Many major turning points in the history of nation-states has been preceded by a period of massive upheaval. Think of the French Revolution, or the American Civil War. While massive upheaval is not sufficient for positive social change, it certainly appears that when structures of power have become as rigid and negatively self-reinforcing as they have in the Philippines, there is really little recourse but radical change that will possibly hurt many in the short term, but will hopefully benefit many more people in the long term.
However, in a decolonizing country like the Philippines with a massive, culturally heterogenous population separated drastically along class divides, achieving consensus in the first place on anything more than a set of crude, vague principles of "peace" and "public accountability" will be difficult. The playing field has to be leveled off first, so that when the majority forces (or, more likely, agrees to) some kind of radical change, everyone is more or less on the same page. The very rich and the very poor will possess untenably different visions of what the "ideal society" will look and how best to achieve it. Public education, population management, and public health care are necessary for this leveling off to take place. Population management is particularly crucial because getting an informed consensus in a gigantic population will be difficult without having to leverage on groupthink, or steamrollering the intellectual freedom of the individual in the name of "national unity".
this is where the middle class mistakes the poor's insistence for large families hits a disconnect. Middle class technicians insist that it is only logical for poor parents to manage their household size to conserve food and other expenses. But from the vantage point of the poor, which is rarely understood by middle class health care delivery workers (or those influenced by a a Western fundamentalist mindset on population theories), having many children increases the chance of having at least a few children surviving pediatric diseases and accidents and acting as old age care providers when the parents grow old. i wonder when oh when will middle class health care workers ever ever ever understand that textbook solutions to population management are not ever congruent to grassroots psychology?
Posted by
|
February 21, 2008 4:59 AM
"i wonder when oh when will middle class health care workers ever ever ever understand that textbook solutions to population management are not ever congruent to grassroots psychology?"
When you and those who share the same view advocate hard enough for it, and when the time is right. :)
At the risk of imposing my middle class views (which I admit I to holding) on the issue of population management I think we should be more cautious with distinguishing between the state-of with the moving-forward-from a situation. What is (the extant), what could be (the possible), what likely will be (the probable), and what should be (the normative) are possibly very different things.
So what I am not saying that the poor want to join middle class; that would be a crass generalization (which in the end may or may not turn out to be true). What I am saying is that if the poor had the the tools and the opportunity to ensure that their children were "guaranteed" to have a much higher chance of surviving pediatric diseases and accidents, and if they were assured in some way that they will have care providers in their old age, they might choose to have less children.
But I don't know for sure. It's difficult to speculate because these "tools" and "opportunities" that I talk about are abstract concepts divorced from the social realities that will generate them. And what kind of "guarantees" will be made? Who will make them, and why should the poor trust them?
Posted by
Diego |
February 21, 2008 4:59 AM
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The short and easy answer is to your question is that you should study hard and become an asset to the Philippine economy.I see myself getting caught in the cycle and becoming the self-righteous twit I really didn't want to become. I have to keep reminding myself that young people's minds are not blank slates. Mentoring isn't about transferring and receiving ideas wholesale; it's about encouraging the critical analysis of received ideas.
Here's a longer and more complicated one:
Your job as a student is to learn, and while you have the resources (such access to your university's libraries) and the time (when you're not getting drunk and trying to get laid, that is), you could find out for youself what the root causes of poverty are. There will be a lot of a disagreement, and you need to find out how best you can make sense of, and contribute to, the discourse on poverty.
Then you must find out how best to use your particular combination of interests, previous training, natural abilities, and individual potential to crack the problem of poverty. To be an efficient agent for social change, you must identify where your passions lie. What exactly about poverty gets you fired up? When you find out what it is that gets you going, you must nurture this desire and find ways to fuel it, particularly during times when all hope seems lost and the temptation to ignore the disempowered and the disenfranchised becomes overwhelming.
Then you must find other people who complement, if not share, your vision. And you must learn to work with them. You must learn when to compromise and when to stand to stand firm. You must learn to give and take. And you must continue to nurture your passion particularly when interpersonal and institutional politics threaten to snuff it out completely. Because this is what your elders face all the time.
Find your passion in the area of poverty alleviation, and nurture it. This is the best investment you can make, for yourself and for the people.
I see your point. I also agree that perhaps the youth hasn't gotten his/her fair share of time and space to express his/her point of view and perceptions, particularly with individuals who tend to be condescending at times. This certainly is unfortunate. On this score, I join your concern.
But then again, is it not possible that the time and space that could otherwise have been used to expound on the youth's intellectual contributions to a developing psyche is being spent dispensing slogans while on the streets lambasting their elders? I'm not saying this isn't worth doing, and I'm not blaming the youth. All I'm saying is, I guess your elders are also looking for intellectual contributions from the youth who, I sincerely believe, does have a lot of it.
I believe the youth has the capacity and capability to join in the serious discourse on the issues of our time on top of the street action that might be necessary.
My gut feel tells me that if the youth engages the elders in serious intellectual discourse on any issue of our time, both sides would find such dialog refreshing and even challenging. Of course, such dialog must be based on factual information and logical argumentation, rather than on emotion. This is what the youth still needs to learn and practice.
Appreciate your points.
Lex Librero
Posted by
"Lex" |
February 17, 2008 7:00 PM
What I'm getting from your comment, and with which I agree, is that generous listening has to go both ways.
Passion and emotion are incredibly important to individual well-being, and policy-driven change must take into account nurturing the emotional life of a people.
But it is equally important to know how to disengage from it strategically, as an individual. As a youth, I find/found it difficult to acquire this skill because because no one really taught me how to do it. Melodrama in mainstream media is not only di rigeur, it is actively encouraged. In high school, the winners of the sabayang pagbigkas were those who could beat the chest the hardest and the longest (and in perfect unison). And for many Filipinos, heart-breaking drama often constitutes conditions at home. I think the ability to conduct level-headed discourse is directly related to a certain kind of outlook on the world, and that this kind of outlook is construct-able only when basic needs are met (cf. Maslow) and social conditions nurture its development.
Passion is a double-edged sword. It can cut Gordian knots, but it can also maim.
Thanks for your comments. :)
Posted by
Diego |
February 18, 2008 4:55 PM
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Government should subsidize the media.When pressed by Emerlinda Roman to clarify, Nemenzo said that he merely wanted media to receive less corporate funding and (presumably) thus decouple the interests of the mass media from those of the private sector. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for instance, receives its funding (about a billion Canadian dollars a year) entirely from the Canadian government, yet it remains one of the wittiest critics of the Canadian government. Nevertheless, as one can imagine, this billion-dollar line item has had its share of controversy.
Graph I: Love as the Intersection of Two Sine Waves
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Good words.
Posted by
Celia |
October 28, 2008 2:18 PM