"I keep six honest serving men.
They taught me all I knew.
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who."
Rudyard Kipling
It is easiest to begin with the kinds of communications which are not clearly ethical. Then a comparison can be made to which kinds of communication styles are reasonably ethical. One hears and sees the obviously unethical nearly every day in common advertising which is selling something which is not the product or service. These things are sold by using peoples' most basic emotions. Everything from hair color to automobiles is sold with sexual innuendo. If it isn't that, it is sold based on something I call the hot item index. Anything from a mobile phone to a pair of shoes to a vacation to some supposedly desirable destination falls into this category. This is basically greed or envy as a selling strategy. There are also the things which are sold with fear as a motivational tool. These kinds of selling usually are about ideas and concepts. If people with no scruples see some gain in power or money for themselves, they will use everything from a fear of the unknown to fear of eternal damnation and they will never have any personal attacks of conscience. The other unethical method of communication is lying by omission or only telling a half-truth and pairing it with an untruth.
Since all of these various forms of unethical communication are out there, it is a good idea for people to stop and think. Many times this is the exact thing the person selling whatever the product is, does not want people to do. The hard sell, as in the directives to phone within the next ten minutes, to limit the possibility some potential buyers will have second thoughts, is one method used to avert critical thinking.
This following without thinking helps despicable people make money off pushing religion and gives others excuses to murder and promote hatred in the name of religion and patriotism. Every bit of it comes with someone who will say acting and not thinking is the right way. The get rich quick pushers and those others pushing a poor political or religious idea are not so different and they are equally deceptive. All such selling comes with a statement of urgency. One must act immediately or all will be lost. Except in cases of imminent natural or manmade life-threatening disasters or medical emergencies, this is rarely the truth. Nowadays, people are distrustful of ethnic/social groups which are not like them. Those strange others are blamed for things they did not do. The greatest lie is the one which implies that any group of people is always this way or that. They give people excuses to discriminate or spy or violate others' human rights in the name of security. Stereotypes are always substitutes for fact checking and critical thinking. People who seem to be more knowing than the average, who claim to be experts say a thing is so and others thoughtlessly accept their pronouncements as known facts without checking other unbiased sources or considering opposing views.. These kinds of pretend knowledge are like superstitions. Superstitions are unlikely stories people have made up to explain the apparently unexplainable or the superstitions are used as coping strategies. And so it goes until all of these unthinking followers are falling off a figurative cliff.
I have sometimes joked, half seriously, that if I could do such a thing, I'd cause all of the politicians to be compelled to tell the absolute truth when asked any direct question. Two weeks would be time enough to do the job. That one bit of interference could certainly cause an uproar, I think. It surely would be fascinating. It might also clear the air a bit. Such an event would do much good in the cause of ethical communication. I can only speculate what that would do for the cause of politics. Fortunately for the average con artist, critical thinking is losing more ground every day. The dumbing down of education is a root cause. That is a good part of what has created the economic mess the United States is in and it is a part of what keeps the nervous fear going. Suddenly, people are getting a dose of cold reality. This is also being used as a tool. Blame must be placed on some particular group. The truth is there is plenty of blame to go around and all of the finger pointers are responsible for promoting truth.