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Abuse of Trust

By turquhart

Tamar Frankel?s Trust and Honesty: America?s Business Culture at a Crossroad was initially entitled ?Abuse of Trust.? Frankel says she chose a different title after her research indicated:

?It is that America is becoming used to abuse of trust and deception. It is that American culture has been moving toward dishonesty, regardless of whether fraud has been actually rising.?

The evolution of American culture to a postmodernist insensitivity toward accuracy has not happened overnight. ?American culture has been moving in the direction of dishonesty for some time.?

In the first chapter of Trust and Honesty, Frankel describes a few types of fraud that have been on the increase?fraud in healthcare, insurance frauds, identity theft, energy theft, students? cheating and dishonest victims. I?m wondering what happened to a mention of dishonest writers (see Michiko Kakutani?s piece in The New York Times).

This book urges American?s to care about widespread dishonesty. Frankel says that ?an abuse of trust can destroy the economy and prosperity and America?s world leadership.? She is urging us to put the brakes on further acceptance of dishonesty as a way of life.  Even Maureen Dowd reminds us in ?Oprah! How Could Ya?? that the ?sharing of feelings is not the same thing as telling the truth.?

Check out this latest addition to our library?s collection and draw your own conclusions.

Posted by Toni Urquhart

Full post as published by FSU College of Law Library Blog on January 20, 2006 (boomark / email).