Moral Muteness

I personally do not like lying (or lying by omission) and try to refrain from lying as much as possible, but 2 things make me want to lie: 1. my competitive nature and 2. to make somebody's day better. As an athlete you are able to see a lot of moral muteness, in and out of a game. My competitive nature influences my body and mind to lie for the sake of winning. In the bronze medal match of my club volleyball nationals, I would see my setter come down from a block that he clearly touched but the refs missed the call. Now in a match that isn't as important or a match that isn't close, I would usually, as we call it give them an "honesty point." But since this match was very important and really close I refrained from telling the refs so we could go on and win the match by 2 points. I personally would do it again and again because I want to win more than anything else, I like being the best. As for lying to make somebody's day better, I commonly compare this to surprises. Often for surprise birthday parties the birthday boy/girl is consistently being lied to by multiple people. I have been the liar and the one lied to about birthday parties. I find that surprises are great way to make peoples days and it just proves that not every lie is a bad. I value competitiveness and care very highly, and in both circumstances I am truthful to my values. It makes me feel good when I am in a competitive atmosphere because of the adrenaline it gives me. And it makes my day when I make somebody else's day. It is a give and get relationship. Moral muteness isn't always a bad thing, as it could make somebody's day to compliment their outfit when in actuality it looks ridiculous, but they needed the compliment.

Implicit Biases

I took 3 tests, Race, Career-Gender, and sexuality. My results were a little surprising to me because I like to think of myself as a nondiscrimination person. My results were very slightly on either side of the spectrum. I do believe that as I am a straight, white, male that is how all of my results turned out. For the Race, it said that I have a slightly more preference for white people over black people. I can see that I have a slight preference purely because my group of friends are mostly caucasian but I do not go out of my way to stray away from any group of people. Secondly, I associated females with family and male with career. I do believe this association only started because of movies, TV shows, and other media. Lastly, for sexuality I am naturally also associated with straight people. I also again do not feel like I have any discrimination towards any sexuality and I personally have multiple gay and african american friends. My personal friend group includes, a black gay male, Lebanese male, Korean male, Indian male, and jewish male as my best friends. This was the most diverse group of friends I have ever heard of and I wouldn't want it any other way.

I personally did not like the quizzes. I figured it was more of a game and a memory test than an internal biases. This causes me to think that the results are not exactly accurate. My results are very minimal on every end, so it could be possible that tests are truthful and I don't realize my implicit biases.

Blue Mountain State - relational leadership

Blue Mountain State is a show that focuses on a couple different football players at a huge party university. To set the scene, the main character, Alex Moran, just became the starting quarterback and captain of the team. After the team lost their first match of the season the team loses and then they throw the worst party that they have ever had where even the the teammates left. After the teammates lost all moral and camaraderie. As captain, Alex is the leader and it is a dictatorship, the team will do what he wants.

The team needed somebody to take over and lead them to a victory on and off the field. To show leadership it got the team to be inclusive by bringing everyone together and riled up for the best party that they could ever have. To bring the team together he dragged every player into a meeting so they could talk about their problems and how to fix it. This quality of a leader is essential to be great. This brings us to empowerment, where he has then given each of the teammates roles to play to make the party great. In the real world, leaders need to make the followers feel a sense of need in the team. Although he mainly wanted to have the best party of his life, ethically he is doing the right thing for his team and peers to have a good time and come together to win. What Alex is doing is giving the team a sense of purpose, to come together, to party, to win. He is creating this purpose so the moral gets boosted so the team becomes a team, so they fight for each other, fight to win, and fight to have a good time. Alex took the team through a process to show his leadership skills and become somebody the team can respect and look up to. He created the path and had them follow. This show, while ridiculous, displays all aspects of leadership at multiple levels, the dean of the school, the coach, the captain, and Alex even not as a captain.



Scene can be found on netflix: Blue Mountain State Season 3 Episode 3  13:40 to 16:09