I recently sat beside two men who were negotiating the sale of interactive Ray-Ban (1) glasses. The man selling the device extolled its virtues and how useful it had been. He was now attempting to sell it — and he stated some very rational reasons why. The other man was at first very patient and receptive, but slowly, over time, he began to voice some objections. There was a scratch here, a nick there. And then the inevitable: it was difficult to interface with his device. This eventually led to the seller objecting rather strongly that he had “babied” the item and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. The net result was that the potential purchaser simply got up and walked away. It was a sad end to a budding sale.

You would think that an education would give a person some moral parameters, wouldn’t you? The more educated you become, the more sensitive you are to the needs of humanity — the concerns of the Common Good – that sort of idea. This is a truly naïve premise, however — being more educated, many times, makes you more deceitful and ruthless.