Essays Index
Equestrian Culture series: Part 1 - Religion | Part 2 - Government and Military | Part 3 - Values and Morality | Part 4 - Names and Family | Part 5 - Language

A broad, generalised explanation of pony morality and cultural values in Equestria, and an explanation of their root causes. Please note that I am a writer and that this is a worldbuilding essay, so my own personal views have nothing to do with this.

Cultural values:
Freedom vs. Security:
Unlike humans, ponies are biologically a mostly herbivorous species with more of a herd mentality, meaning that their baser instincts favour security, avoidance of conflict, and the collectivist common good of the herd over individualist notions of personal freedom and fighting for these ideals. This is of course a generalisation, as ponies are not slaves to their instincts, and can take a wide variety of personal stances on such issues, but on the whole, pony society does tend to favour this herd mentality.

Pony history also served to reinforce many of these notions. While humans have had a long history of tyrannical and oppressive regimes ruling over people, ponies have had comparatively few authoritarian oppressors in their history. Aside from the rule of King Sombra in the Crystal Empire, and the tyranny of the old earth pony aristocracy prior to their overthrow, the ruling classes for most of pony history have been relatively benign by real world standards, showing few of the worst excesses of the monarchs and dictators of human history. Even King Sombra's rule, as dark as it was, was marked more by practices of slavery and mind control than by any widespread death or genocide, and in fact, Sombra's crimes were considered mild enough that even he was eventually pardoned by the Crystal Empire after his redemption by Radiant Hope.

Discord's Reign of Chaos was also a significant factor in reinforcing the pony herd mentality, even generations after Discord himself was forgotten. The Reign of Chaos was a period where a self-proclaimed defender of freedom overthrew Equestria's benevolent and beloved rulers to usher in a time of chaos and anarchy which disrupted everybody's lives, and turned the entire world on its head for almost a century afterwards. Ponies who lived through the Reign of Chaos desperately sought safety, structure, order, and security rather than freedom, things which Discord did his utmost to take away, and these actions left a scar on the popular consciousness which forever branded the anarchist as a more dangerous and feared enemy than the dictator.

For these reasons, ponies have always been more forgiving of authoritarian attitudes and politics, at least within reason. Equestria has been ruled for over a thousand years by an elite royal family who rule for life, but the diarchy's approval rating has remained consistently high for almost the entirety of that rule, as they have also consistently acted for the common good of their nation. Equestria also forcibly annexed many lands in formerly sovereign territories whose governments collapsed in the Reign of Chaos, actions which could quite fairly be described as imperialist. Yet most ponies today even within these lands have no problem with this, and see the Reunification Wars as justified, as Equestria's campaigns ultimately benefited everyone, unlike real world imperialism, which was almost always to the detriment of native peoples.

Ponies also happily accept or at least tolerate many seemingly authoritarian laws and practices in Equestria which in the real world we likely would not. Equestria legally censors history and academic discoveries in the name of preventing the spread of dangerous knowledge, such as the ability to time travel. Ponies have a right to self-defence, and are legally allowed to carry their own weapons, but the government heavily restricts both the ownership and development of firearms, not allowing manufacturers to innovate any further than flintlock weapons for fear of the damage which they could cause. And Princess Luna's ability to dreamwalk and view memories gives the Equestrian government the ability to conduct surveillance on a level even our own world cannot match, yet ponies generally do not fear the violation of their privacy, as they are naturally trusting, and mostly do not believe that Luna would ever abuse her power.

The pony tolerance of mind magic in general is another great example of ponies valuing the common good over personal freedom. While mind control of any type would likely be seen as horrifying in any human society, the one ultimate violation of personal freedom, ponies are instead very accepting of mind control so long as it has positive results. For example, Cadance's brand of love magic being used to end conflict between couples, or reforming spells being used in the criminal justice system to help a delinquent rejoin society, are both seen as acceptable (and sometimes even laudable) means of achieving harmony between ponies, so long as certain boundries are respected.

To ponies, mind magic is only considered especially heinous if used maliciously, such as if an obedience spell were used to enslave a pony, if a love potion were used to impose romantic feelings on a pony who does not want them, or if a mind alteration spell were used to force ponies to agree with an opinion or ideology that they previously opposed. Mind control is not viewed as an inherently evil thing, but instead merely as another tool which can potentially be used for evil ends. Even mind control with negative results is quickly forgiven in Equestrian society if the perpetrators did not intend harm, such as with the love poison incident, or with Twilight's misuse of the Want-It-Need-It spell.

