Losing the Three Flags: A Discourse on the Notion of Kantian and Foucauldian Enlightenment and the Demise of the Political to the Social and Economic

Note: This was my thinkpiece for the 2nd week of formal discusion which was not collected. As a response to the request of Mr. Raneses in class to make an assessment of the Philippine Revolution in terms of the Kantian and Foucauldian Enlightenment, here is my humble work.

Written by: Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: November 25, 2008

The notions of Enlightenment as expressed in the essays of Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault, both entitled “What Is Enlightenment?” has been given a precise demarcation, marked by a question that is bounded by the realms of the finite, the rejection of scientific deliberation as a consonant to achieving a certain level of understanding. Despite the fact that Foucault abhors scientific methods of discerning the philosophical and the political, he does not reject its very inherent roots of careful and methodological analysis and criticism. At the same time, he also disengages from the Kantian notion of subjectivity as universal, having had a firm belief in the being specific of an entity based from its cultural and historical situation. It appears, then, that Kant was stemming from a theological tradition that, though almost fully immersed in the political life of the Classical and Renaissance era of thought, is something that is not given much consideration in the Modern and contemporary era of philosophy. In believing that there is a universal definition by which men are governed and deliberate their actions, we run the risk of giving them a stereotypical characteristic, something which would trap them in a blob. This, then, runs counter to the traditional Classical notion of men as individual and assertive of their personal identity but do so in service to the state.

Such a discussion brings to mind a parallel argument that occurred between the jeweller Simoun and the supposedly-liberal peninsular politician Don Custodio in José Rizal’s radical novel El Filibusterismo. The jeweller, in secret the vengeful former ilustrado Crisostomo Ibarra, intended to wage a revolution which will bring forth the downfall of the Spanish central colonial government. He planned to bring this forth by corrupting the government and forcing the enslaved indios to despair, which will cause them to take up arms. One of these policies he devised is to once more enact forced labor to create a waterway in the Pasig River, one which was met by strong criticism from Don Custodio. This was not brought forth by his belief in his projected conviction of being a Liberal (affirming the right and equality of men), but due to the fear that such harsh policies might incite insurrections dangerous to the status quo.

Knowing fully the danger of being considered unpatriotic, I would say that it was Don Custodio who was following the sounder political course of action, though his motivations are not entirely in consonance with what politics require. In seeking to drive the people to madness and despair, Simoun intends to create a society driven by pure desire to accumulate, a people only driven by their wanton drive to fill empty stomachs. Rizal himself repudiates this, as witness the rebukes the fictional Father Florentino gave to Simoun at the end of the novel. A revolution is only validated if it is for a noble belief on uplifting the human condition, the desire to recover a lost means of communication and community-building. To build on the ashes and remains of vice and collective brokenness will mean only simply to repudiate the historicity of the people and risk committing the same mistakes that our predecessors committed. History does not repeat itself; we repeat history.

It is in this light, then, that we attempt to look at the circumstances that brought forth the events of the 1896 Filipino Revolution. It appears to me that there is a question that has been left out for so many years now, a question which we will attempt to give a few initial answers: the question of its effectivity. By comparison to its predecessors in the French Revolution and the American Revolution which gave birth to leading and powerful nations, what it has only accomplished is the birth of a stunted and weak nation which immediately fell at the first swoop of invasion by the Gringos.

Contrary to popular (and heavily Marxist-influenced) opinion that the call for revolt originated from the hungry masses, the roots of revolution, reform, were sowed by the middle-classes, the very same people who would rise to prominence as the highest Filipino caste (if one may be allowed to use the term). They have, in fact, cultivated a novel approach into the objective of community-building that has not actually been considered by both French and American: a desire to return to the original traditions of the people, reclamation of their identities and their communities which were, supposedly, mangled and perverted by the establishment of the highly-discriminatory Spanish conquistadores. This is actually by far nobler, if not as noble, as the desire of the Founding Fathers of the American Union.

And yet they fell to the same trappings that brought forth the downfall slide of the French Revolution. In their discussions of restoring foundations, all made the unfortunate error of considering first economic questions as those of utmost importance. To channel the hot and burning fervour of the people simply to place food on the table is contrary to the interests of community-building; it, in fact, dissuades interaction with each other, converting each citizen into a mere carabao waiting for a day’s worth of hay and would have no other interaction with others of its kind save during mating season. This pre-eminence of protecting self-interests was, in fact, the very root of the First Republic’s downfall and eventual evolution into puppet republics through the promises of “Benevolent Assimilation” and inclusion in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, all strewn in paths of blood. The selfish desires of the Malolos Congress are to be blamed a lot for their rational choice of seeking to preserve and accumulate, even under the “protection” of new colonial masters.

