Influential Ethics For December

In the blocks below, please find your weekly bio-politics articles in a blog-style layout. If you have any questions or concerns about the research or writing, please reach out to me! I post one bio-ethics blogacle a week followed by an international relations/propaganda piece the following week. These topics are either about current issues or issues I find important yet not discussed enough.

Questions to consider

Week One:
What Is Pain? Is this A Human Condition? (Part one of three)

In the year 2025 (almost 2026), it seems ludicrous to ask this question, but the truth is that there are many scholars who believe (or used to) believe that non-humanlike animals didn’t feel pain, or at least felt less pain than humans. I am specifically referring to physical pain. At this time, there isn’t enough data to gauge emotional pain that animals experience in the same way that humans experience it. The question is: Do humans and animals experience pain the same way, and the question of “Why is this a bioethical concern?” could also be asked. To answer these questions, it’s important to consider some definitions of ‘human’, ‘animal’ and ‘pain’.

The question of humaness is a topic that has many definitions, including the argument that states that anything that looks humanoid qualifies. This includes a torso, two arms, two legs, and a head, with varying races, features, and body hair covering their bodies. Those with disabilities where any of their limbs are missing is an equally contentious topic of “Is this a complete person?” based on their physical disability but that’s a topic for another day. For now, my definition of humanoid is someone with these features, even if they are missing an arm or leg. From a physical perspective, they are still a human, regardless of their personhood status.

The question of “What is an animal?” is less ambiguous. In general, humans (regardless of the number of limbs they have) view animals as anything that isn’t human. This may or may not include insects from your perspective, and in this article, I am going to omit insects from the data. I don’t know enough about them to discuss if they feel pain as humans do, and although there are more insects than animals on the planet, people in general don’t really care if insects can feel pain—some insects are considered pests and people don’t see them as living creatures in this case, just a pest that gets into their food and must die as a result. I will write a separate article on the autonomy and pain thresholds of insects when I do more research.

For this purpose, I include insects (6 legs), arachnids (8 legs), and anything in that genre: No pets, sea creatures, animals in the wild, etc. I’m sure you get what I mean. Back to animals: I believe animals include anything from the list above (pets, ocean animals, and animals in the wild like mammals, birds, and reptiles, etc.). There are hundreds of different types of animals, and each animal plays an important part in their ecosystem and in our lives, whether most of us acknowledge it or not.

The final question: “What is pain?” is a bit less straightforward. Everyone experiences pain differently based on internal and external factors. Unless you suffer from Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP)/Congenital Analgesia, you would have experienced pain at some point in your life, and you might be in pain as you read these words. Pain is caused by pain receptors in our skin to warn our bodies about something that could harm or kill us.

The burning sensation you feel on your hand when you touch a hot stove plate is a way for your body to say: Stop doing that, burns can be serious and burn infections can kill you; The burning in your chest that may come across as pain depending on how long you hold your breath for is your body’s way of telling you to breathe so your lungs don’t collapse, ending in death. These are automatic responses built into your receptors to keep you safe, but there are different types of pain that you might experience that don’t have anything to do with your pain receptors themselves. While most humans can experience the following pain issues, these are quite uncommon in animals, apart from a few exceptions.

The examples of non-pain pain responses receptors include:

Allodynia: A pain response caused by a stimulus that is normally non-painful, such as light touch, mild temperature changes, or gentle pressure.

Example: Feeling sharp, burning pain when a shirt lightly brushes against the skin.

Central Pain Syndromes: Pain produced by central nervous system injury, even without any external damage.

Example: A person develops burning, constant pain on one side of the body after a stroke (central post-stroke pain).

Deafferentation Pain: Pain created when the brain stops receiving signals from an area due to nerve disconnection or damage.

Example: Phantom limb pain after an amputation.

Inflammatory Nervous System Pain: Pain caused by inflammation of nerves, not of the tissues around them.

Example: Brachial neuritis (Parsonage–Turner syndrome), where the nerves of the shoulder become inflamed and cause sudden, severe pain.

Mechanical Nerve Compression: Pain that comes from nerve pressure, not tissue damage.

Example: A herniated disc pressing on the sciatic nerve, causing shooting leg pain (sciatica).

Muscle and Fascia–based Pain: Pain caused by dysfunction within muscles or connective tissue, not nociceptors reacting to acute injury.

