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| JOURNAL FOR ETHICS IN HUMAN COMMUNICATION by Tam Zelig CHAPTER 1 In the first chapter of Ethics in Human Communication, Richard L. Johannesen establishes the case for ethics in communication. He establishes that there can be a distinction between morals and ethics, ethics representing a general philosophy while morals are personal choices, but in this book, Johannesen advises, the two terms may be used interchangeably. The ability to choose our ethics or morals, according to Johannesen, is what distinguishes us from animals, and it is further argued that all communication has an essentially persuasive dimension and therefore will force the speaker and hearer to make some ethical choices; therefore it is of vital concern that we as human beings with the power of speech study and understand the importance of ethical communication. There is not much to disagree with here. As I may have mentioned in another class, one of the things that I would preface my section on ethics with is the idea that this was, for the Greeks, a crucial criteria for who was trained in rhetoric. No one who was not perceived as morally strong was admitted to the schools. We have lost that sense in our educational institutions, and it is creating a world of chaos. Johannesen quotes from one of the most remarkable speakers of this century, Dag Hammerskjold, late Secretary General of the United Nations who said, Respect for the word--to employ it with scrupulous care and an incorruptible heartfelt love of truth--is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or the human race. To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution. (9) CHAPTER 2 In the second chapter Johannesen begins to look at ethics and how it plays in various arenas. The first arena is politics. Johannesen begins by asking to what degree should we as a society foster truthfulness in communication. The obvious response being that truthfulness should always be our goal and he leads us down the obvious path. He then concludes with a bombshell that I would love to use in a classroom. Quoting Ithiel de Sola Pool, he says “Fairness, however, compels us to note that a greater concern for the consequences of statements then for their correspondents to some criterion of objective truth has characterized not only modern totalitarians, but most human societies. The democratic liberal tradition is the unusual one in this respect, not the totalitarian one.” (40) The problem with democracy is that we really don’t have one in this country, and it is doubtful under present conditions that we could given our innate desire to be lied to. I watched the recently released video Nixon the other day, and I felt the best line in it was delivered as Hopkins-Nixon was standing in front of a portrait of John F. Kennedy shortly after resigning as President. To paraphrase his statement, “When people look at you [Kennedy], they see what they could become; when they look at me, they see what they are.” Nixon’s criminal tendencies were not what changed this country for the worse, but rather the press’s misguided and self-serving idea that a government can run best only when held to an ethical standard that we the people are unwilling to live by. In time I suspect we will find out that Kennedy may have been as much of an unethical person as Nixon, but the press chose to ignore it. Perhaps the closest we have come in this century to an ethical leader was Jimmy Carter, but he will always be thought of as a weak president, why, because the problem is not in assuming that we need an ethical government, but rather that we need an all pervasive government at all. As I recall I sort of went over this ground in a previous paper discussing the prophet Samuel’s warning to Israel when they asked for a king. Since Johannesen doesn’t try to draw any conclusions after stating the prolific tendency towards totalitarian ethics rather than democratic ones, I won’t take the time here to discuss my alternative either. Perhaps we’ll get a chance to further this discussion in his next chapter on the human nature arena. CHAPTER 4 The next chapter on human nature in many ways could be combined with the following chapter on dialogical perspectives. The bottom line seems to be summed up in the Talmud as well as the Christian “Golden Rule.” The Talmud says, “Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to another.” As to the question Johanneson asks regarding Habermas’ criteria for judging by comprehensibility, truth, sincerity, and appropriateness, I would agree that these are certainly criteria for dialogical communication; however, when dealing with communication such as mass media, that is often more monological than dialogical, the criteria of comprehensibility could be debated. The Bible or Koran or Bhagavid Gita or any other religious training manual are in many ways incomprehensible without diligent study and yet they are certainly ethical works and when perceived through study have certainly proven to demonstrate truth, sincerity and appropriateness. Johannesen further raises the question of extending the ethical communication boundary to animals. I’m not very clear on the extent to which he meant this and yet if you apply Buber’s trifold world of “you,” man to man, man to nature, and man to spirit, animals would