However, despite this, ponies do still have an individualist streak to them because of their cutie marks and special talents. While ponies may not value personal freedom all that highly compared to the common good, the right to self-expression is still considered essential and inalienable for them, as not being able to express themselves or practice their special talents often leads ponies to bouts of depression, and sometimes even temporary insanity. The idea of a scenario in which self-expression is not possible would be horrifying, or at least unnerving for most ponies to think of, as it was to Twilight and her friends when they first visited Ourtown. Thus, despite its somewhat more authoritarian leanings, Equestria's constitution still enshrines a great many rights and personal freedoms in law, and even Equestrian prisons are expected to provide inmates with reasonable means to express their special talents and pursue their interests.

Compassion vs. Practicality:
As ponies have a strong collectivist herd mentality and greatly value harmony and happiness, it is probably not surprising that Equestrian law is written to be compassionate and accommodating to an almost impractical degree. Equestria has many policies which could be considered socialist in a real world context, such as free public education and healthcare, significant spending on welfare and social programs, as well as government funding for orphanages, homeless shelters, and many other such institutes that are normally the purview of charities. Very little restriction exists on immigration as well, partially because Equestria already rules most of the world anyway, but also so as to encourage good relations with foreign nations and peoples. Princess Celestia herself even spends hours daily on personally listening to the complaints of her citizens in the Day Court. All in all, Equestria as a nation greatly concerns itself with the happiness and well-being of its citizens, and it does all this despite the massive expenses such policies entail.

However, such policies are more sustainable for Equestria than they would be for many real world nations, due to its uniquely privileged position in world politics. Equestria has no national debt to pay, does not lack for resources to trade, spends very little on military funding or new technologies, as it does not fight many wars, and it has a strong economy thanks to its low rates of unemployment, due to the phenomenon of cutie marks ensuring that almost all ponies have a speciality that guarantees them a steady job somewhere, so long as they can find it. As a nation, Equestria is very fortunate, and is thus comfortably able to afford such social policies without even having to raise taxes much.

Even still, Equestria's growth and efficiency does suffer for this to some degree. Exploration, discoveries, and technological progress are slow in Equestria compared to our own world, thanks to both a lack of competition from other nations to drive innovation, and a lack of government investment. There are also holes in Equestria's generous welfare and immigration systems that do see occasional abuse from a minority of shadier types. And the whole structure is also fairly delicate, and could be easily upset if Equestria ever were to suddenly run out of natural resources or become embroiled in a foreign war. As seen in the Sombra timeline, such crises would likely stretch Equestria's resources thin, and necessitate wide-scale changes to Equestria's social policies and economy, bringing its long term sustainability into question.

Mercy vs. Justice:
The Equestrian justice system is a much smaller entity than its typical real world equivalents, as it sees far less use. Because of the natural pony instinct to avoid conflict for the good of the herd, criminal activity is both less common in Equestria than in the real world, and also more likely to be resolved without outside involvement. While many activities may technically be considered illegal in Equestria, comparatively few illegal acts ever result in arrests or processing through the courts, as ponies generally see law enforcement as a last resort measure to deal with egregious cases of law-breaking, not the default response to any instance of crime.

In most cases, Equestrian citizens prefer settle disputes between themselves, rather than "escalate" the matter by going to the police. A pony whose property is being vandalised would probably sooner think to lay a trap for the vandal than they would consider getting the police involved, and a pony who believes that they have been wronged by their employer would likely sooner voice their complaints to their boss and demand reparations than think about lawsuits. Equestria thus has less reliance on police forces for anything other than basic peace-keeping, and more of a culture of citizen's arrests, private investigators, and even limited vigilantism. The mane six have demonstrated this principle on several occasions, such as with Pinkie and Rarity both taking on the personas of detectives at different times to conduct investigations, rather than seeking help from the law.

