"The absurd enlightens me on this point: there is no future"
Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"
It is a gross mistake to assume that the working man is no philosopher. In my books, the working man makes an excellent philosopher.
Philosophies are not confined in books. Philosophy is out there – growing on trees, sprouting in rice paddies, germinating in sardines-factories.
It is to be mourned that in the directory of philosophers, not a single Filipino is registered. This is an anomaly in a country where everybody seems to have an opinion. We are not in the map – 70 million opinion-makers, zero philosopher, and too many lawyers. How did this happen?
As a Filipino, I feel handicapped not being able to quote or paraphrase a Filipino thinker/philosopher. Try quoting Jose Rizal in a PolSci class, chances are, you’ll get a smirk or a sneer from your professor. Quote an obscure Continental thinker, your professor stares at you with glazed eyes.
It was quite frustrating to major in a philosophy-heavy course like PolSci, borrowing ideas from everyone except from your own kind. There’s the competing Frankfurt and Chicago schools of thought. The French have post-structuralism, post-modernism, anything with the post-prefix. The Italians have Machiavelli and Gramsci who are not necessarily sweet bedfellows despite their shared nationality. The Latin Americans have liberation theology and their dependency theories. Africa has its post-colonial studies.
Where’s the Philippines? Some stalwarts of the Philippine Left are internationally –known but their works are not taught in schools. The so-called “Asian Way,” essentially Confucian, is alien to us.
It’s not really a pressing problem needing solution - the fact that there is no universally recognized Filipino thinker. So what? It does not mean we don’t have the intellectual capacity for scholarship and intelligent theorizing. We just have to nurture our scholars a few hugs and kisses more.
But what kind of environment is provided for serious scholarship? Assess our universities, learning institutions where we are supposed to lead the “life of the mind”. Start from the kind of shepherding we get from our teachers. Excuse me, there is hardly any for a number of reasons.
One, the teacher lacks commitment or is simply lazy. Second, in order to hold on to his/her job, the teacher needs to do some research work, therefore, dividing his attention between instruction and research. On one hand, you’re still learning the ropes of teaching and groping for your teaching style. On the other, you have to dabble in theory-testing and theory-refutations, the bedrock of research. You end up, what?
The bigger question is: Does the nature of academic research in the country even push the frontiers of theory-building?
I don’t move around academic circles basically because I am a bum, so I don’t know. As a student, I have been to only 2 professorial lectures because as I said, I am a bum. So I don’t know.
But I have heard stories of dishonest research practices, of researches bereft of integrity. A professor-friend chides about research papers “discovering the obvious,” declaring what the frogs in our backyard already know from their previous incarnations.
There goes the future of philosophy in this country – down in the well with the frogs.
Croak, croak, croak.
Showing posts with label Pilosopiya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pilosopiya. Show all posts
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Drinking Through our Sorrow
(This re-post is for Regiedor who pimped to his imaginary friends that it's all authentic, organic, and sexy without being scandalous here. Most of all, for being savagely loyal).
“Drinking in order to feel
Thinking, reinventing the wheel”
-Elbow, “Picky Bugger”
As much as I heed on endorsements of strangers to listen to or watch this crap, I did not keel over Dave Matthews’ stupendous rant over George Bataille’s “Story of the Eye” several years ago. Describing his near-dementia while reading the book: “You have to stop every once in a while and have a cold shower, drink a couple shots of whiskey or masturbate,” I avoided Bataille at all cost. Until now, he remains a blind date that I never got to meet.
The cold shower, I have no problem with. The masturbation, in deference to my mother who’s gone to the Other Side, I will be non-committal about. But the drinking part – what perverse power does this writer wield to drive his reader to uncork a bottle? Not that I need and excuse to drink but I am a cheap drunk – a few swig and I will admit to anything.
Ideas and words have tremendous, immeasurable impact. My insensitivity at times, my penchant for flippant statements offend some people which is never really my intention. On my part, I need to learn circumspection and believe me, you can’t fault me for trying. I wish I were friends with Bataille, got a question for him. Does he even care how people take his words and ideas? He seems to be a kick-ass fellow, someone you want to be on your team.