Example: Trigger points in the shoulder muscles causing deep aching pain and restricted movement (myofascial pain syndrome).

Nerve Hyperexcitability: Pain caused by nerves firing abnormally, without any tissue damage.

Example: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS Type II), where the affected limb becomes extremely sensitive and painful from minimal stimuli.

Neuropathy: Pain caused by injury or dysfunction of the nerves themselves, not by pain receptors detecting damage.

Example: Diabetic peripheral neuropathy causing burning, tingling, or numbness in the feet.

Pain From Abnormal Pain Processing: The nervous system becomes overly sensitive.

Example: Fibromyalgia, where even mild pressure or normal sensations feel painful due to nervous system amplification.

Vascular Pain: Pain caused by restricted or turbulent blood flow, not by direct tissue damage.

Example: Calf pain while walking due to reduced blood flow from peripheral artery disease.

List of animals that have been proven to experience these types of pain:

Birds: Inflammatory Nervous System Pain (can develop neuritis due to wing clipping or bad falls causing significant pain).
Cats: Deafferentation Pain which may develop pain after limb/claw amputations or tail-nerve injuries.
Cows: Vascular Pain is common in laminitis and other hoof conditions reduce blood flow, causing severe pain.
Dogs: Neuropathy, they commonly develop diabetic neuropathy or nerve damage after spinal injuries.
Hedgehogs: Mechanical Nerve Compression which is prone to spinal disc herniation compressing nerves.
Horses: Nerve Hyperexcitability affect conditions like stringhalt which involve abnormal nerve firing causing pain.
Non–human primates (e.g., macaques): Central Pain Syndromes is common and they could exhibit central post-stroke–like pain responses.
Octopus: Allodynia, where they demonstrate withdrawal and stress responses to mild touch after injury.
Rabbits: Muscle and Fascia-Based Pain shown as myofascial trigger-point pain in veterinary studies.
Rats: Pain From Abnormal Pain Processing when used in research on central sensitization and chronic pain.

The absence of human-like pain disorders in the majority of animals is partly the reason scientists and pet owners of the past have disregarded the possibility of animals being able to feel pain. The most recent research on this topic is the new finding that fish die a slow and painful death when they are cast and left on the decks of ships or the shores without water that holds the only form of oxygen they can process. The equivalent would be a human throwing us into the ocean or a lake/river and assume that we aren’t in pain because they can’t hear us scream.

Please let me know what you thought of this blogacle using this direct [ link ] to the optional forum in the header. Alternatively, you can use any of the email links from the contact [ page ]. If you want to answer the Questions to Consider (not required but you are welcome to!), you can also discuss these questions and answers here.

I will post the references and the Questions from Piece in the final part.

Questions to consider

What do you believe? Do/can animals feel pain? Should this be discussed in human bioethics?

Do you believe disabled people are less human because they can't or don't contribute as well to society as an able–bodies person? Why do you think this?

Do you think there is a difference between cute insects (butterflies, lady bugs, etc.) and pest insects (cockroaches and ants, etc.)? Do you treat these insects differently? Why or why not?

Do you agree with this? Do you think we experience pain as a sense of survival?

Can you think of any other reasons why people believed animals couldn't feel pain?

Do you think some animals should have better rights than others? Do you think animals who have humanoid features (like apes, monkeys, dogs, and cats) get treated differently because they look more like us? Why do you think this?

What do you understand as 'pain'? Is in anythinf physically unpleasant or should pain 'hurt' to be considered pain?

Have you experienced any types of this pain? If you suffer from these pain issues often, do you have a support system to help you? Why do you think a support system is important?

Do you have an animal or pet who has experienced any of this that you know of? Did you notice anything different from the vet in pain managament compared to when you go to the doctor for your pain (if you have gone in the past?

Questions to consider

Week Two:

Why Are Definitions Important and What do They Have to do With Propaganda?

If you’ve read my past blogacles in the Propaganda section, you would have noticed that there is a large focus on definitions and the old vs. new meanings of words. When I was studying international relations, definitions were a part of every assignment and exam from my first year until I graduated. When I was in my first year, I didn’t understand why the lecturers made such a big deal about definitions and how we understood them. In my final year and now, many years after I graduated, I understand their importance and I also understand how history is linked to these definitions.