When police do become involved in Equestria, they generally have a lot of freedom in how they handle criminals, though many of the specifics vary state by state. Federal law mandates that serious crimes such as rape and murder be tried through the courts, but these kinds of crimes are comparatively rare. The vast majority of arrests in Equestria are for frauds, thefts, and petty crimes, and in many of these cases, it's easier for the police to let the criminals be miserable in a jail cell for long enough learn their lesson, and then let them go with a warning to not do it again, rather than spend potentially hours processing the criminals and helping to build a case against them for minor acts of law-breaking.

Equestria's justice system as a whole is therefore very "forgive and forget" compared to the real world, but only up to a point. Repeat offenders are shown far less mercy than first-timers, and are far more likely to end up in court, as are the perpetrators of more serious crimes which have longer-lasting consequences.

Equestria does not have the death penalty, and ponies favour rehabilitation over imprisonment in sentencing whenever possible. Asylums and institutions exist for the criminally insane, and submitting to a reforming spell is an option for many offenders if they consent to its use. Many do not, however, or may not have the option, and for those ponies, prison or fines exist. As capital punishment does not exist in Equestria, and hasn't done since before the reign of Celestia, life imprisonment is the harshest sentence that the Equestrian justice system can deliver, usually leading to incarceration in Nameless Correctional Facility in San Palomino.

However, despite being extremely merciful to criminals on the whole, ponies are still capable of extremely harsh sentencing when they feel it necessary. As ponies are more concerned with the public good than with individual rights, if they believe a captured criminal to still be a threat for any reason, ponies would not consider extreme sentences such as petrification or thousand-year-long imprisonments to be cruel, unusual, or unnecessarily harsh. Instead, so long as a criminal remains a threat to society and seems unwilling to change their ways, ponies believe that such punishments are acceptable, warranted, necessary, and must continue. Only outright execution and intentional torture are seen as crossing a line, and almost anything short of that can be justified so long as it is done in the common good, and so long as there exists no clearly better option.

Tradition vs. Progress:
While ponies are notoriously poor at recording their own history, thanks in part to their needlessly overcomplicated written language, tradition can actually be said to be very important to them as a whole, as it is the main way that ponies honour their histories, however indirectly.

The average pony family is very tight-knit, and knowledge and traditions pass easily from each generation to the next. Thus, while ponies as a whole may forget many things, the customs, traditions, and celebrations that their forefathers started will persist, and the stories that their mothers told them in their youths will be passed down again and again throughout the ages. In many cases, real history becomes legend in this way, and this is why ponies continue to celebrate many events and holidays such as Hearts and Hooves Day or the Summer Sun Celebration, despite entirely forgetting the real history behind them. Hearth's Warming Eve is one of the few exceptions to this, as one of its major traditions is the performance of a play telling the story of the first Hearth's Warming, so as to reiterate the lessons it taught.

In many real life cultures, tradition sometimes acts as a barrier to progress, but this is rarely ever the case in Equestria. Although ponies, like humans, fear the unknown, their drive towards harmony makes them quick to accept change once the benefits of it become obvious, whatever form that change may take. Whether it be technological change such as the development of the railway line, social change like adjusting to the return of a diarchy, or lifestyle changes such as choosing to reinvent themselves, ponies are usually quick to adapt to new circumstances, and rarely produce anti-progressive movements. This is fortunate, as technological progress for ponies is slow to begin with, and would be even slower otherwise.

Prejudice vs. Acceptance:
On the whole, Equestria is very fortunate to not have much of a history with widespread bigotry or intolerance. Though it does still exist in many forms, it is not as pronounced as in most human cultures, thanks again mostly to the pony instinct to maintain harmony and avoid conflict.

To begin with, ever since their earliest history, ponies have been naturally egalitarian and meritocratic, unlike humans. Although fundamental biological differences between mares and stallions still exist, and still drive gender roles to an extent (more stallions than mares choose to join the military, for instance), ponies had less reason to rigidly define gender roles in their society. Stallions in early tribal communities did not need to go out and hunt, as ponies are not obligate ominvores like humans, so the mares weren't the only ones around to take care of foals or perform menial duties. Similarly, stallions weren't alone in assuming protective or leadership roles, as the existence of cutie marks clearly displayed the true value and capability of mares. Coupled with the development of the three races, which even further separated particular skills and abilities from sex, and ponies simply never had a reason to be particularly sexist.