I am not quite sure if it was he who said: “Your unhappy philosopher needs a drink like your working man needs soap”. I find this oddly funny on several counts. First, is the generalization that philosophers are a miserable lot. Second, the hope they harbor that philosophy would bring sobriety and contentment into their lives. Third, the sharp observation that the working man gets dirty, he needs to wash up. And lastly, the accepted truth that it’s the philosopher that needs a drink more than the working man.
The philosopher in his isolated lighthouse cooks up prescription after prescription how the working man ought to think and live his life. The philosopher is intoxicated on his own abstractions, his rootlessness, his state of exile.
To the philosopher, the revolution can be reduced to words and ideas. To the pragmatic working man, the revolution is a way of life. “To live is to struggle and to struggle is to be among men.”
The working man does not need the philosopher as much as the philosopher needs him as a subject, as an inspiration for his ideas. No matter how the philosopher exhorts that the revolution is now, “the only revolutions that are worth anything are the ones that we discover ourselves, within ourselves, and for ourselves.” (V. Havel)
So the philosopher can forget about his prescriptions. The working man will find his own.
In the meantime, I shall find me a working man who is a closet philosopher. When he comes to my senses, I shall invite him in the manner that Dave Matthews seduces - “Crash into me.”
Oh, boy.
“Drinking in order to feel
Thinking, reinventing the wheel”
-Elbow, “Picky Bugger”
As much as I heed on endorsements of strangers to listen to or watch this crap, I did not keel over Dave Matthews’ stupendous rant over George Bataille’s “Story of the Eye” several years ago. Describing his near-dementia while reading the book: “You have to stop every once in a while and have a cold shower, drink a couple shots of whiskey or masturbate,” I avoided Bataille at all cost. Until now, he remains a blind date that I never got to meet.
The cold shower, I have no problem with. The masturbation, in deference to my mother who’s gone to the Other Side, I will be non-committal about. But the drinking part – what perverse power does this writer wield to drive his reader to uncork a bottle? Not that I need and excuse to drink but I am a cheap drunk – a few swig and I will admit to anything.
Ideas and words have tremendous, immeasurable impact. My insensitivity at times, my penchant for flippant statements offend some people which is never really my intention. On my part, I need to learn circumspection and believe me, you can’t fault me for trying. I wish I were friends with Bataille, got a question for him. Does he even care how people take his words and ideas? He seems to be a kick-ass fellow, someone you want to be on your team.
I am not quite sure if it was he who said: “Your unhappy philosopher needs a drink like your working man needs soap”. I find this oddly funny on several counts. First, is the generalization that philosophers are a miserable lot. Second, the hope they harbor that philosophy would bring sobriety and contentment into their lives. Third, the sharp observation that the working man gets dirty, he needs to wash up. And lastly, the accepted truth that it’s the philosopher that needs a drink more than the working man.
The philosopher in his isolated lighthouse cooks up prescription after prescription how the working man ought to think and live his life. The philosopher is intoxicated on his own abstractions, his rootlessness, his state of exile.
To the philosopher, the revolution can be reduced to words and ideas. To the pragmatic working man, the revolution is a way of life. “To live is to struggle and to struggle is to be among men.”
The working man does not need the philosopher as much as the philosopher needs him as a subject, as an inspiration for his ideas. No matter how the philosopher exhorts that the revolution is now, “the only revolutions that are worth anything are the ones that we discover ourselves, within ourselves, and for ourselves.” (V. Havel)
So the philosopher can forget about his prescriptions. The working man will find his own.
In the meantime, I shall find me a working man who is a closet philosopher. When he comes to my senses, I shall invite him in the manner that Dave Matthews seduces - “Crash into me.”
Oh, boy.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
We Need Another Hero
(“Ang magsasaka ay rebelde. Ang mga pulis at military ay anak din ng mga magsasaka.” - a dialogue delivered by a police character in “Totoy Bato”. Yes, I like Robin Padilla. So arrest me).
Totoy Bato is a reluctant revolutionary. His brain is not filled with revolutionary ideas. He has not read Derrida or Lacan or Foucault. He couldn’t care less about the revolution.