So why are definitions so important? Definitions are important because, without understanding what something means, the intention of the word can be misconstrued and used to fight against what the true meaning is. Let’s look at the meaning of family. This might not be related to international relations and propaganda, at first, but depending on how we use this word, a family can be used to advance or decline our agenda when it comes to politics.

For example, the historical definition of a nuclear family is a mom, dad, and children. These nuclear families were expected to share the same values and political expectations as a means to push whatever agenda the current government had at the time, including gender and stereotypical roles of what a man, woman, and a child should do and expect from those around them.

It was expected of the children in this nuclear family to find partners with similar values and religions to keep the status quo and peace with a mindset of “like-minded individuals need to stay together”. For traditional families and individuals, this worked well on the surface. Everyone had a role and those around them followed a self–fulfilling prophecy of perfection at the hands of sameness. This time frame, the way I understand it, ran from the 1920s to the late 1990s, where individualism was seen as a path down the forked road: The forked road people rarely tread for fear of isolation.

This forked road was seen as the antithesis to familial and social progress and the path less followed was seen as a way to weed out those who would ask difficult questions, questions the nuclear family weren’t willing or able to ask or answer. The result was a safe for work, safe for grandma, safe for peer version of a family that fit into the perfect mold. The mold that had been the accepted mold for generations; Why change it now?

The problem is that this mold had to change. Regardless of your opinion of what a nuclear family should be, it’s difficult to spend any time on social media without seeing different definitions of family. The nuclear family might have consisted of a mom, dad, and children in 1920-1990, but the 1990s created a new sense of the word family. A sense that was seen as ‘wrong’ or ‘evil’ in some views, while others understood that the accepted mom–dad–child 1–child 2 view of a family wasn’t enough.

What about same sex couples who wanted to start a family? What about a single mom or dad who chose to raise their child or children without their partner because of years of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and a decision they made not to endure it anymore for the sake of their children—a decision that wasn’t available to people before the 1990s for fear of complete isolation and name-calling? Or a couple (heterosexual or same–sex) without children, and consider themselves family because they are committed to one another?

These family units are still families, they just don’t follow the accepted view of what a family looks like to certain people. Does the definition of the word ‘family’ lose its meaning when used in alternative ways, or is that just your bias creeping in, saying, “A family should be X because that's what works?” Did it, though? Did the accepted roles and definitions of family work in the past, or was it a case of “It worked because no one told me otherwise.”?

This is the problem with definitions and their understanding. The words stay the same, even though their definitions can change drastically. This is why it’s important to consider definitions when discussing international relations. Some of the words that we use in international relations have been in use since before the Second World War, yet their meanings have changed based on the times and how media is used. What does this have to do with propaganda, you ask? At the moment, this may not be linked to propaganda at all. This depends on how you view the words that have been used in this piece and what meanings they have for you today, like the meaning of family.

The use of propaganda has been used to strengthen or degrade families, regardless of the type of family, for generations. Each new form of propaganda isolates a member of the family if they don’t agree with the current, accepted form of propaganda person A supports (either willingly or unknowingly). This changes how the new generation perceives propaganda and their aged family members who might not understand these new messages that are pushed using certain colors and buzz words, but the older generataion/s have fallen out of the propaganda machine’s radar. It’s the younger generation (those born well after the propaganda of World War II could be seen on street corners) who will use these new definitions of old words to their advantage and the advantage of the driving forces behind current propaganda. Definitions are important, but not more important than the defining acts of those who fulfill the dreams of the propaganda machine.

Questions from piece:

Are these definitions as important as the actions of these defining moments?
Have you noticed forms of propaganda in your town or city?
How do you define a definition that has different interpretations based on who uses the words?
If you were in charge of a propaganda machine, how would you spread your messages?
If you haven’t noticed any forms of propaganda, are you sure about that?
Who do you think is more susceptible to propaganda, the youth or the elderly, who might understand the messaging more?
Why do you think definitions are so important?

References:

No references for this piece. This was an opinion piece based on past blogacles.

Questions to consider

Do you think we should consider the old definitions of words at all if a new definition has been accepted?

What is your definition of family? What are your reasons for this?

Do you think it's fair to expect a child to keep up with social and gender roles of their parents? Why or why not?

What do you understand by individualism?

Do you think safe for work and so on should be the standard for asking questions or should questions be asked and answered regardless of their SFW etc. status? Why or why not?

