If One Were to Hazard a Guess

Twenty-five hundred college students
From twenty-three countries were tested
On a dice-rolling experiment—

In a secure place, no one watching,
Roll a die twice. Record the outcomes.
Whatever you got on the first roll

Nets you a monetary reward.
Higher is better. The second roll
Is to ensure the dice aren’t loaded.

No questions asked. Anyone could cheat.
There could have been twenty-five hundred
Sixes reported. More tellingly,

Cheating could have varied by culture,
Socioeconomic status,
Industrialization levels,

Anything the researchers measured.
But no. The results were consistent
Across the sampled populations.

Statistically, all the reports
Were skewed enough to reflect cheating
But none terribly outrageously.

The pattern showed what the students did
Was not to consistently report
The first roll first, but rather, report

The higher of the two rolls as first,
Which the researchers interpreted
As a preference for white lying

One could rationalize to oneself.
But why rationalize to oneself?
Protecting one’s sense of self as good,

As fundamentally, mostly good
Was one unsatisfying answer.
But why need that? Why need to be good?

Maybe since people are dangerous.
Maybe every self is a sailboat
Against the headwinds of opinion,

Tacking to win its way through the waves.
Submit to the wind and sail backwards.
Sail into the wind and sail backwards.

Advance along a diagonal,
And you just might get across the lake.
Maybe the subjects weren’t preserving

Their nobility in their own eyes
But their sense of their own competence
At reading the hazards in the waves.