Shifgrethor

Time is the best teacher and it is true. As a child I was taught, both by my parents and teachers, to be truthful and ethical in all situations. As a child the ideas seemed perfect and following them was pretty easy, just be an open book. As a child, in fact, I was proud of it and sometimes there was recognition from my peers and elders that encouraged me.
As I grew, these teachings got modified, and I do not know why and how. They said that it is not bad to do some "wrong" action unless you are caught. It seemed a fair enough suggestion. After all if your actions do no harm to anyone, it os okay.
I grew more, or did I? I came to understand that to survive in this world, full of lies, one has to behave very differently. It did not matter if you did your work in its spirit and learned. Emphasis was on proving(and that's what they proudly emphasise at my college) that you worked and you know. I thought that assesing was part of professors job and not ours. Anyway, it would have been fine if things went that way. The world went a step forward. They said we will compare you with respect to your peers(implying in other words that if the peers are making a fool of somebody to acheive something more, you had to do it, else you will be eliminated). So eventually it becomes a rat race of making fools of each other, amongst which the real aims generally get lost.
Ursula K. Le Guin once wrote a science fiction book called "The Left Hand of Darkness". The word shifgrethor is coined by her which is the term for subtle games/politics one plays to attain position of power or prominence. The importance of such games in Gethen society and their implicitness made me poder if all of it was just imagination.