Do you agree? Should there be a mold at all? Why or why not?

In this context, the choice to 'not endure' was for abuse. Do you think the same can be said for not enduring a different ideology to yours? (I understsand abuse isn't a choice of the victim/s, I added this as an example).

Do you think it's the person's responsibility to seek other information even though their family or status quo seems to be working or is this a case of "If something is broken, we would know?"

WWII was 80 years ago. Do you think these methods and messages should still hold as much weight?

What do you think the of the degradation of families when propaganda was used? Do you think any positive outcomes negated these negatives?

Why do you think certain colors and buzz words are important in propaganda? Do you think the age of the person seeing these messages makes a difference regarding it's affectiveness?

There are spaces without written content on either side of the page. This is by design and to avoid me waffling instead of adding thought–out pieces of writing.

These spaces can also be used to rest your eyes between blocks of text and give you, the reader, time to process and analyze what has been said on the page so far.

Not everything needs to be jam–packed with writing and an opportunity to respond. Sometimes we need the quiet moments and empty spaces to reflect and prepare ourselves for what comes next.

This is a website for reflection and asking questions! What type of writer would I be if I made readers like you tired on purpose, just so you can finish sooner and miss the opportunity to think about what you have read?

Week Three:

What Is Pain? Is this A Human Condition? (Part two of three)

In the previous post, I discussed physical pain that could affect humans and animals, but what about emotional pain? The problem with emotional pain is that it’s largely seen as subjective, and there are many humans who don’t believe emotional pain exists at all. These misinformed individuals focus on physical pain as the only means of experience, and this could be because of a number of things. The most important reason for this could be the age of this human who believes that only physical pain is real pain. As a global society, we have come a long way regarding medicine, rights, views on social justice, and so on, but one thing that I have found lacking in this department is the ability to change how things are because that’s how it has always been.

An example could be the animal rights cases from the early 1940s to now, 2025: 85 five years of animal and human rights improvements, but there are still some people who say “It’s just an animal. We can get a new one if it dies”. This is a blanket statement and I understand this isn’t the case for everyone born in that generation, but cycles of poor animal treatment and assumptions that a human is better because they are human are difficult to squash ifan entire family feels that way based on the “man/woman of the house saying X is law and X means pets need to sleep outside at all times and given the bare minumum nutritional value regarding food”.

If a grandparent, who spent their youth in the 1930s and 1940s playing with their pets with cheaply made chew toys and feeding their dogs bones for dinner and nothing else, saw their dogs have pure white shits in the garden, the chances are they wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong. It was the norm at the time: Give your pets (and children) the bare minimum of their physical needs, and they will grow into strong, independent—and for the children—responsible adults. The issue is that this mentality leeched into the minds of these children (male and female) and they believed that strength for boys and femininity for girls was the end goal of their lives. What does this have to do with animals and emotional pain? Everything.

As a family, in general, what the grandparents (if they are in the picture) believe in and practice is the norm until a new family tradition is chosen. The culture of family is a strong one and it bleeds into the everyday decisions and emotions of all involved. If the same grandparent from the previous paragraph operated along the lines of “Spot is a pet, they need food and water, and when Spot dies, they can be replaced”, the possibility is that the child of that grandparent will have the same mentality. This mentality was the norm at the time (and still is in some families). The main reason why this was a norm was that pets and animals were seen as lesser beings to the all-mighty, egoistical humans who could do no wrong. They were humans, how dare you assume they are less important than pets and animals?

If this example family believe that the only thing Spot needs is food, a roof over their head, and toys (if they think this at all), there could be little room to satisfy Spot’s emotional needs. The emotional needs of pets could include companionship, safety, a sense of routine, and stimulation to relieve boredom, and many others which would take up the entire page if I listed all of them! If it’s only in recent years (1960s to late 1970s) that the topic of the emotional needs of pets and animals have been studied which means that the grandfather in this story might not have known any better. Along with the improvements regarding having their emotional needs met, animals have also been given a platform to illustrate their consciousness and their ability to feel pain.