In addition to this, ponies have also historically been very accepting of alternative sexualities, in part because of several quirks of their biology. Pony mares lack a sex drive almost entirely outside of heat seasons, despite stallions maintaining theirs all year round, and combined with a slight gender imbalance in pony birth rates favouring mares at a roughly 6:4 ratio, this led to slightly higher rates of homosexual coupling in both sexes; mares often turned to relationships with other mares because there sometimes weren't enough stallions to go around, and stallions often turned to relationships with other stallions because casual sex was otherwise an unlikely prospect outside of heat season. Because it was more common, homosexuality was thus also more accepted, even in the less enlightened times of pony history.

Mares being more populous than stallions and less interested in sex also had the effects of Equestrian culture being a lot less sexualised than many modern real life cultures, in favour of being more romanticised, while also ironically developing a thriving prostitution industry.

Because of all this, LGBT acceptance and gender politics were never such a thorny issue for ponies as they historically have been in our world. Neither mares nor stallions were ever denied voting rights or the ability to work, nor were homosexuals ever routinely persecuted, so no true equivalent to the feminist or gay rights movements ever existed in Equestria. Such prejudices did sometimes exist on an individual basis, but were never widespread or institutional.

This is not to say, however, that ponies have never struggled with prejudice. Although ponies historically accepted homosexuality in most cases, such prejudices did still appear in the Pre-Classical Era, as political marriages were still common in that time, and homosexual unions were politically useless because of their inability to produce heirs. Prejudice against transgender ponies was also common in those times, particularly since there didn't yet exist any real treatment for their dysphoria. However, these attitudes saw a sharp decline after the first Hearth's Warming, as ponies learned that conflict and prejudice of all sorts fed the windigoes. The later rise of Alicornism dealt a further blow by officially declaring bigotry a sin, but transgender individuals did not fully escape from prejudice until magical science later perfected the transitioning process.

Alicornism also ironically perpetrated its own form of prejudice, that of religious persecution, with its development of the concepts of sin and heresy, which came to a head with the Great Crusade into Trotsylvania. These actions and attitudes ultimately led to the downfall of Alicornism, and Equestria still has several laws on the book today outlawing such religious persecution.

Classism is also a problem that ponies have long suffered with. From as early as the Pre-Classical Era, elitism has been a problem in many pony societies, most notably among the earth ponies, who violently overthrew their noble class in a revolution before founding the Earth Pony Republic. Even today, many of Equestria's old noble families are extremely proud of their lineages, refuse to marry "beneath" themselves, and look down upon bastards and children of no discernable genealogy. However, Equestria's wealth disparity is nowhere near as great now as it once was, and the middle and lower classes now comfortably ignore the upper class snobs, whose relevance has been fading for years.

Finally, racism has historically been a problem for ponies as well, not just amongst themselves, but also towards other species. In some respects, ponies are still generally less racist than humans are, but in other respects, they can sometimes be worse. This is at least in part because the various species of Equestria's world are much more fundamentally different from each other than the various races of humans are. It is difficult, for example, for a mostly herbivorous species like ponies to reconcile with a carnivorous species that would gladly eat them, such as dragons, and most major wars throughout pony history have been fought along species lines.

As with every other type of prejudice, the lessons of the first Hearth's Warming and the teachings of Alicornism have ingrained in pony popular culture that racism is wrong, and this is an ideal that ponies have mostly upheld. Equestria has never had slavery or enforced segregation, and ponies in general strive to be understanding and accepting of other species and cultures. They do, however, still recognise that other species are very different, and sometimes treat them accordingly. Animals and monsters, some of whom are just as intelligent as ponies, are still treated differently in law out of necessity, to account for the fact that they cannot control their instincts like other species can. And ponies still generally view the world through a equi-centric lens, and may occasionally show their ignorance or come off as insensitive because of this.

It is important to remember, however, that ponies are hardly alone in their flaws. Almost every other species in Equestria's world are, if anything, far more bigoted on average than ponies are, lacking the unique cocktail of biological instincts, historical lessons, and culture that made ponies so easily accepting. Although ponies may make occasional insensitive remarks about mules looking ugly to them, or mistake a zebra for an evil sorceress and panic, most other species still recognise that ponies at least mean well.

Acknowledgements:
-The pony tolerance for mind control was first pointed out to me by Alara J. Rogers, possibly in the comments of one of her blogs, though I don't remember exactly which.