Adult molestation

A long time ago, when there was no Unified State Exam, people still applied to several universities at the same time. The logic is simple: if you don’t get into a good institute, you will get into a bad one, you can transfer or re-enroll next year, in any case you’ll be in business. It’s still not possible to work fully before the age of 18 - the Labor Code protects teenagers so well that employers try not to get involved with them.

Therefore, I entered not only St. Petersburg State University, but also the Veterinary Academy. The examiners at the veterinary clinic gave me a small piece of paper with the inscription “oral answer sheet”, and when I went to answer with it, they told me secret knowledge: it was decided to make the exam written, and therefore everything that I did not write in my notes is considered not valid for me. famous. And they kicked me out of the biology exam with the wording “he doesn’t know that a leaf is divided into a petiole and a leaf blade.” The examiners at the Faculty of Biology made the exam conditions more transparent, and I got there, to the budget department, without any particular difficulties. This is how I learned that getting into a good institute is much easier than getting into a bad one. And for the first time I suspected that corruption exists.

Further life, however, did not confirm my suspicions. As a student, I would be completely happy if bribes were accepted at the university: in fundamental biological education, for my taste, too much time is devoted to studying the geography of ores, the biography of Jan Amos Kamensky and the Keynesian approach to the theory of aggregate demand. It would be easier for me to support corruption than to remember all this information. There was no such opportunity, and I only now began to understand that this was good.

A skeptical attitude towards the widespread meme “everything in higher education is completely corrupt” allowed me to save 9 thousand rubles. when obtaining a driver's license. The statement “they don’t give you rights without bribes” was too similar to the one already refuted by personal experience, “they don’t give you a diploma without bribes” and turned out to be just as groundless. That is, yes, with bribes it would have turned out a little easier and faster, but on the other hand, self-obtained licenses come with confidence in your fundamental ability to drive - a rather valuable reward for personal contribution to the fight against corruption.

Because this is how they fight corruption. The only way to eradicate corruption is to ignore it. It’s hard for me to imagine a situation in which giving a bribe is the only possible way to solve a problem, but it is always the easiest way, allowing you to do without knowledge/fire safety/compliance with traffic rules/emphasize as necessary. Very comfortably. In practice, this means that the person who complains about corruption, who, in his terminology, had to bribe someone, himself acts as the only reason for the existence of corruption.

It's like herd immunity. In order for the virus to stop circulating in the population, a statistically significant portion of individuals must become immune to it. In order for corruption to disappear in society, it is necessary that a statistically significant part of individuals stop giving bribes or, at least, stop doing so so willingly. The man once offered to give a bribe - they did not understand him, the second time he asked - they understood, but did not agree and scared him, the third time he will not offer it.

Corruption only exists because everyone agrees with it. The word “corruption” itself comes from the Latin corrumpere - “to corrupt”, and this is a very apt term.