None of these animal consciousness and pain-related issues would have been possible without these strides in the animal world regarding their protection. However, a large portion of people who own pets still use faulty and outdated information when they ‘handle’ their pets. This is the problem, these people ‘handle’ their pets out of an obligation to provide the bare minimum to keep them alive. They feed and house their pets out of a sense of duty, not emotional attachment or a sense of responsibility for their pets’ lives. This removes the possibility of these pets having their emotional needs met, and it goes further than that: If pets (and humans) don’t have their emotional needs met, they are more vulnerable and susceptible to emotional abuse.

Emotional abuse (as discussed last week) is complicated to pinpoint for humans because it has many faces, some familiar, some not. When it comes to animals, it’s even more complicated because their humans can’t ask what’s wrong and how they can help. When a pet’s/animal’s emotional needs aren’t met, they often experience physical pain as a result. For example, if Spot is fed, given a roof over their head, and given a few toys to play with, what happens when boredom sets in because they have had the same toys for months and eat the same dry kibble every day because their owner believes this is enough? In pets—dogs and medium–large birds are particularly sensitive to this—boredom can result in self–destructive behaviour that could lead to injury. Spot, the dog, could become an excessive licker or biter of their legs and paws out of frustration.

They know their needs aren’t being met on an instinctual level. They feel something is wrong, but they might not understand why or how, so they act out because they don’t have anything else to do. For medium–large birds (African Grey parrots, Cockatoos, and Macaws, etc.) boredom due to unmet emotional needs usually always result in feather destructive behaviour like feather plucking, feather picking (where they bite their feathers), or bouts of screaming matches to show contempt for how they are felling, and these birds (and Spot, the dog) will also be more prone to biting their humans. All of these behaviours are the result of an emotional need not being met, which causes an emotional response, which leads to emotional and physical pain for these animals and their pets if the pets’ environment doesn’t change.

When it comes to pets and animals, the question of “What is pain?” isn’t as straightforward as “Pain is a physical feeling”. or “Pain is what happens when emotional needs are unmet”. The reality is that pain isn’t something specific that affects people and animals differently. Pain is something we all experience and in a way, our ability to experience pain has helped science decide that humans, animals, and babies, are, infact, sentient and not simply a lump of flesh with physical needs that need to be met.

I will post the references and the Questions from Piece in the final part.

Questions to consider

Do you think there is a difference between misinformed and uninformed? If so, what is the difference?

If the cycle started with an individual who didn't know any better because that's all they knew, is this still wrong? How would they know the difference?

Given this statement, how important are good animal role models in a child's life? How would you ensure they don't start believing in harmful animal practices based on what they are exposed to?

Why do you understand by "culture of a family"?

Why do you think people in the past (and some in the present) believed that animals and children weren't/aren't as important as humans as adults?

If you have a pet/s, how would you know if their emotional needs aren't being met? Do you think this responsibility falls on you entirely?

Do you think it's possible for a human to meet all their pet's needs if they don't have an emotional attachment to them?

Do you believe boredom affects all animals/pets or just the more intellegent ones? What makes an animal more intellegent than their neighbor?

What do you understand by this? Do you think animals and pets work on instinct all the time? Why or why not?

Have you noticed an emotional response to any animals and pets you know of? What were the circumstances leading to this emotional response?

Do you think humans, animals, and babies/children should be treated different based on their perceived intellegance level? Why or why not?

There are spaces without written content on either side of the page. This is by design and to avoid me waffling instead of adding thought–out pieces of writing.

These spaces can also be used to rest your eyes between blocks of text and give you, the reader, time to process and analyze what has been said on the page so far.

Not everything needs to be jam–packed with writing and an opportunity to respond. Sometimes we need the quiet moments and empty spaces to reflect and prepare ourselves for what comes next.

Week Four:

The Importance of Location When Messages are Considered

What is a location? Is this a physical place or a specific area where messages are seen and read as the law? In propaganda, location is used for three main functions:

How are these individuals targeted?
Who is targeted?
Why do these posters, pamphlets, or ideas exist in the first place?

With these questions, it’s easy to see that the intake of these messages is only part of the issue regarding how the masses interact with messages from the government or other international relations bodies responsible for changing the minds of their citizens. All of these questions can be answered with a little research, but the fact that they exist and how they were conceived paints a larger picture. Is the person who asks these questions completely aware of these messages and what they entail? Is the person who asks these questions out of the target population to such a degree that they have the capacity to ask these questions?

