Wasn't someone going to "return honor or integrity"

Yes. that means no more BJ's in the oval office. Read betwen the lines for clarity.

We pious folk are easily shocked....
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A lucky Ike bling bling pays and pays.
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Not only that, next month a $32 raise in SS check.  Wheeeeeeeeeee
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Praise FDR.
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"Mxxxxxx Mxxxxx
Soc.4xx&4xxs
Oct.20,2004
Extra Credit
(#4)

It was after reading Emile Durkheim’s theory of anomie that Robert Merton set out to expand upon the concept of anomie. Merton began by stating that there are two elements of social and cultural structure. The first structure is culturally assigned goals and aspirations (Merton, 1938: 225). These are the things that all individuals should want and expect out of life. Including success, money, material things, etc. The second aspect of the social structure defines the acceptable mode for achieving the goals and aspirations set by society (Merton, 1938:225). This is the appropriate way that people get what they want and expect out of life. Examples include obeying laws and societal norms, seeking an education and hard work. In order for society to maintain a normative function there must be a balance between aspirations and means in which to fulfill such aspirations (Merton, lecture notes). According to Merton balance would occur as long as the individual felt that he was achieving the culturally desired goal by conforming to the “institutionally accepted mode of doing so” (Merton: lecture notes). In other words, there must be an intrinsic payoff, an internal satisfaction that one is playing by the rules and there must also be an extrinsic payoff, achieving their goals. It is also important that the culturally desired goals be achievable by legitimate means for all social classes. If goals are not equally achievable through an accepted mode, then illegitimate means might be used to achieve the same goal. There often times is a disparity between goals and means. Too much emphasis is placed on the goal and not enough emphasis is placed on achieving it through acceptable means. For some citizens there is a lack of opportunity. This leads individuals to seek out the goal by whatever means necessary. According to Merton crime is bred through this process. Simply put, overemphasis on material success and lack of opportunity for such material success leads to crime.
To supplement his theory Merton developed five possible reactions to such a disparity between goals and means. The first and most common reaction is Conformity. An individual in this category accepts the goal together with the institutionalized means. A second possible reaction is Innovation. In this case the individual accepts the goals that society sets for him, while rejecting the institutionalized means. This is the type of individual who would turn to deviance or illegitimate means in order to reach the sought after goal. The third possible reaction is Ritualism. In this instance the goal is rejected because the individual does not believe it can be reached and legitimate means are selected. In the fourth reaction, Retreatism, both the goal and the means are rejected. Merton gives as examples such individuals as the mentally ill and defected, drug addicts, and alcoholics. Essentially, people who are in society, but do not take part in the functioning of society. The fifth and final possible reaction is Rebellion. Merton reserves rebellion for those individuals who due to frustration would elect to adopt a new social order in place of the old (Merton, 1938: 231).
Merton maintains several times that too much emphasis is placed on goals and not enough on achieving them legitimately. He uses the example of winning the game, not how the game was played. Merton contends that the lack of coordination between the two phases results in anomie. He states that one of societies main functions is to provide a basis for normal behavior and when it fails to do so “cultural chaos or anomie” ensues (Merton, 1938:231). Merton’s apparent solution is to balance the two components of social structure.