Thus it did happen that the banners of liberté, egalité and fraternité were swept under the “merciful embrace” of Madame Guillotine, only to be stopped by the imperialist designs of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thus did it transform the supposedly- egalitarian United States into what would be today’s world-hegemon, endlessly babbling about bringing civilization while it is actually only creating a global empire. And thus, the Philippine Islands has remained in slavery, stunted growth and disunity.

Why the Reproductive Health Bill is an Impoverished Approach to Poverty

At the heart of the resounding call today to approve a proposed legislation allowing mass access to reproductive health is a gross misinterpretation of the Christian humanist obligation to serve the poor and at the same time, a morally, culturally and historically atrophied approach to providing lasting solutions to social dysfunctions. While it is a fact that the problem of population growth is an ethical and moral dilemma that definitely challenges the Christian commitment to the defense of the sanctity of life, the reproductive health bill in its present form thrusts the very question of life from the moral order it is properly situated to theexperimental laboratory of contemporary sociological and economic analysis. By tackling the issue of reproductive health and population management in this light, proponents consequentially reject any standard other than effectiveness and efficiency as guidelines for public deliberation on the matter. Even objectivity is sacrificed under the scalpel of scientific and medical regimes of truth. If not totally banished from the arena of public debates because of their irrationality and appeals to dogmatic principles or exclusivity to a particular sect, the voices of those who uphold tradition, cultural heritage and collectively shared moral values are either challenged to reform or yield to a compromise. This transforms the uniqueness of public deliberation to generate genuine plurality of voices into a banal exercise of preferential bargaining.

What makes the proposal for reproductive health attractive is the way it disguises the contemporary ideology of atomistic individualism and its fetish for self-choice in the form of allusions to human rights, concern for the poverty of the masses and social justice such that even a number of respected well-meaning activists are misled. The problem is not just with the ideology of individualism that is so pervasive today. The problem is also with the kind of thinking that forgets that even though the task of liberation requires the dismantling of social barriers and structures of sin, these structures can never be simply externalized from the very nature of human concupiscence. By diminishing the urgency of this more difficult and demanding task of self-introspection – that is acknowledging one's complicity with the injustices of society not just in a dialectical but in a more organic way – the mechanical manner by which modern social analysis proceeds can now take control of an otherwise faith-informed activism. The structure of sin that needs to be dismantled is not the limits to choice that doctrine and tradition bears upon a community but the relentless pursuit of self-interest and greed normalized and justified by modern capitalism and all forms of thinking that legitimize it and accept it as the last bastion of hope for mankind.

The perversity however of the proposal lies in its claim that providing a right to choose and institutionalizing practices of care already satisfies communal and individual responsibility and as such absolves future interventions and encounters with each other. The result is not a communal drive towards mastering the forces that impact upon human development but rather the extreme idealization of the private self-choice and the alienation of individuals from each other. Tolerance, relativism, and a shallow kind of pluralism become the order of the day. Not anymore the active denouncement of practices that truly hinder the establishment of social justice.

While it is true that the dire state of reproductive and general health care in the Philippines is due to the neoliberal policies adopted by the elitist state and that a mechanism that will provide a relief to the poor who have remained remote from accessible health programs is of course welcome, the justification and glorification of sexual practices that run contrary to acceptable principles of sexual morality further the poverty of the poor and do them more insult than benefit. What the reproductive health will ultimately result to is the further alienation of the rich and the middle class from the poor precisely because an institutionalized form of dealing with the poor is already in place. The real, face-to-face and human encounter with the suffering poor is now replaced by bureaucratic and state functionaries. Simply put, the reproductive health bill will simply legitimize the relativistic attitude of contemporary society to sexual practices and sexual morals idolized not just by the poor but by all sectors of the social stratum. In doing so, poverty extends beyond material impoverishment to spiritual impoverishment to all levels of society.

