Media Theory — Weekly reflection 4/20
It’s interesting to think about ethics nowadays with all the chaos and change we’ve seen throughout the past ten years. “The good is what is considered to be virtuous.” It fascinates me how western philosophers came up with this position because many years later, westerners went ahead and colonized so many different continents and countries, despite this belief. I ask the question: how is it considered good and virtuous to be taking over innocent citizens’ land and well-being? How is it considered good to not just be influencing western beliefs onto people who didn’t ask and already have their own society set in place, but also torture them in the form of humans rights violation? I just think it’s hypocritical for these westerners to say in order to have ethics and morals, individuals have to be good, yet said individuals still go ahead and execute immoral practices onto others. Now I’m also thinking about our last president: he became a prominent leader in the United States, yet, he had absolutely no morals and nothing he said sounded the least bit ethical for everyone in society. Even though there were several predicaments about Trump coming into power, he still won; I wonder what goes through the minds of people who voted for him? What are their ethics? Do they not feel bad exclusively thinking about themselves and others just like them?
This morning I was listening to a podcast called “Fear and Paranoia in American Policing,” and the person being interviewed in said podcast was a police researcher/assistant professor at UT Austin. One interesting point he brought up is that police are trained to believe that “oh I need to protect myself so I can continue to protect others, even if the person I’m about to kill is an innocent individual who did nothing wrong… nothing wrong at all. It’s okay for me to harm others because they may end up killing me, which means I can’t be a police officer and protect people anymore.” I can’t fathom how this ideology works because how does it make sense to not even think before killing (emphasis on killing) someone so young, as young as thirteen for your own well-being. How would these officers feel if it were their own child being killed because of another officer’s horrible “mistake.” This has become a major issue in the United States, and I personally think it’s time for a whole new police system, so innocent lives are no longer lost due to unlawful cops.
After listening to the podcast, I read an article about how our religions would handle the discovery of alien life, and it was fascinating to read about how different religions would interpret extraterrestrials. Jews and Buddhists are open to the idea of extraterrestrial life, and believe it’s the aliens’ choice to choose whether or not to convert to their religion. Seventh-day Adventists’ prophetess Ellen White believes aliens are “tall, majestic people” without sin, however, she may have to change her prophecies if they turn out to be vicious. Creationists and Roman Catholics don’t truly believe in alien lifeforms, and would try to convert aliens to their religion if they were to show up on Earth. Some Muslims’ would not want to convert aliens because they “believe that Islam forbids proselytizing,” while others would want to convert them because they think it would “threaten their faith.” This article intrigues me because it’s crazy to think how Roman Catholics had to learn and adjust their religion once they found out “Earth was not the center of the universe,” which caused chaos in the 17th century, but now religions would have to change their concepts to accept other lifeforms with intelligence at the same level or greater than ours.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7vEZa3VU6v0ELture4rs8p?si=ce15df845b704c2e