It was after reading Emile Durkheim’s theory of anomie that Robert Merton set out to expand upon the concept of anomie.  Merton began by stating that there are two elements of social and cultural structure.  The first structure is culturally assigned goals and aspirations (Merton, 1938: 672).  These are the things that all individuals should want and expect out of life.  Including success, money, material things, etc.  The second aspect of the social structure defines the acceptable mode for achieving the goals and aspirations set by society (Merton, 1938:673).  This is the appropriate way that people get what they want and expect out of life.  Examples include obeying laws and societal norms, seeking an education and hard work.  In order for society to maintain a normative function there must be a balance between aspirations and means in which to fulfill such aspirations (Merton, 1938:673-674).  According to Merton balance would occur as long as the individual felt that he was achieving the culturally desired goal by conforming to the “institutionally accepted mode of doing so” (Merton: 1938:674). In other words, there must be an intrinsic payoff, an internal satisfaction that one is playing by the rules and there must also be an extrinsic payoff, achieving their goals.  It is also important that the culturally desired goals be achievable by legitimate means for all social classes.  If goals are not equally achievable through an accepted mode, then illegitimate means might be used to achieve the same goal.  There often times is a disparity between goals and means.  Too much emphasis is placed on the goal and not enough emphasis is placed on achieving it through acceptable means.  For some citizens there is a lack of opportunity.  This leads individuals to seek out the goal by whatever means necessary.  According to Merton crime is bred through this process.  Simply put, overemphasis on material success and lack of opportunity for such material success leads to crime.

To supplement his theory Merton developed five possible reactions to such a disparity between goals and means.  The first and most common reaction is Conformity.  An individual in this category accepts the goal together with the institutionalized means.  A second possible reaction is Innovation.  In this case the individual accepts the goals that society sets for him, while rejecting the institutionalized means.  This is the type of individual who would turn to deviance or illegitimate means in order to reach the sought after goal.  The third possible reaction is Ritualism. In this instance the goal is rejected because the individual does not believe it can be reached and legitimate means are selected.  In the fourth reaction, Retreatism, both the goal and the means are rejected.  Merton gives as examples such individuals as the mentally ill and defected, drug addicts, and alcoholics.  Essentially, people who are in society, but do not take part in the functioning of society.  The fifth and final possible reaction is Rebellion. Merton reserves rebellion for those individuals who due to frustration would elect to adopt a new social order in place of the old  (Merton, 1938: 678).

Merton maintains several times that too much emphasis is placed on goals and not enough on achieving them legitimately.  He uses the example of winning the game, not how the game was played. Merton contends that the lack of coordination between the two phases results in anomie.  He states that one of societies main functions is to provide a basis for normal behavior and when it fails to do so “cultural chaos or anomie” ensues (Merton, 1938:682).  Merton’s apparent solution is to balance the two components of social structure.

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/merton.htm

Kids got it made these days. We used to have to copy that stuff by hand.

Kids got it made these days.  We used to have to copy that stuff by hand.
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At least, that would require some effort. What is the thought-process that allows someone to do what the student did? Especially given that the plagiarism policy is right there on their syllabus (highlighted and all that), and I give a long sermon on it at the beginning of the class, and repeat it before their final.

I am sort of baffled. Egregious and repeated.
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What the student turned in:

That student has a fine sense of irony.

Evidently you must not have offered her an equal opportuity to compete, so she was forced to cheat. 
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Would steroids help?  Or how about some meth to help the student stay up and study?
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What the student turned in:
Where she lifted it from:
Margaret Evans

Maybe we get politicians with the same values as some members of the citizenry?

If anyone's interested, I will provide you with the text of the student's final essays and the text and URL of the sources from which the student verbatim cut-and-pasted them. To add to the irony, the student thanked me for my patience and understanding (of her absences, due to the student's child's illness and brief hospitalization) in the e-mail to which the student's final essays were attached.
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What the student turned in:
Where she lifted it from:
Margaret Evans

Maybe we get politicians with the same values as some members of the citizenry?

If anyone's interested, I will provide you with the text of the student's final essays and the text and URL of the sources from which the student verbatim cut-and-pasted them. To add to the irony, the student thanked me for my patience and understanding (of her absences, due to the student's child's illness and brief hospitalization) in the e-mail to which the student's final essays were attached.
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At least, that would require some effort. What is the thought-process that allows someone to do what the student did? Especially given that the plagiarism policy is right there on their syllabus (highlighted and all that), and I give a long sermon on it at the beginning of the class, and repeat it before their final.

I am sort of baffled. Egregious and repeated.
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I was kidding about the copying.  Teachers could easly tell, based on a student's performance whether the wrote something or not.  Classic Comics, however were one shortcut for book reports.  You could do a pretty good job, and not have to read an entire book.

