<p>An honor code is fixed, static, a set of tables chiseled in stone. Both its implementation and its enforcement are based on fear, fear of getting caught and fear of not turning in a classmate. A simple black and white program. The only variable is how the board will view each offense. The question is does someone under an honor code learn anything for the future when they are no longer bound by the code or are they simply presently reacting from pure fear with no guarantee of future performance?</p>
<p>However, an honor concept is a living breathing entity. Everything in the environment affects it, causing it to ebb and flow. When the affirmative response to “Are you lying to me?” can range from a simple reprimand of “Don’t ever do it again” to a recommendation of expulsion places quite a responsibility on those who chose to enforce honor. What can affect the diversity of these responses? The perceived seriousness of the offense of course but also many other things. For example, if the honor board is too zealous and too strict, it will probably decrease the number of honor offenses which reach it. Does this mean there is no enforcement of honor? Of course not. It is just administered at a different level. Why should the administration encourage honor enforcement at the honor board level? Standardization, of course. An equitable enforcement of honor is one of the things which will cause a mature system.</p>
<p>For someone to want to return to the honor system of 30 years ago or for someone who graduated 20 or so years ago to bemoan the present system demonstrates a true naivety as to how things really were. The honor system was basically a crutch for a lazy academic dept who didn’t want to make multiple tests. There was no honor committee, no Saturday morning PMT, no Ethics Dept. The concept of honor was, and remained, what each individual Midshipmen brought to USNA on I-Day. Most infractions were handled informally. The honor concept taught deception, how to “ethically” get around something. Mids were probably no more, or no less honorable than today. However, I would vouch that today’s officer-to-be is, through education, much more sophisticated than those of 20 or 30 years ago.</p>
<p>A living breathing organism will continue to ebb and flow. The pendulum will continue to swing. Sometimes, the administration of honor will be more lenient than some like, sometimes more strict. Sometimes the administrative department will be more active than some like, sometimes less. Sometimes the Brigade honor committee will be given a loose rein, sometimes they will be reined in. All based on other external factors which, at first glance, would seem to have no bearing whatsoever on honor. Perhaps a more lenient administration is actually forcing more honor enforcement to a newly matured honor committee, rather than it being handled informally.</p>