“Earn” is one of the oldest, most exalted words in the English language. Its origins are prehistoric and its roots are to be found in the ancient mysteries of agriculture. Our ancestors learned early that, where the fields are concerned, there’s a powerful link between labor and harvest. Crops cannot be counted on to reap themselves. This is true today as it was 10,000 years ago. Even now, it’s a great honor to hear it said of success, “You’ve earned it.”

Here’s another strong link. There’s an emotional magnet between the terms “self-respect” and “earn.” At one time, there was a bias in this country against anyone taking money that wasn’t earned. This, in part, explains the abundant laws against gambling and the strict regulation of those who charged interest on money loaned. There was a moral taint connected with pocketing money that wasn’t the product of “honest labor.”

Our parents were narrow-minded when it came to the concept of “earning.” We had an allowance, but we had assigned chores. No work, no allowance. The same went for grades. All our teachers made it clear that we would receive the grades we earned. If we weren’t satisfied with our grades, we might have the opportunity to “earn” extra credit. In the context of athletics, every player had to earn a place on the field or court. No matter how much natural ability a player had, if they didn’t show up for practice and put out their best effort, they wouldn’t suit up and play on game day. Just that simple. This notion of “earning” as a critical factor in appreciating how the world worked was hammered into us.

The concept of earning as a moral precept and as a productive world view seems to be disintegrating. I could dwell at length here on the gross dishonesty of men like Bernie Madoff and Jack Abramoff. I could catalog the obscene salaries of Enron executives who fiddled while their company and its employees went up in smoke. I could recount the cases of politicians like the former governor of Illinois who exploit the peoples’ trust by wallowing in sordid schemes to sell their offices.

But today, I want to talk about Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Tuesday’s New York Times reports that Loyola will retroactively raise, by 0.333, every grade recorded there in the past few years. There is not even a pretense that this grade enhancement is earned. It’s a purely cosmetic gesture designed to make Loyola law grads look better to prospective employers. The article quotes Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor who studies grade inflation: “If somebody’s paying $150,000 for a law school degree, you don’t want to call them a loser at the end. So you artificially call every student a success.”

In order for this device to work, a couple of other things have to happen. First, these prospective employers must not read the New York Times. Otherwise, they’ll simply subtract 0.333 from the grade points of all Loyola grads who apply. Next, even if these prospective employers don’t read the NYT, they have to forget about class rank. No matter how much you raise someone’s grade point average, the bottom half of the class doesn’t get any closer to the top. If Loyola refuses to provide class rank, someone’s going to smell a rat.

I’m speaking as a guy with a marginal IQ and a decent, not spectacular, law school career. All my classmates knew the score. Some of us were going to be at the top of the class and some of us weren’t. Even after graduation, some of us were going to pass the bar exam and some of us weren’t. If we succeeded in passing the bar exam, some of us would get great jobs and some of us wouldn’t.

To my knowledge, we all knew that the keys to success were in our hands. Even if some of us couldn’t compete with the giant brains that could glide through with easy academic splendor, we knew we could compensate and enhance our own credentials by working harder. There’s always a way to distinguish yourself and it’s up to you. In the end, some just weren’t meant to be lawyers.

If everyone is automatically entitled to success because failure is liable to hurt feelings, success will no longer be an earned achievement. Then, it will no longer be success.

Tomorrow, June 25, is the birthday of George Orwell, who wrote the novel “Animal Farm.” If you haven’t read it lately, you should.

I’m Hink and I’ll see ya.