“It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only seconds to destroy it.”

Despite the discombobulating of values most adolescents possess in our society today, people in the past seemed to hold reputations in even greater esteem. In The Crucible, even a sensible man like John Proctor prized reputation to the extreme. Within the last act, John Procter signs a document confessing his dealings with the devil to ultimately secure his existence. Following constant pleading and a refusal to keep his confession private, John Proctor tears the document and guarantees his death. Evidently, reputation was worth dying for.

Now high school does not rate reputation on such a significant level, but you’d be surprised. Rumors are still spread and rash judgments are made, but I have never heard of anyone dying to maintain their reputation…yet. I took this quiz supposedly determining my reputation. It came to the conclusion that I was a “serious slacker.” No one has ever told me that, and what does a computer know? How can a computer know a person solely on the way they dress or who they hang out with? Computers are incapable of that, just as humans are.