Reflection on the Song Pokerface - Essay Example

It has been a long while since I have been hearing today’s phenomenal all-time favourite songs of Lady Gaga, Pokerface. It comes to my mind that the message of the song, in particular, leads me to a deep understanding of what is morally good or bad, as I ponder on utilitarianism telling us that the good things are those that should maximize happiness.

Under the utilitarian principle, it is a good thing to maximize happiness, whatever may it take, for as long as it boils down to its actual purpose. In other words, utilitarianism may point out that maximizing pleasure is the good thing to do and alleviating pain is of paramount importance. Utilitarianism also points out the idea that the good thing to do is to maximize the individual ability to make the whole world a better place. Therefore, impartiality proves to be appropriate to maximize pleasure. Utilitarianism also eliminates the idea of a moral dilemma for as long as a majority is happy with a certain action, then it is the right thing to do.

A Pokerface could mean a person who is not honest about his real emotions or feelings and hiding it may be the best option so that nobody could know about it. Pokerface was coined from an actual poker card play, by which each opponent would not want to show a real expression of their face to others so that any hint about what cards they are holding may not be detected.

From the Pokerface lyrics, I pondered on this specific line below:
“I wanna hold em like they do in Texas, please
Fold em let em hit me raise it baby stay with me, I love it
Luck and intuition play the cards with Spades to start
And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart”.

This paragraph depicts the idea about deception which would be made possible if the girl would be able to successfully hide her real intention of deceiving the man. Achieving it seems would be what makes the girl happy. Wearing Pokerface based on the song would maximize the girl’s pleasure.

Based on utilitarianism, from the point of view of the girl, there would be no moral dilemma, for as long as her move maximizes her happiness. However, from the perspective of the man who has been deceived, that might not ensure maximizing his happiness. For this reason, for as long as no majority got the maximum pleasure, then utilitarianism would fail to tell us what is good or bad, but what is right would always mean subjective at this point.

Applying this in the general context, we know for sure that the majority always has the authority over the minority if there would be maximum happiness generated by the former. However, provided that the minority has something more important point compared to the majority, up to what extent does the latter hold over the former? Does following the majority would still ensure achieving maximum happiness in the end?

If the majority would wear a poker face, then based on the utilitarian principle it would tell us that it is the right thing to do for as long as it would ensure maximum happiness. For instance, if the majority has been wearing poker faces, and happy doing it, then such an act is the right thing to do according to utilitarianism. However, deception would increase too, but nobody would be happy to be deceived in reality. This only proves that what is right or wrong cannot be taken from a one-sided point of view of only ensuring what would make the majority happy, but including some consequences that would reduce maximum pleasures. This would make utilitarianism, a weak philosophy that at some point has become too good to be true in the actual setting.