The Green caldron - University Library

December, 1957 3
the refusal to doublethink, by tightening the patterns of conformity and blindly
labeling all deviations as subversive or seditious, then a Room 101 will, in
time, arrive ; and a sterile world will no longer be troubled by nonconformists
who refuse to doublethink.
LAST
Honest? Of Course I Am
Anonymous
Rhetoric 101, Theme 1
SUMMER WHEN I WAS BEING INTERVIEWED FOR A
scholarship, the interviewer asked me if I considered myself to be an
honest person. I replied, "Yes," and thought a little indignantly,
of course I am. Does he suppose that I'm going to use the scholarship money
for something besides college?
I was correct in saying that I was honest in respect to the scholarship
money. I would have considered misusing it a crime. My definition of dis-
honesty included, among other things, any form of stealing. Actually, though,
if I or one of my friends had taken a package of chewing gum or some other
small insignificant item from the corner grocery, I probably would have made
a joke of it.
It appears that I wouldn't have applied my standard of dishonesty to my-
self or to my friends. This would have been especially true if the dishonest
act was committed on a dare or unthinkingly. That is, I wouldn't have ap-
plied it before I was caught in dishonesty myself.
I was employed last summer by a dairy company at the state fair. The
employees where I worked received their lunches free by merely going through
the kitchen and behind the counter to get the food. I had been eating in back
of the kitchen with a friend who was working at another part of the fair-
grounds. With the original intention of paying for it, I got his lunch at the
same time I got mine, so that he wouldn't have to wait in the long lines. How-
ever when I couldn't get to the cashier, I didn't pay. The third time this inci-
dent occurred the manager called me aside, stated that he had seen me, and
then fired me.
Of course my friends told me that everyone "stole" a milkshake now and
then, and that I just happened to get caught. Probably it seems ridiculous to
suffer a guilty conscience over a couple of pilfered milkshakes, but then most
people haven't been caught stealing. They haven't had their inflated opinions
of their honesty pricked, as I have.
When asked if they were honest, I wonder if these people could reply,
"Honest? Of course I am." I couldn't.