By working within the very framework of neoliberal policies, the reproductive health bill silences the question of overhauling the fundamental structure of the country's political economy. As such, it is selfish and does not really ask much. A truly radical approach to solving poverty and reproductive problems and women's oppression is a realization that no human emancipatory project can truly deliver the goods and that man will always remain wanting and self-interested. The result of forgetting the fragility of humanity translates to the very acceptance of that selfishness as the fundamental description of human nature and therefore abandons the quest for perfecting the self by the grace of God.

Lastly, the silence of the reproductive health bill on the fundamental wrongs of sexual practices and the secularism of its education component do violence to the sensibilities of the Catholic majority of this country. Its insistence that no religious tradition should be privileged in the deliberation invisibilizes the fact that this very same insistence is an imposition of a tradition itself. Obviously this position does not simply come from a majoritarian insistence. It is an insistence that there is an ultimate Truth from where our lives must be ordered. It is a rejection of the political atomism and religious relativism haunting our communities today.

Thinkpiece I - Modernity

The first session of the semester tackled the issue of modernity and the implications this era has towards the discipline and development of political theory. As explained in the lectures, the notion of modernity has ultimately led to a redefinition of political space. In classical political antiquity, for example, we could see the distinguished characteristics of the political life and the theoretical life. It was from this analogy that we can say the entirety of political theory was derived from; a clear and precise demarcation between what constitutes the public space and the private one. Prior to modernity, political theory developed around the notion that certain things were to be understood as highly political matters, but at the same time it recognized that certain things were to be studied as something distinct from politics, something that was beyond public life and apolitical. This distinction between public and private spaces provided a facet for human development that was free from the individual-member conflict. This was the triumph of classical political antiquity; the understanding of human life as something pluralistic. That human life, according to Hannah Arendt, operated upon three fundamental human activities, each with corresponding conditions. The first is Labour, which aspires for life itself. The second is Work, which attempts to stamp humanity’s finite identity in an infinite universe. The third is Action, which seeks to establish plurality within society, to recognize “…that Men, and not Man, live in the world.”

Modernity, however, has sought to repudiate this notion of plurality in human life. We find this in Marx as he replies to The Jewish Question by Bauer, where he presents us with what I find to be the perverse objective of modernity; the singularity. Marx proposes in his response to The Jewish Question a narrative of a world without religions, without race or social divides, a form of human existence that is unified. In the paradigm of modernity, the once demarcated spaces of public and private agenda clash against each other, and the notions of freedom, morality and knowledge are suddenly redefined and reclassified. There is an inherent danger in this re-politicization, because these are the notions that form the bedrock of political theory. I find that the aura that modernity emanates towards political theory is that of sheer panic and fear. Arendt states in The Human Condition that the beginning of the modern age for politics began at the first atomic explosions. Perhaps this is the paradigm that modernity forces upon us; that human existence is merely a subject to the laws of nature, and it is out of this omnipresent fear that Man must now attempt to escape the world. Modernity, for all of its demagoguery about a unification of worlds, cultures, classes and religions is faced with the irony of the medium it practices, either intentionally or unintentionally, towards humanity. What we find then, in modernity, is not an evolution from the Athenian concept of citizenship, rather we find a perversion of it. Man does not seek to be a member because he seeks betterment for his fellow and his society, but because he is fearful that his individual life is threatened. Due to this fear, the fundamentals of political theory – freedom, justice, morality etc. – then cease to become something relatively corporeal and are in turn reduced to nothing but words that incite a primeval drive for us to simply work and not think. It is here that we then stumble upon the most sickening aspect of modernity; the destruction of the discipline of thinking. The Modern Man no longer thinks, but merely obeys. His betterment is no longer determined by society, but by genetics, delivered no longer by his fellow man, but by science. And it is here that Kant’s paradox best defines the Modern Man; a man who is fully aware of what happens in his environment, and knows that he is capable of breaking free to redefine it, but at the same time blindly obeys the very system he abhors.

posted by:

Leiron Conrad T.Martija

Modernity versus Man (Think Piece 1)

