Twice in my life, I have been assigned essays which I could not honestly write, or perhaps I should say, write honestly. In my final year of high school, I was tasked with writing a paper defending either Bentham or Kant. We had spent a whole semester studying their opposing philosophies, and the final project was to explain one’s support for either Utilitarianism or the Categorical Imperative.
It was plain to me that they were both full of it. Now, between them, I had stronger sympathies for Kant, and so I tried to write the paper in his defense. The whole while, however, the glaring contradictions between Kant’s conclusions and my own moral intuitions were in such bitter a struggle that I could not complete the task. A defense of Utilitarianism was just as doomed and more so, for I do not know which is more idiotic, Bentham’s prose or his reasoning. Kant, though he could not write, could at least provide some food for thought.
In the end, I produced a halfhearted paper which tried to compromise the inane calculations of pleasure and pain with the Categorical Imperative. It was stupid, it deserved no points (though memory says I got a C), and I was disgusted with myself for writing it.
In more recent memory (a college course some years ago), I had an essay question on a test, and faced a similar conundrum: I was to defend one of multiple positions which we had discussed in class, of which not a one I empathized with. In fact, I thought the whole issue stupid, irrelevant, and boring. However, things were different this time around; I had resolved at this point in life not to lie, especially as it came to writing.
So, I wrote the truth as best I knew it, which is to say, I wrote an essay as to why the question was full of it. I received no points, though the professor added some idiotic note complementing me on a well written dissension. I say idiotic, for my professor’s note amounted to an admission that my position was valid while he punished me for not picking a valid position. I would have respected him if he had done one or the other, but I have no respect for cheats who try to have it both ways.
Now, I have made no bones about the fact that I am a practicing Christian, and the resolution I made regarding lying is more aptly this: I want to become a writer because I believe this the direction God is leading me, and so I will use the talents given me as if I fear a tally will be required at the end.
Once in my life, when asked to write something I didn’t believe, I tried compromise and felt soiled for it. The second time, I spoke honestly and got an F. I prefer the F.
* In the art of storytelling, what does integrity look like?
Tale Told 
No student deserves an F if the teacher doesn’t agree with the position the student has taken. An essay is successful and creditable if the protocols of argument and presentation were followed: thesis statement, argument 1, argument 2, argument 3, best argument, conclusion or statements positing that the opposing position has been discredited. Oh yeah, and pay attention to spelling and grammar. In my own case I always advised not to use that stupid semicolon in punctuation. Just start a new declaratory sentence. Add a few quotes in support of your position from respected authorities to footnote. I’d always boost that grade up a notch if the student had demonstrated a little research. By the way, in 34 years of high school teaching in history I never came upon a single teenager that could write a single word on Betham or Kant no matter how much lecture, readings assigned, discussion, research bibliography and course teaching I presented. Although I double-majored in history and religious studies, I’d have to do a quick 15 minute WIKI read to offer something of substance myself. I’d have to review Kant and the subject and I have never heard of Bentham.
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