I think some of this lack of ethics was covered in the Barry Bonds thread. In some circles cheaters have become folk heroes.  I ran across a site the other day that had thousands of pre-written term papers and more, for pay.

Isn't  it what "society" will accept that become the mores of a given group?
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Final question #8

Flax is concerned both about how women do, will, and should enter the flow of intellectual traffic and how that flow, including its roads and destinations, will change as a result. In the book, this issue is as clear as any in traditional philosophy, all of Flax’s questions, caveats, precautions, and stipulations notwithstanding. In fact, the clarity of her presentation of particularly complicated issues of politics and knowledge is one way that Flax’s view can help produce change.
Essential to all Enlightenment beliefs is the existence of something called a "self," a stable, reliable, integrative entity that has access to our inner states and outer reality, at least to a limited (but knowable) degree. Enlightenment met narrative also provides a privileged place for science and philosophy (especially epistemology) as forms of knowledge. If philosophy loses its privilege in relation to knowledge and truth, then the legitimacy of the philosophers rule over this terrain is also necessarily called into question. The Enlightenment is used here to refer to that period of the eighteenth century where, perhaps, the modern idea of individual human rights got its start in Europe. Most of those now writing and thinking in public, professional books and journals were educated through an assumed acceptance of Enlightenment thinking, as filtered through American individualism. Most believed in both the stability and the sovereignty of “self." (Freud's well known description: "His Majesty, the Ego, the hero alike of every day-dream and every story"). Attached to this zone of certainty is the unquestioned respect for science as the ultimate protector of the health and welfare of individual selves, a respect invoked by Freud to help authorize what he knew in his own work would be perceived as different from traditional science. Epistemology is essential because it provides long lists of reasons and justifications for the reliability of scientific knowledge. Philosophy, the "parent" discipline of epistemology, as Flax describes, is said to "rule" over the rules of knowing. What Flax does not discuss at length, but I nevertheless clear from the variety of sources she cites, is that members of the professions of science and philosophy are the living, active rulers of the "kingdom" of science. They do finally direct all the traffic by acting as "traffic cops," ruling on which questions are to be answered, which researched, which discarded, as well as on which persons shall be permitted to raise, answer, and research questions to begin with. While offering no population statistics herself, Flax describes the discipline of philosophy as tied to an identifiable set of values that have been traditionally studied, promoted, praised, and regulated almost exclusively by men since these values became prominent in the eighteenth century. Flax states clearly that her view  is directed toward "creating conversations between feminists, psychoanalysts, and postmodernists" to show that even "postmodern narratives" have "narrow" limits and "constricting" boundaries, and therefore, these narratives are, if understood in isolation, inadequate "alternatives to traditional philosophic practice"
An unemphasized term in Flax's argument, but one which appears in many, perhaps most, feminist discussions, is "experience." This term is used to put the historical lived experience of women as a class on the table for examination and discussion. In addition, and equally important, this term points almost as much to the absence of men's lived experience as a welcome ground for philosophical reflection.

While zones of scholarly activity have been singled out and localized by the internal coherence of the list of works discussed and cited, Flax is concerned both about how women do, will, and should enter the flow of intellectual traffic and how that flow, including its roads and destinations, will change as a result. In the book, this issue is as clear as any in traditional philosophy, all of Flaxs questions, caveats, precautions, and stipulations notwithstanding. In fact, the clarity of her presentation of particularly complicated issues of politics and knowledge is one way that Flaxs book can help produce change.

The question of the status of philosophy is in her book one issue among many, but as in many other works of comparable richness, any one issue can be viewed metonymically, temporarily announcing itself as well as other issues related to it.