certainly fall into the second category. It is certainly the Jewish belief that animals deserve to be respected. The story of Balaam’s ass comes immediately to mind. Finally in regards to human nature, I would say that advertising ranks as the gutter language in the world of ethical communication. I can see little that speaks in its favor from the standpoint of I-You ethical communication. Having written and sold radio advertising I know that the emphasis was never on truth, but audience manipulation. That’s not to say that there are no good products that are advertised, but this is one of those situations where the end does not justify the means in my opinion. I say this realizing that there is no easy alternative in this society for someone with a new product to sell. Johannesen’s next chapter is one we spent considerable time with last semester, dialogical perspectives. Since the whole focus of Buber’s thrust has to do with ethics it would seem to be the ideal choice for ethical communication. The only argument against it is given little space in this chapter, and that is whether or not it can be used effectively in the mass media. He does discuss it somewhat under the guise of monologue vs. dialogue and concludes with what he calls a “synthesis” of contemporary ideas for ethics that are related to the dialogical which may be used in public communication and he follows that with a list of ten conditions for dialogue by Makay and Brown. I prefer the ten conditions because they seem to reflect the heart rather than the mind of what dialogic communication is all about. CHAPTER 5 Chapter 5 deals with the situational perspectives in ethical communication, and it seems as if this one rated the most marginal notes of all of his chapters, so let’s get to it. The concept of situational ethics carries with it to my mind a very negative connotation. And yet if you really think about it the true idea of it is really at the heart of dialogical communication since we should deal with every encounter as a fresh “situation” and not bring to it any old baggage from other situations. But as it is generally understood, situational ethics as defined be Bert Bradley in this chapter, “has an unsettling ability to justify a number of diverse decisions.” (87) So it is this viewpoint to which most of my comments will be addressed. Johannesen asks the question regarding B.J. Diggs comment that the receiver should bear part of the blame for the results of unethical communication, and of course that is true, but that should in no way justify unethical communication and if I were forced to assign percentages of blame I would have to say that the greater sin belongs to the speaker. I am reminded of a great line from one of the Star Trek movies spoken by Scotty, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I think that part of the nobility of man is that we want to believe. Is a child to blame because he/she trusts someone offering candy? Is a young person to blame for succumbing to the masterful seductions of advertising? I think not. We are each certainly capable of changing and freeing ourselves from destructive paths, but we are born innocent and it takes many hands to push us down one path or another. In another place Johannesen summarizes Joseph Fletcher’s concept of Christian situational ethics which says that if the end is love than the means are often irrelevant. How often have atrocities been committed in the name of “Christian love.” I’m sorry, but I cannot accept that allowing someone to die when it is in your power to save them, or allowing someone to suffer when it is in your power to ease them, can ever be construed as justified. Saul Alinsky is also quoted as he presents eleven rules from his book, Rules For Radicals. Now granted, I cannot truly judge them without reading them in context, but from what is quoted, I would take issue with many of them. If there is truth in ideas such as “In war the end justifies almost any means,” it can only be found in the idea that what you are fighting for is the greatest and only truth. Tough to have dialogue with that kind of attitude. There is another element to situational ethics that Alinsky’s rules allude to. This element is tougher to defend, and yet carries with it a certain amount of logic. If we only have one life to live, then it is easier to defend situational ethics, but if we see our life as a single chapter in an as yet unfinished manuscript, and the collective lives that make up our world as the same, then winning one war or one argument becomes far less significant. It is for this reason in part that I find the idea of large government so offensive. While it is true that it took the government to end slavery and more recently to enforce civil rights, in essence what has not happened is changing attitudes. Those people who believe in the right to enslave others still practice it in various ways. What government has done is forced acceptance from the outside without allowing community to change people from the inside. My last comment on this chapter is also related to the above. In response to the section on extreme protest rhetoric which justifies the means in order to bring about a swift “just” end. I was reminded of a comment from yet another of the prophets of this age -- science fiction. Isaac Asimov in his Foundation series