If a citizen is completely aware that they are part of the message's intentions, could they truly make a decision based on what they see? What happens when this citizen starts to reason with the message and decides not to be affected? This might not be possible. These messages are tailor-made to elicit a response from the target market; the citizen not being affected at all is highly unlikely. These messages were designed by those in the government with a purpose, and these were designed by a human with a lot more credibility and educational background than a lowly citizen who gets excited when they see their favorite color plastered in posters all over their city.

Let’s look at the questions from above:

How are these individuals targeted?

The one (of many) important factors of propaganda and how these messages are perceived stems from using the citizens’ natural sense of justice, duty, and camaraderie. These act as a tool to compel those who see these messages to do or think whatever is on the poster. Creators and designers of propaganda paraphernalia use what they can, based on their immediate surroundings and the current zeitgeist of their fellow citizens. For example, when the purpose of propaganda is to enlist men and women into the army, these posters and other forms of paraphenalia would most likely be placed along an army base for obvious resonons; train stations where school leavers will see them by using these school leavers strong sense of duty and youthful vigor to bring change in the world (which is universal feeling), or these posters or other paraphenalia could be strategically placed close to drug rehabilaitation centers to offer recovering addicts a chance for structure—something that could have been missing in their lives in their past.

Another example could be used in subtle propaganda: Keeping up with the Joneses is an old adage, the modern version of this is ‘Cult of the new’. These messages weren’t necessarily placed in the form of paraphernalia; these were instead used in everyday language used in advertisements where the target market could see them. This was/is used as a comparison between families to allow the seed of jealousy to encourage the family from down the street to be as successful (on the outside at least) as the family from across the road.

It’s easier to maintain and control people who think the same: They have similar tastes in branded products like appliances, bathroom amenities, and religious (regardless of what their religion is) practices and customs. Encouraging humans to ‘Keep up with the Joneses’ or participate in the ‘Cult of the new’ is a way to maintain a certain economic and political level. When these levels change in the governmental sphere, the messages pushed will change. These messages might change to ‘Keep an eye on the Joneses’ or ‘cult of the now’ if the government feels threatened by the Joneses’ power or if they disagree with the current ‘cult of the new’ ideas.

Who is targeted?

When it comes to propaganda and influential messaging, almost everyone who can participate in expanding the message behind the current forms of propaganda is a target. There are a few groups who aren’t considered based on one main factor: Mental/psychological presence. Everyone else, including children and those who already believe in the propagandistic message form the target market of propaganda messaging and paraphernalia. What do I mean by ‘mental/psychological presence’? The point and intention of propaganda is to spread a specific message, but this message needs to be understood at some level. Even as children, we were exposed to and absorbed messages in the media that changed or solidified our stance on a topic, even in the slightest. Think about an advertisement for a brand of cereal or soap when you were a child, does an image pop up in your head? Can you still sing the jingle? If so, the subtle propaganda you absorbed as a child worked.

To be able to make an informed decision (what to buy, who to help/harm based on the current messages, etc.), you need to be aware of your surroundings to the point of understanding when things change and/or why they stay the same. If a citizen doesn’t have the capacity to realize where they are or why they believe what they believe, overt or covert methods of propaganda will go over their heads. This happens whether or not they can read.

For example, if a mentaly ill person (any mental illness that alters their ability to perceive reality the way we do) walks past a poster that says “American Invaders Will Be Defeated”, which was a Cold War poster from 1951, they might not understand the context or that they are in a place called America (if the citizen was from the United States). They might also not understand the context of the poster that discussed liberation, or the dollar signs on the poster. If this citizen isn’t aware of their mental state and surroundings, they won’t understand the concept this poster conveyed. That, and if the citizen/s are very ill, they could be institutionalized without access to outside propaganda paraphernalia, so their exposure to these materials would be extremely limited.

Why do these posters, pamphlets, or ideas exist in the first place?

By now, the answer to this question should be obvious: Propaganda exists to change the minds of those in the propaganda vicinity, or at least sow seeds of doubt in the minds of those who are unsure already. Propaganda paraphernalia, from the beginning of the written word, has been used to spread ideas of the current and most accepted form of a social contract. A social contract between the citizens of a country is written in a shared goal, without pen and paper. To answer the question of why these exist in the first place, we have to consider why messages and ideas are important at all.