Essential to all Enlightenment beliefs is the existence of something called a "self," a stable, reliable, integrative entity that has access to our inner states and outer reality, at least to a limited (but knowable) degree. Enlightenment metanarrative also provides a privileged place for science and philosophy (especially epistemology) as forms of knowledge. If philosophy loses its privilege in relation to knowledge and truth, then the legitimacy of the philosophers rule over this terrain is also necessarily called into question. (8)
The Enlightenment is used here to refer to that period of the eighteenth century where, perhaps, the modern idea of individual human rights got its start in Europe. Most of us now writing and thinking in public, professional books and journals were educated through an assumed acceptance of Enlightenment thinking, as filtered through American, or Western, individualism. We believed in both the stability and the sovereignty of our "selves." (Freud's well known description: "His Majesty, the Ego, the hero alike of every day-dream and every story"[150]). Attached to this zone of certainty is the unquestioned respect for science as the ultimate protector of the health and welfare of individual selves, a respect invoked by Freud to help authorize what he knew in his own work would be perceived as different from traditional science. Epistemology is essential because it provides long lists of reasons and justifications for the reliability of scientific knowledge. Philosophy, the "parent" discipline of epistemology, as Flax describes, is said to "rule" over the rules of knowing. What Flax does not discuss at length, but I nevertheless clear from the variety of sources she cites, is that members of the professions of science and philosophy are the living, active rulers of the "kingdom" of science. They do finally direct all the traffic by acting as "traffic cops," ruling on which questions are to be answered, which researched, which discarded, as well as on which persons shall be permitted to raise, answer, and research questions to begin with. To get more specific: there are fifteen members of the philosophy department at the University of Rochester, five of whom are Emeritus; one of those fifteen is female. While offering no population statistics herself, Flaxs book adds to the other books which do give such statistics in the academy: she describes the discipline of philosophy as tied to an identifiable set of values that have been traditionally studied, promoted, praised, and regulated almost exclusively by men since these values became prominent in the eighteenth century. Flax states clearly that her book is directed toward "creating conversations between feminists, psychoanalysts, and postmodernists" to show that even "postmodern narratives" have "narrow" limits and "constricting" boundaries, and therefore, these narratives are, if understood in isolation, inadequate "alternatives to traditional philosophic practice" (11).
An unemphasized term in Flax's argument, but one which appears in many, perhaps most, feminist discussions, is "experience." This term is used to put the historical lived experience of women as a class on the table for examination and discussion. In addition, and equally important, this term points almost as much to the absence of men's lived experience as a welcome ground for philosophical reflection.

http://jac.gsu.edu/jac/13.1/Articles/8.htm

So you have to fail the student, right? Unless his/her other grades will make up for it.
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What the student turned in:
Where she lifted it from:
Margaret Evans

Maybe we get politicians with the same values as some members of the citizenry?

If anyone's interested, I will provide you with the text of the student's final essays and the text and URL of the sources from which the student verbatim cut-and-pasted them. To add to the irony, the student thanked me for my patience and understanding (of her absences, due to the student's child's illness and brief hospitalization) in the e-mail to which the student's final essays were attached.
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The student's first final essay:
The source:
Feminist Philosophy and Some Humanists Attitudes Toward the Teaching of Writing, JAC 13.1 (1993), Guest Editor: Thomas Kent , by David Bleich
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You ought to give her a plagerized grade. Tell her in person she got an A for the great work and let her find out later what she really got.
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ouch
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So you have to fail the student, right? Unless his/her other grades will make up for it.
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Since it is egregious and repeated, the student will get an F, and the student is liable to be reported to the competent University authorities for further discipline.
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Professor No Excuses; No Apologies li'l bart

okee dokee
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It's cheating, davey-do. Flaming, blatant, in spades, gross thievery and cheating. She's out of the game. Lucky not to be expelled from the university although it ought be considered. Academic probation at best.

Yep. I agree. I wasn't thinking about that. Duhhhh. I am the victim of the liberal media elite, the cultural wasteland filled with inappropriate metaphors and unacceptable behavior.

I blame Fox channel.
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Yep. I agree. I wasn't thinking about that. Duhhhh. I am the victim of the liberal media elite, the cultural wasteland filled with inappropriate metaphors and unacceptable behavior.

