I frequent (mostly geek sites like /. or Mac-specific sites), this board is more like being in Philadelphia in 1787 participating in debate on the Rights of Man!

No, I'm being sincere. For a board that you'd think would mostly appeal to hammerheads and/or sports freaks, the level of discussion here is often pretty sublime...

No wonder I'm here a couple of times a day.