Every citizen has their own expectations and dreams of what their country and community can do for them, even if they don’t state this explicitly. These ideas can include the assumption that the state or government will protect their well-being by building prisons to lock criminals away, and they could also extend to education: A citizen could assume and expect that their state or government will educate them and teach them what they need to know to go about their world using the best tools possible. These assumptions and expectations exist because, as citizens, we can’t help but expect that our needs are cared for.

This brings us to the question of why this propaganda paraphernalia exists: They exist because the state and government have their own set of assumptions and expectations for themselves and their capacity to govern, and they have certain assumptions and expectations of their citizens. A few of these expectations could include the expectation that their citizens are law-abiding citizens and choose not to murder, rape, or steal from their fellow citizens. This is a reasonable expectation because this ensure the safety of the population as a whole without choosing a specific group to protect, which could result in disputes regarding preferential treatment. Making use of government gazettes and news stories that illustrate what happens to criminals is a way for the government to participate in propaganda messages without placing posters all over the town that read “Don’t kill your neighbor!” or “Thieves will lose their hands”.

On the other hand, the state or government expects something in return from its citizens: They expect them to protect the sovereignty of their state and ensure the political borders don’t change unless their state wishes it so. The best way to do this is to form an army and a military presence to use when necessary: The ideas of the current government need to be upheld because this is the status quo, and without it, the government's legacy will fall.

Questions from Piece

Are all locations acceptable for propaganda paraphernalia?
Can propaganda be used as a means to control the population, or are the messages used to empower citizens instead?
Can you answer the questions from above based on your own knowledge:
Who is targeted?
Why do these posters, pamphlets, or ideas exist in the first place?
How are individuals targeted?
How soon do you think you understood the messages you were exposed to as a child?
Does age matter regarding how these messages are received?
Is it ethical for those who know what these posters mean to explain to those who don’t, dissuading those who don’t understand from living in a bubble they might not want burst?
Should those who are mentally ill be given an opportunity to see what messages are being spread in the outside world?
What should the response be if they start believing these messages are harmful to them (based on colors, the context, and so on)?
Which locations would these messages be seen in bad taste?

References

Belegisanin, I. (2020). 25 Most Powerful Propaganda Posters That Made All the Difference. [online] Emlii. Available at: https://www.emlii.com/25-most-powerful-propaganda-posters-that-made-all-the-difference/.
Monama, F.L. (2022). Marshalling a Splintered Society: Censorship, Publicity and Propaganda in South Africa during the Second World War. Historia, 67(2), pp.27–58. doi:https://doi.org/10.17159/2309-8392/2022/v67n2a2.
Spicer Nichols, J. (2004). Propaganda. [online] Science Direct. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/propaganda.

Questions to consider

How can a location be a function? Do you think this changes the impact of location-based propaganda paraphenalia?

What picture does this paint? Is there a smaller picture in this case? What is it?

Do you think the government themselves should be responsible for this or should there be a private department for this? Why do you think this?

Who or what instills this sense? The state/ government or the parents/ community of the citizen?

What do understand by a 'universal feeling'?

Have you heard this term before? Do you think citizens generally do this? Why do you think they do? If not, why do you think they don't care?

If a government maintains the safety of their citizens, do you think they have the right to control some aspacts of the citizens' lives? Why or why not?

What do you understand by this? Does everyone have control of their minds (have presence of mind) until and unless they lose autonomy?

Do you think subtle propaganda is more effective on children?

If someone can't read or understand what messages are being displayed, do you think you and those around you have an obligation to inform/teach them? Why or why not?

Symbols on posters can be a powerful message, but what happens if these symbols aren't understood by everyone? Is this a poster problem or a people problem?

If people aren't aware that they part of a social contract, should they be held responsible if/when it fails? Why or why not?

Protect whose well-being? Is the well-being of citizen one the same as the well-being of citzen two? How would the citezen's inform the state that they don't share a common well-being need?

Is being a criminal an individual choice entirely or are other factors like socio–economic factors and abuse households also responsible, either partially or completely?

Have you seen posters like these in real? Are they in your town/city? How are they perceived?

Best way for whom? The state/government or the citizens?

Influential Ethics For December

Week One: What Is Pain? Is this A Human Condition? (Part one of three)

Week Two:

Week Three:

What Is Pain? Is this A Human Condition? (Part two of three)

Week Four:

The Importance of Location When Messages are Considered

Week One:
What Is Pain? Is this A Human Condition? (Part one of three)