Yet, he showed no mercy to the abusive feudal lord who forcibly grabbed his land and killed his wife. With great misgivings, he agrees to lead the labor union out to stand its ground against a fascist boss played by Rommel Padilla whose attack to his anti-hero streams of Gary Oldman in ‘Leon.” Don’t ask me who’s the better actor.
Totoy Bato mirrors the story of the peasants’ struggle in the country and in other agrarian societies. Peasants do not live for violence but are drawn to it by the injustices of the system. It is not ideas, per se, that convince them to become guerilla fighters, their situation does. Revolutionary propaganda will not make any headway if their situation contradicted.
These peasants may not have heard of the Communist Manifesto like most of us have but they are fighting the revolution for us because lazy people like myself would rather talk or blog about it. What a shame!
I recall a conversation in the distant past with my friend S – how the Philippine Left is bereft of a charismatic leader in the mold of a Che Guevarra or that Zapatista-guy, someone to capture our wild imagination.
Joma Sison, may I not be struck by lightning, is a dead fish. I was too young to experience the Edjop or Lean Alejandro era. I have a crush on Vic Ladlad but nothing is much known of this recluse.
Maybe the closest to an iconic symbol was the late Eman Lacaba, a bohemian-poet who authored “Salvaged Poems.” He is famous for his Zen-incantation of “we are tribeless and all tribes are ours” and his description of the people’s warrior as an acrobat who must climb mountains because “the masses are there.” I have a shirt of his image and if I were present during his eulogy, I would have dedicated Pablo Neruda’s “Brown and Agile Child”:
“My somber heart seeks you always
I love your happy body, your rich, soft voice
Dusky butterfly, sweet and sure
Like the wheatfield, the sun, the poppy, and the water”
Well, maybe not – feeling wifey.
It is clear that the Philippine Left is not personality-oriented but issue-driven which I respect. Totally. But wouldn’t it be more exciting if there is someone who combines an abundance of revolutionary curiosity, a familiarity with the canon and pop culture, and who will animatedly speak of the revolution in a much more vibrant language?
Until that happens, Arturo Magtanggol aka Totoy Bato will just have to fit the bill.
Totoy Bato is a reluctant revolutionary. His brain is not filled with revolutionary ideas. He has not read Derrida or Lacan or Foucault. He couldn’t care less about the revolution.
Yet, he showed no mercy to the abusive feudal lord who forcibly grabbed his land and killed his wife. With great misgivings, he agrees to lead the labor union out to stand its ground against a fascist boss played by Rommel Padilla whose attack to his anti-hero streams of Gary Oldman in ‘Leon.” Don’t ask me who’s the better actor.
Totoy Bato mirrors the story of the peasants’ struggle in the country and in other agrarian societies. Peasants do not live for violence but are drawn to it by the injustices of the system. It is not ideas, per se, that convince them to become guerilla fighters, their situation does. Revolutionary propaganda will not make any headway if their situation contradicted.
These peasants may not have heard of the Communist Manifesto like most of us have but they are fighting the revolution for us because lazy people like myself would rather talk or blog about it. What a shame!
I recall a conversation in the distant past with my friend S – how the Philippine Left is bereft of a charismatic leader in the mold of a Che Guevarra or that Zapatista-guy, someone to capture our wild imagination.
Joma Sison, may I not be struck by lightning, is a dead fish. I was too young to experience the Edjop or Lean Alejandro era. I have a crush on Vic Ladlad but nothing is much known of this recluse.
Maybe the closest to an iconic symbol was the late Eman Lacaba, a bohemian-poet who authored “Salvaged Poems.” He is famous for his Zen-incantation of “we are tribeless and all tribes are ours” and his description of the people’s warrior as an acrobat who must climb mountains because “the masses are there.” I have a shirt of his image and if I were present during his eulogy, I would have dedicated Pablo Neruda’s “Brown and Agile Child”:
“My somber heart seeks you always
I love your happy body, your rich, soft voice
Dusky butterfly, sweet and sure
Like the wheatfield, the sun, the poppy, and the water”
Well, maybe not – feeling wifey.
It is clear that the Philippine Left is not personality-oriented but issue-driven which I respect. Totally. But wouldn’t it be more exciting if there is someone who combines an abundance of revolutionary curiosity, a familiarity with the canon and pop culture, and who will animatedly speak of the revolution in a much more vibrant language?
