Men, Wealth, Power, and Cheating

High-profile men cheat.  We can't get past it, and we don't like it.  But if the news has fun telling us anything, its that wealthy and powerful men cheat.  For every one of them that gets caught, someone wants to know what's wrong with them, and psychologists and social scientists enter the picture.  I'm here to tell you that what they say is that cheating is a socially shared responsibility, and human nature.

Why They Do It
The drive that makes these men wealthy and/or powerful, and successful, is connected to another, more primal drive.  According to people who study this type of person, he can't have one drive without another.  Then there's the extreme confidence he feels as a result of his power and/or wealth, and success.   The confidence probably permeates everything -- his ability to win women, and also cheating without getting caught.  The fact that he has a life-sized ego goes without saying, and its safe to assume he's pretty arrogant -- another reason he thinks he'll get away with it.
So, here he has the personality and the means to cheat ... but the phenomena doesn't end there.

Who He Cheats With
In our society, we like wealthy, powerful, and successful people.  We are hard-wired to believe that those people will take the best care of us, and we want to be around them.  Consequently, women are drawn to men who are wealthy and/or powerful, and successful.  The draw is irresistable for some.  If you combine all that with a professional athlete's physique, for some women, the attraction is very hard to deny.

Do the Math
So now we have men who are driven to cheat, and we have women who find them magnetically attractive.  The woman doesn't care if they're caught, and the man doesn't think they will get caught.  Put these folks in a room together, and moral inhibitions are thrown out the window.  Meanwhile, the rest of society frowns on it, feeling sorry for the wife and questioning the man's morality and character.  Yet as a society, we praise successful men and hope our sons choose a role model amongst them.  It is only when their drive steers them to cheating that we change our minds.  We are consistent about that. 

The Conundrum
So what are we to do?  Everyone looks at these cheating men as successful role models.  We feed their ego, we tell them they're fantastic, we trust some of them with power, and others with money.  Women can't help wanting to be around them, and these men think they are flawless.  We as a society help create the scenario for when these men cheat, and then when they do, we hate them for it.

I am not condoning their behavior, but rather raising the important point that they do not become cheaters in a vacuum.  Our society helps them get there.  Perhaps if society, and women in particular, can acknowledge this basic fact, then we can get somewhere.  Stop choosing high-profile role models for your sons!  Instead, select someone in the school, or a school sports coach, or an uncle or father.  Focus expressing praise on these men, and turn off the television when the high-profile man is celebrated.  The media could do human interest stories on these men ... are they fathers?  Are they uncles?  How much time do they spend with their family?  When society stops making these men all about their success only, then, and only then, are we communicating to them that their success isn't everything, and values are important too.

Let's stop and think America -- do we want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution?