Ethics

Ethics Event notes- 10/23/2019

-speaker: mid 20’s, female, purple/gray hair, energetic, blunt, honest, ‘big talk’ oriented

-what informs you, forms you

-emptiness in the things we see (social media) creates emptiness in the culture

-dissatisfaction, consumerism, desire for happiness-greed,

-content creates culture

-you either contribute or you consume

-why does it matter?

-after the destruction of different groups of people, they are silenced. And then miss-
represented or mis spoken for. Self suppression, you begin to believe the lies you are
told about yourself.

-Shame- dirty feeling about yourself, further than embarrassed. We feel guilty for things we think, feel,
or do. We stay silent because of shame, and stigmas. “Just get over it”. Because of stereotypes, we are
afraid to break out of the mold. Biases go to stereotypes, to prejudice, to belief, to action. I.e. -
holocaust. Its not always safe to speak up and express ourselves,

- we paint pictures of how we want to feel on the outside, and we bury away things inside us that should
be dealt with upfront to avoid creating long term problems with our relationships with ourselves and
others.

-“finish my sentence exercise… ‘I was going through…’, ‘I was feeling…’, ‘I was needing’, ‘I was staying
silent because’ – students wrote down their personal answers to these questions on notecards that
were handed out on entry. These responses were collected and brought to the front.

-lights went down, she asked varying personal questions and asked people to stand up if the question
applied to them. “who has lost a love one to addiction, suicide, or homicide”, “who has ever been a
victim of domestic violence”. This demonstrated that no matter what we go through, nobody is ever
truly alone in our struggles.

-the cycle of silence stops with me…

-students went on stage and read responses that other wrote on cards in response to the “finish my
sentence exercise” and they then give the reasons why the cycle will end with them. “I was feeling lost,
alone, betrayed…. I was silent because I didn’t want to bother others, didn’t want the attention” “I will
end the cycle because we are all special in our own ways and nobody should ever feel like they are
alone”
-we need to make a difference in the world. Silence can’t stay silent anymore of people are hurting or
dying because of it. We have a responsibility as humans to reach out and help one another go through
our battles.

-This is what should guide our ethical compass – the responsibility we have for our fellow brothers and
sisters to help make the world a happier and more conscientious place on an individual level.