I blame Fox channel.
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Heh heh!

I am trying to put my left-libertarian principles to work, and avoid involving the local Sovereign. The student's name, as well as copies of the documentation will find themselves in the hands of all Theory profs in the Department. The student will have to redeem himself/herself the old-fashioned way, by doing pennance.
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Fuzzy thinking wasn't your fault. You been had. 
I am trying to put code of honesty and honor principles to work.

But you're not too mushy on most things. So -- allow me the temerity -- are academic standards & attitudes around this so generally ambiguous that it must be much sorted through?

To me (and I'm not in the system) the response had written itself long before this crime was done.  I would not have expected anything less when I was (as a student in the system).
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NOTE: I will NOT tolerate academic dishonesty (cheating, plagiarizing, etc). The minimum penalty for confirmed academic dishonesty will be a grade of ZERO for the assignment in question. Egregious or repeated offenses may result in a grade of F for the class and/or University disciplinary action referral.

Here's it is from the syllabus of the class in question:


The student will get an F, no question about that. The only question was/is about whether "University disciplinary action referral" will ensue.
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The student will get an F, no question about that. The only question was/is about whether "University disciplinary action referral" will ensue.
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My immediate reaction, for what it is worth, is that you're too easy. But I am rigid, harsh and fast about this. I am not sure I would "loosen up" were it my actual purview. And from what I have read, plagiarism is much more common now, not less (if only in that the world wide web has made it so easy, as Bart joked above).

I just don't think there is room for wobbliness here.

But the other factor that I remember also from my own scholastic days is that most students cannot compose a paragraph much less a paper. Maybe that is not true where you are. It was largely true where I was. I doubt the k-12 schools are teaching reading and writing any better than they used to, and broadcast is the dominant media.

Carry on. 
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Metanoia, a Greek word meaning a change of mind. A radical revision and transformation of our whole mental process. That change of mind is something whereby God takes center place in our consciousness, in our awareness, and in our minds.

Metanoia means a new mind. About what? About who we are. ...If tonight you're hearing with your heart, it's time for metanoia. It's time for a new mind about yourself and about life.

Metanoia is the idea of the need for conversion. And this is then recognizing that we don't know, truthfully don't know, God and truthfully don't feel ourselves as God intends us to.

We really need metanoia, which is allowing the grace of God to enter into our lives and teach us how to see ourselves and how to come to the true self.

When the authors wrote in Greek about what Jesus really said, they all agree that he preached metanoia. ...one idea is conversion or transformation. Change of heart and, literally, change of mind. "The kingdom of God is at hand," he says, meaning it's at arm's length. But in order for you to grasp it, you have to be able to undergo something like this: a conversion and transformation and change of heart and mind

Metanoia is a new-minded way of looking at life.

And, in the broader sense, contrition involves a change of mind. And that is really what is meant by the Greek word, "metanoia," whereby we start thinking anew about everything.

lil bart, my own schooling was "Gymnasium"-style back in Greece, and rather strict in terms of academic honor in college and grad school. I also know the value of "teaching moments". The student will get the "F" he/she has more than earned. If I or another Theory prof can get the "metanoia" (I can't remember the English term, "repentance" I think, which doesn't QUITE translate it) process in a manner which is more decentralized and personal, I think it will be better than a formal disciplinary process.

My female colleagues are of your persuasion. I respect your position.
Metanoia
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And I get a learning experience out of the deal, too. 
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At least, that would require some effort. What is the thought-process that allows someone to do what the student did? Especially given that the plagiarism policy is right there on their syllabus (highlighted and all that), and I give a long sermon on it at the beginning of the class, and repeat it before their final.

I am sort of baffled. Egregious and repeated.
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Flexible morality
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It's cheating, davey-do. Flaming, blatant, in spades, gross thievery and cheating. She's out of the game. Lucky not to be expelled from the university although it ought be considered. Academic probation at best.

Kriminey.
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