Sunday, October 18, 2015

Public Discourse Ethics

In chapter six, the focus lies on the ideas of public discourse ethics.  The authors talk about how it is important when in the "public arena", there is room for multiple views and ideas to flow.  It was important how the chapter stresses that public versus private spheres call for very different approaches to discourse.  The good cannot be promoted if there is no area for those ideas to blossom, which is what I would say is the biggest take away. We would lose that solid conversation if someone in a public sphere feels uncomfortable sharing thoughts and ideas.

Looking at a real life comparison for this idea of public discourse ethics, I think youth sports in general is a very fine example of this.  As a coach, there are many meetings to attend with other coaches all over the state.  Last winter at one of these meetings there was a person holding court within this public arena.  Everytime someone brought up an idea, their thoughts were answered with, "wow that would never work".  This caused a shift, and less people began talking. This is a prime example of why that public arena needs to be a place to promote different goods, I left feeling I had no say in the matters discussed.  We can see how this kind of negative behavior can have profound effects on discourse, and why we need to be mindful of this kind of ethics.
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousOctober 21, 2015 at 2:54 PM

    I like how you talked about acknowledging others opinions and being mindful of what they are saying. There is always the common statement that you should ask a question because chances are someone else in the room has the same question as well. With people having negative comments it makes others not want to participate and doesn't allow a peaceful discussion to properly learn through difference.

    One aspect I thought about is how these negative comments affect us in the situation we are in. You talk about being in a public arena that is face to face with each other and these negative comments make people not want to speak up because of the possibility their idea being neglected. If this was over the internet I think this would change the concept of the public arena. If this discussion was online I feel like people are more prone to stating their opinion in response to a negative comment because they are behind a screen. Its interesting to look at the the discussion patterns of person to person relating to the internet and social media platforms.

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