Not so recently, an acquaintance mentioned that there are two ways one can hope to get a first class in an exam: i. word hard and do well, ii. pray hard that everyone else doesn't do so well. This struck me as being unusually hypocritical; being a physicist, I am quite certain he would accept the existence of God in no other areas of his life.

That aside, I think this is a damning verdict on the state of affairs in institutions of learning. The desire for personal excellence is now often mistaken for a desire to just do better than the others, leading to the usual petty competitiveness.

Selfishness will quite certainly be the product of this one-upmanship, although hypocrisy dictates that no one admits it as such. When a certain person refuses to release certain information (that he is not obliged to withhold and that will be of help to someone else), he will often take elaborate precaution to justify that he is merely upholding intellectual honesty. Why, after all, should someone benefit from the hard work of others?

Everyone nods, because this fiction is distinctly more respectable than fact, but no one bothers carrying out the above premise to its logical conclusion, which is to abstain from receiving any help from others at all. Ripping off, after all, is a matter of degrees, on one side of the spectrum, there is blatant plagiarism, on the other, there is (quite) respectable research. By the same logic, of course, helping build houses for the destitute in third world countries is equally condemnable, because, hey, they are benefitting from the fruits of your labour. Of course, this is often neglected because helping a poor man build a house does not threaten your social status, but helping your peer very well might.

One often finds that this is almost always more prevalent among the better educated possibly because: i. education allows one to justify one's flaws ii. as a class, they probably have more to lose.

So please, before you mouth off the next time about how you worked hard for it and how someone else should not benefit from your work, think about how hypocritical it really is. I really think I would have more respect for someone who openly admits to selfishness.