presents the concept of “minimalism” through the protagonist Harry Seldane. The idea is that if you want to truly change the nature of a civilization, you can’t do it through major revolutions, but rather through very small changes deliberately introduced over time. Presupposing that we have the time, this seems like the far wiser choice. CHAPTER 6 Johanneson asks several questions on page 102, but they all break down to whether the mass media will serve as the basis for our future ethical training. I don’t think there’s any question that barring some dramatic changes the media which already dominates the lives of many children in loco parentis will soon guide those children become adults in loco spiritis. As to whether that spiritual training is based on the lowest common denominator or higher ideals also seems apparent by looking at the fare during “family hours.” One can also pull as an example another institution which seems to currently exist in loco parentis, the public school system. They have made their choice and it is to water down the value of education to the lowest common denominator. Their goal is the same as mass media’s--to draw the most possible people to make the most possible money. And frankly as far as Christianity is concerned that seems to be their goal as well, especially in so far as they intersect with the mass media. It could be argued that this is also the goal of the utilitarians who’s ideals were echoed nobly by Spock, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” But the problem is who decides what the needs of the many are? A system of laws enacted by a government that is so far removed from individuals that it must assign them numbers to keep track of them? Or a government so ethical itself that it sees no harm in spending trillions of dollars that it doesn’t have? Or a government that is so ethical that it establishes and maintains an agency that can arbitrarily deny the rights of any citizen in order to collect money to be spent on useless studies or projects? While I am not prepared to say that we should eliminate all laws, I believe that the only ethical way for laws to work is to follow the precept that “he who governs best, governs least.” CHAPTER 7 This chapter deals primarily with the ethics of lying and all the gray areas between that and truthtelling. I think the bottom line for me is that there is a difference between lying and concealing the truth, but the only reason that justifies concealing the truth is to save the person from whom the truth is concealed mental or physical anguish. In terms of a government, the same should apply, but only as long as the above is true. CHAPTER 8 Essentially this chapter deals with whether the ethical considerations of the macrocosmic world of public communication work just as well on the personal level. My broad answer to this question is yes, and since I found very little in this chapter to comment on, I’ll attempt to answer some of the questions posed in this chapter. On page 163 we are asked to comment on William K. Rawlins’ advice on intimate interpersonal communication. I agree with Rawlins that there is a difference between privacy and secrecy. I would relate this to the difference between lying and concealing the truth. In my opinion we are often secretive about things for reasons of personal gain, but we hold things private generally for reasons of personal security which would correspond with the need to protect a mental or physical life, in this case our own. Hopefully as a relationship develops there are less and less private areas, until the ultimate goal of trust is reached between two people where there are no areas that must be held private. This is also a different argument from one that allows an individual a private space or time. Those may and perhaps should always exist in a relationship no matter how trustworthy. On page 166 Johannesen asks for comments on the views of Stephen Littlejohn and David Jabusch. As far as when to decide between shared or unshared responsibility in group discussions, I would refer back to the necessity of withholding the whole truth where disclosure could cost lives, either those of the group or those under the control of the group’s decisions. CHAPTER 9 My feelings about this chapter are summed up at the end of it. Herbert Rotfield suggests, “Teaching ethics to business students cannot alter the facts of business practice. In a capitalistic system, greed is the main fuel that drives the engine. Ethics works against greed. Business practice is not inherently immoral, but it is amoral. For virtually all decisions ethics are irrelevant.” And Gerald Ottoson is quoted, “I am convinced that most of the unethical acts I have seen committed in business were performed by essentially honest people. But they were people who felt under great pressure to achieve.” We can see an example of this problem in Russia today. Democracy did not conquer Communism, Capitalism did. The price that is being paid is an increase in crime and all the problems inherent therein. I am not saying that Communism as existed in the Soviet Union is better, but the system itself were it actually practiced as proposed by Marx, lends itself far more to ethics than does Capitalism. Democracy, in theory, is also open to an ethical structure, but once again there are no true democracies