In the highly technical and industrialized world of modernity where capitalism (and money) is lording over the once citizen-driven society, the people are the ones who are actually defeated (Arendt, Connolly, Marx, Kant, Foucault). This is not only due to Hobbes’s killing of God nor to Nietzsche’s complete ignorance of an existing God, but to the implicit assumption—however redundant it may sound—that man is a perfect being, master of his own self, who needs no one or nothing else other than his own reason—if it may be considered reason—to live and, as if the world is not enough, transform the society fundamentally, if not leave it ultimately. This is what Arendt elucidates in the Prologue to The Human Condition: That men, in their insatiable quest towards progress (until everything—including religion and history come to an end), desire to escape the earth and live in the universe. They so much long for development so as to eradicate whatever is on earth, because they think that what is given to them is not enough; they go as far as fancying to live eternally. The assumption here, then, is that men have the power and the capacity, not to mention knowledge, to do whatever they want. Apparently, science is, in the final analysis, man’s enemy. Though they may regard it as their best friend,—what with all the scientific discoveries that make life more livable or comfortable or easier, whatever term one satisfies to call it, made through labor and work—by being greatly amazed by scientific progress is no less than a slap in their face. They are dehumanized. In the society thus described, men don’t engage in dialogues with one another, no less than in intellectual discourse (speech), which, according to Arendt, is what politics is all about. According to her, speech is what makes man a political being, and I think speech is what keeps politics alive. Following this logic, politics in the modern age is on its way to its demise, which Arendt is preventing to happen in Chapter I of The Human Condition.

The same focus is explained by Connolly in “The Order of Modernity.” To him, modernity is characterized by thoughtlessness. People no longer think the way the Greeks and the Romans did, hence the total oblivion and death of the richness of tradition. Included in this chapter is a section which talks about the death of God. God, as any Roman Catholic should have been properly taught, is infinite; he is eternal, he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t die. To say that God is dead is obviously blasphemous, but it is more hubristic than sacrilegious, and to me overt and excessive arrogance is greater evil than blasphemy. What is the basis for this claim? Man is finite, mortal, and—I’d go as far as saying—ridiculous. Evidently, he is the complete opposite of God and his nature. The former is earthly while the other divine. This is probably the reason why man, as described by Arendt, so much wants to escape from the earth: to ultimately break away from what is given to him precisely because he doesn’t recognize the existence of a God who created him. How hubristic! How can a man kill God? But, a closer analysis reveals that it is not man, or a person for that matter, who killed God. It is actually the mind, the thought, the reason. In the final analysis, however, these mind, thought, and reason belong to man. So, using the transitive property in Mathematics (a product of the human mind), if the one who killed God is the mind, and this mind belongs to man, then the one who killed God is man.

Kant’s Enlightenment (as for Foucault) and Marx’s Jewish Question follow similar paths. In general, their thoughts come together to what Connolly coins as the demystification of the political. Kant mentions of legislation as something participated in by the people; Marx talks about emancipation (political and civic). This Kantian idea of legislation as justified by the partaking of the citizens is contradictory to the Greek’s conception of power as visible and politics as mysterious, in the sense that the lawmaking body is outside of it. Kant’s (and Frederick’s) notion of “Argue all you want, but obey!” does nothing but cloud, if not displace, the more acceptable definition and nature of politics. Following this, I find no community in his thought in his idea of enlightenment as maturity, or being independent of others, capable of thinking for oneself. This is visibly not what a community is, and this is the consequence of being too much reliant on one’s own reason or, should I say, knowledge. (Again, this is hubristic!) As for Marx, he appears to be contramodernity as evident in his repudiation of Bauer’s claim that religion needs to be abolished in a secular state for the people in that particular society to be fully emancipated—that is, politically and socially (even humanly). In the end, what Marx says is true, which is about capitalism (as what we can expect from him): that however people may be politically and spiritually liberated, they still remain to be bounded by some material constriction on the basis of economic components. Man, therefore, as a preemption of Hegel as for Kojeve, is a slave of himself.

Patrick Manalo
PoS 61-A

Islands of Good Governance

The latest Pos 100 plenary series tackled a very crucial issue on Philippine political system that of finding hope through the works of accomplished public servants. Despite blatant corruption plaguing our government from the president down to the baranggay captain level, it can still be said, and I quote Political Science Chair Ms. Alma Salvador in her opening remarks during the forum, there are still “islands of hope”. Though they are few and isolated from each other at the present, their existence galvanizes hope for the youth to look forward and leap into the future of our country. I am speaking here of the invited speakers whom have shared their seemingly impossible accomplishments in governance, namely Governor Teodoro Baguilat of Ifugao Province, Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, and Governor Grace Padaca of Isabela. Two of these great men and women I will talk about.

