Two films have divided the land. The debate that followed showed obfuscation on the part of those who are learned and simplification from the point of view of those who we (I count myself as part of the dominant class) view as unlearned, uncouth. Both parties—there are individuals and groups in between, shelved in the interstices of this society—have displayed arrogance and violence confirming what we have always known but have persistently denied: that intelligence does not necessarily calm the spirit.
The opposite must also be true: the lack of critical faculty does not engender innocence, nor does it make everyone brutes. Above the din of discussion, have we ever asked if the general silence is caused by the now mythical 30-plus million? Their stillness after all by the sheer number can actually create a monumental non-committal, an acquiescence to what is wrong, the very same thing bothering the intellectuals and which they, we believe, merely take for granted.
Who has the right to imagine our nation? The concept of a nation remains contentious to us who have all the time and the faculty to think but to those below (for lack of a better word to describe them) there is a nation and they are part of it. That in their mind, their support of a government is for the maintenance of that whole. In their mind also, our voices are subversive because they are meant to challenge that unity. In our mind, their opinions are inane, silly and dumb.
How do we convince them that we are treading on the same ground, that our dream for happiness includes them as well? Or, did we even consider this path at all?
The past weeks have been brutal for all of us. Online and off, parallel threads run and, in its own geometry, never did meet.
We know where our voices come from. They come from positions of privilege and wealth, or, at least, from statuses with a modicum of economic sufficiency. On their side, the enablers of the discourse also come from the same positions. Examining, however, the level of logic that their responses to our clarifications reveal a majority of individuals who have insufficient knowledge. But how do we tell them that? The long years of administering this “nation” has always been delivered from persons who, like us, can read, write and critique what was written.
And so, where do their voices come from? Are we interested to know where they are, by reasoning, coming from?
The fact is that, threatened, we have forgotten to consider the solutions available to us – education. Not the simplistic concept of education but the solid social package encompassing community development.
It was in the late ’70s when the “Basic Needs Concept’’ was introduced during the International Labor Organization’s World Employment Conference. It has been more than 50 years since the said concept was popularized, which proposed as the overriding objective of development policies the satisfaction of basic human needs. Reductionist to a point, the idea, however, remains a fertile source of more ideas if we consider the overall meaning of those “basic needs.” Following the ILO report, the Basic Needs Approach possesses what it defined as two crucial elements. They are the minimum requirements of a family for private consumption, which are: adequate food, shelter and clothing and other household implements. The other requirements point to the essential services provided by and for the community at large. Among these services are safe drinking water, sanitation, public transport and health. Crucial to the gaps that we feel run across our societies are two more services and they are concerned with education and cultural facilities, two domains of development we have long neglected in the policy implementations of government programs.
The same report, it must be noted, did not forget to mention how access to certain services allowed decision-making expected to lead to real participation in the community.
All these elements never figured in the debates that rankled for days on end. We felt the only thing that mattered was to win the debate, forgetting that the other side may not be even equipped to listen to our tirades, or to comprehend our stand. We worked hard to trade insults with them, bringing in from our arsenal of reason, wit and diatribes the force of our class and education. If that did not work, we delivered the coup d’ grace: Palibhasa wala kayong pinag-aralan! (You are not educated after all!).
In our haste, we ignored the poisonous tricks of algorithms. The flame in our hearts, the source of our rage, lit to conflagration that which we wanted to suppress. In the end, we had everything to lose and nothing to gain. What was that old adage, win an argument and lose a soul?
We still can win them back. We need not be at the forefront. All we can do is do what we are best at—fighting for good laws and making sure they are implemented, supporting all kinds of education and, most of all, being prepared to meet, hoping against hope, citizens who can read and write, understand what they have read and wrote, step back and rethink everything in front of them. This is no less ideal but idealism has always been the source of good philosophy that outlasts regimes.
It is always good to look back at the past, for the past has lessons. One of these lessons from the past comes from Thomas Paine. In his short preface to The Age of Reason, Paine writes: “You will do me justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.”
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com
Image credits: Jimbo Albano