in the world today because the practice is undermined by the stronger belief in capitalism. The resurgence in popularity of Ayn Rand is a testament to this trend. It is her philosophy that truthfully shows us the real face of capitalism and situational ethics are the only kind allowed in her world. The problem, however, in presenting this as bad lies in the truth expressed by Ottoson. CEO’s are not evil people. Some are legendary in their philanthropic endeavors. But the argument here then becomes that the end justifies the means and that was no more true of J.P. Morgan then it was of Hitler. CHAPTER 10 I feel much the same way about this chapter as I did when I sat with a panel of teachers to work out the implementation of OBE, Outcome Based Education, at the high school level. Each department put their own criteria together for what a “perfect” student would have to achieve, and then all the committees would have to come together and combine these outcomes or objectives to cover all the departments as well as being something the administration, parents, government, and janitorial staff would be happy with. What came out bore a strange resemblance to what a great steak dinner looks like after it has passed through all the committees of my body. Formal codes of ethics I have worked with as a journalist, and the ones I have seen in this chapter seem to have gone through the same committees. We need only follow one code, “Whatever is hateful to you do not do to others.” If we cannot follow that one, we cannot follow anything else listed here. There is another teaching that comes from the Talmudic Rabbis which is also appropriate, and which if followed would put most mass media out of business. There is one sin which can be committed with no hope of salvation unless it comes from the person sinned against. If you commit this sin you will lose your place in the world to come. That sin is the sin of embarrassing another human being. What’s wrong with the media adopting that as their only code of ethic: I will never do, say, or print anything that might in any way embarrass another human being. How long do you think a company would survive ? And yet if they cannot adopt that one, the others are useless in my opinion. CHAPTER 11 As far as feminism and ethics are concerned, I would have to agree with Julia Wood’s conclusion, “Liberated from its historical situatedness in the private sphere and women’s domain, we can now recover the idea of caring as a responsibility and privilege of us all and as a central concern of public life.” The “ethic of justice,” and the “ethic of care, should be one and the same ethic. Justice is about caring for one another. Equality for women shouldn’t be about replacing a male tyrant with a female tyrant. It should be about recognizing the male and female within each one of us, and seeking to reconcile those attributes in a way that allows us all to treat one another with respect. And perhaps just as importantly to treat ourselves with respect. There is one area that exists in America, and the world today which I believe should be the prime target of women. I have been amazed that boycotts have not long ago ended this practice, and yet it continues and grows. It is mentioned towards the end of this chapter, and that is pornography. We do not need laws to govern it. We need strong boycotts and protests from outraged men and women. This is not a religious or even a moral fight, and the problem has always been that it has been seen as one. This is about respect and not embarrassing one another. The goal is not to see men as naked as women, but to eliminate the use of sex to sell anything but sex. Any commercial, any movie, any print ad that uses women or men in attire or poses that have nothing to do with the product itself or the plot itself should be boycotted. When women’s movements become peacefully militant in this area, I will believe we are starting to get somewhere. This also means that actresses and models need to be shown that they can make money in other ways and companies need to be shown that they cannot make money in this way. To achieve this women as well as men need to adopt my one code of ethic mentioned above and we can take one more step towards tikkun olam, healing the world. CHAPTER 12 I rather feel much the same about this last chapter as I did about the previous one. If we follow the one ethical guideline I proposed earlier, that will work cross-culturally. I like Milton Bennett’s adaptation of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as they themselves would have done unto them.” In terms of showing respect for peoples of other cultures and not embarrassing them, it is important to understand what kinds of things would embarrass them. That takes relational or dialogical communication to find out. The bottom line for all of this returns us to the genius of Martin Buber. Whenever you view something as an “it,” you reduce the object of that viewing to something less than an equal. I read an article a week or so ago that finally science is coming to understand what most religions have believed all along. At our core, our DNA, all human beings are related. The only thing that makes differences on the surface is related to geographical survival. If we were to truly live in an ethical world “I” must always treat others as “You.” |