I especially like what Gov. Baguilat advocates which is appreciation through support and concrete steps for the appreciation of “cultural knowledge” to create a sense of national identity. I like the idea that he still believe Filipino’s can find in themselves a true identity no matter how diverse we are in terms of ethnicity, region, or language. His effort to reach out to Indigenous People (IP) and their concerns exemplifies a Filipino reaching out to his roots, transcending the hindrance of boundaries of geographical and cultural diversity. He is an Ifugao who has embraced his identity foregoing urban lifestyle. And he has extended this experience to other IP’s like the Manobos in Mindanao. His efforts showed how we can all come together if only we approach what we urban oriented Filipino’s consider as traditional, backward, and “paganism”. For according to Gov Baguilat, it is with these people that we will discover and embrace the history of this land, its identity.

Another speaker whom I give one of my highest regard is Gov Padaca. Not only because she was given recently a Ramon Magsaysay award, considered as the Nobel Peace Price in Asia, rather she has accomplished what no able bodied public servant has achieved in terms of a strong advocacy for clean and honest election. Being afflicted with polio, it has not hindered what her spirit can do in terms of promoting good governance in her locality. To quote her saying “No one is too weak or insignificant to make his [her] contribution. I especially like how she accepts the good and bad idea of power. She acknowledges that with right wielding of power one can able bodied or not make a change. We just have to be determined enough.

In a sea of corruption which the Philippines is currently grounded upon there are always signs of hope. Much like how 15^th century sea voyagers after months or even years of sailing, jump for joy at the first sight of land, they present hope that with a strong conviction for principles one can still achieve what no ordinary person can even imagine to.

The trouble with complacency

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Seeing the Political in Romulo Neri’s Appointment as SSS Head.

I just read another news article last week about CHED (or former, I am not sure) chairman Romulo Neri. Apparently GMA has appointed him as the new Social Security System president, replacing Corazon dela Paz. As I was reading the article different, initially malicious, opinions came running through my mind. The name of Mr. Neri was after all a source of headline worthy news during the Lozada, Truth, and ZTE-NBN festival. And even though I was in Cagayan de Oro and missing out on all the “truth” parade in Manila, being updated was a sort of a hobby for me back there. And so I can’t help but attach the ZTE-NBN controversy to the face of Mr. Neri (well that’s the malicious part). However I also pondered on the other side, personality effaced, objective perspective on the issue. There is something politically disturbing about him taking on the as SSS head.

Well the good news is, vehemently speaking, I think Romulo Neri is a man of innumerable credentials for the job of being the new SSS president. He graduated Magna cum Laude in a Business and Finance degree at UP. He held countless positions like chair of National Economic Development Authority Achievements (NEDA). He was also former secretary of Department of Budget and Management (I didn’t know there was such). Ultimately having headed different executive positions in his field of expertise Mr. Neri is, professionally speaking fit to run SSS.

However there is one peculiar character of Mr. Neri that is of a particular interest to me as a Pol Sci Major (naks). If we go back to the ZTE NBN issue, it was not his testimony that made him a “star”. It was actually the opposite; it was his having “no testimony” at all that media and his fan club, the senate that made a frenzy of issue out of him. Sure he did mention some dealings with former COMELEC Benjamin Abalos, he did not give any substancial, juicy, information about the controversial contract itself. It all boil down, or should I say “out”, to him invoking executive privilege. And there was silence…

Now what can we see here? SSS is a public institution, it is owned by the government, and hence it answers to the public. His position is also that of a public official, even though SSS is a government owned corporation. And I think his knack for keeping mum over issues that concern the good of the public and quelling initiations for questions of accountability is a detriment to the our democratic way of governance and it questions and weaken the integrity of the government. For a public official to say that there is nothing to talk about, by invoking executive privilege, tells something about that official’s character as a public servant, moreover it tells something even disturbing about the character of the one who appointed him. The danger posted by this thought is that the check and a balance that enables our democratic system to function is compromised thereby turning our system of governance a joke, us insulted in the process.

I have other, more malicious opinions, on Mr. Neri’s appointment but that’s for another entry if I have time. Or if the issue is still hot. :)

Politics is public. Bow

Phillip Don Recentes
AB political Science

Sorry for grammatical errors. :)

Credit to
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/61990/Romulo-L-Neri
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Philippine Star

My Pos100 teacher for enriching my thoughts on this issue.