Until that happens, Arturo Magtanggol aka Totoy Bato will just have to fit the bill.
Nothing to lose but blood
“Sumulong ka, anak-pawis
Huwag alintanain batuta ng pulis”
(a marching song for the working class)
Dantoy and I struck a covenant in February to follow Totoy Bato’s roller coaster of ups and downs. Congratulate me. So far, I have only missed 12 episodes of that show. We have added “True Blood” into our pact, a show so true to its title. Totoy Bato sheds blood for justice while the vampires in True Blood simply live for it.
Dantoy has a bizarre sense of humor. Once, we were playing with Georgelablab and when that muff is so full of himself, all too content of the attention lavished on him, he can’t keep his mouth completely closed. Maybe, that’s his version of a smile. Naturally, his fangs are exposed. This did not escape Dantoy’s observation which prompted him to say, “Te, vampire man ni si George.” Both of us cracked up which baffled the hell out of George. Poor baby, he could not understand why we were acting crazy around him. A vampire of a dog? Hmm…
I relish my bonding time with Dantoy. How I wish there were no constraints to his mental development so we could talk about the charm of philosophy or the death of ideology, just anything to stretch the discussion to absurdity.
For instance, we could theorize that “True Blood” could have been inspired by Das Kapital or Alan Ball, the show’s creator, could be KM’s devout disciple.
Listen to KM: “Capital, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”
How is that for vitality of expression? KM is a poet even on a bad day. I remember my PolEcon professor who is openly Marxist, lamenting that Marxists may not be good at predicting revolutions and their outcome but they make good poets. Well, he has not read Joma Sison’s old poems – consistently lifeless, if it’s not blasphemous to say so.
KM’s apocalyptic tone in “There is a spectre haunting Europe…” evokes subtlety but “capital, vampire-like sucks labor” is a winner. How I wish I could write like that. Hell, yeah, he is not consistently boring as some of his disciples are.
Maybe I should send a memo to myself – read KM again this summer and perhaps, a dose of Kafka. I have not read KM in years. Well, I have not read at all for almost a year, fiction or otherwise, because of my illness. I am just too happy I could read again without tiring too soon.
Huwag alintanain batuta ng pulis”
(a marching song for the working class)
Dantoy and I struck a covenant in February to follow Totoy Bato’s roller coaster of ups and downs. Congratulate me. So far, I have only missed 12 episodes of that show. We have added “True Blood” into our pact, a show so true to its title. Totoy Bato sheds blood for justice while the vampires in True Blood simply live for it.
Dantoy has a bizarre sense of humor. Once, we were playing with Georgelablab and when that muff is so full of himself, all too content of the attention lavished on him, he can’t keep his mouth completely closed. Maybe, that’s his version of a smile. Naturally, his fangs are exposed. This did not escape Dantoy’s observation which prompted him to say, “Te, vampire man ni si George.” Both of us cracked up which baffled the hell out of George. Poor baby, he could not understand why we were acting crazy around him. A vampire of a dog? Hmm…
I relish my bonding time with Dantoy. How I wish there were no constraints to his mental development so we could talk about the charm of philosophy or the death of ideology, just anything to stretch the discussion to absurdity.
For instance, we could theorize that “True Blood” could have been inspired by Das Kapital or Alan Ball, the show’s creator, could be KM’s devout disciple.
Listen to KM: “Capital, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”
How is that for vitality of expression? KM is a poet even on a bad day. I remember my PolEcon professor who is openly Marxist, lamenting that Marxists may not be good at predicting revolutions and their outcome but they make good poets. Well, he has not read Joma Sison’s old poems – consistently lifeless, if it’s not blasphemous to say so.
KM’s apocalyptic tone in “There is a spectre haunting Europe…” evokes subtlety but “capital, vampire-like sucks labor” is a winner. How I wish I could write like that. Hell, yeah, he is not consistently boring as some of his disciples are.
Maybe I should send a memo to myself – read KM again this summer and perhaps, a dose of Kafka. I have not read KM in years. Well, I have not read at all for almost a year, fiction or otherwise, because of my illness. I am just too happy I could read again without tiring too soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
