Rekindling the Filipino idealism

Idealism is lost in most Filipinos.

Many people say that idealists do not live in reality. They are oblivious to the sufferings in the world. Naïve. Dreamers. I must disagree with this.

The problem here is that most people think that this world is “the” reality. Wars are real, humans kill humans, governments are corrupt and whatnot. And because this is reality, we should learn to live with it, adapt and survive. These people, however, are unaware that due to this attitude, they have become part of the problem instead of the solution. They settle for what the system offers. They have made peace with the pretence that this is the most that they can get out of life. And they stop there.

I would like to believe, however, that idealists do not perceive this world as “the” reality. The idealist’s notion of reality is a world where government leaders are selfless. A world where discrimination does not exist. A world where people strive to give instead of taking for themselves. The philosopher Plato called this reality, the world of forms or ideas. For him, this is the perfect world.

Ironically, Plato was not an idealist. He was a realist. He believed that the world of ideas is the real world and that the world where he lived in was just a shadow – a crude representation – of the world of forms.

In the same vein, idealists refuse to settle for what this world has to offer because this is not how the world should be. For them, this is a distortion of the real; and those people who have chosen to live with the system are the ones responsible for corrupting the real.

Local arena

Let us localize the context.

Sacrifice: Filipinos seldom complain.

Filipinos know what it means to sacrifice. As long as the injustice, suffering or pain is bearable, we keep our mouths shut. In effect, most of us have become willing victims. Plato’s student, Aristotle, said that we should always strive to achieve the “golden mean” – a balance between two extremes: excess and deficiency. We, Filipinos, have sacrificed excessively, but ironically, we are also deficient on proper sacrifices.

Excesses: We have endured injustice from our own elected leaders. We have put up with being short-changed in terms of healthcare and education, among others. We have lived our lives knowing that we are being robbed of the leadership and basic services that we deserve, yet many of us are apathetic.

Deficiencies: We elect leaders in the government out of popularity. We commit our votes for a meager amount of P200-P1,000 ($4.20-$22). We resort to padrinos and fixers to facilitate the speedy processing of our transactions with various government offices.

We sacrifice too much by bearing with all the wrongs that we experience yet we fail to sacrifice our personal and short-lived gratifications in exchange for the betterment of our nation.   

The Philippines used to be envied by other countries in the Orient. But, not anymore. What happened? Somewhere along the way, something was lost. I think it was our idealism.

Back then, Filipinos used to watch Senate sessions or government broadcasts to witness how our leaders and lawmakers exchanged grandiose ideas. They were amazed by the showcase of brilliance. Today, we get to watch these sessions for drama. We watch our elected officials (as if inside Big Brother’s house) sing, dance, cry and throw ad hominem at each other – on primetime news, at least.

The sad truth is, we used to elect statesmen and stateswomen. Now, we mostly elect politicians.

Idealism in education

It is very fortunate that we, as a democratic nation, perceive the value of education since democracy will only work if the citizens are educated. However, there is still a lingering misconception that exists in our collective consciousness regarding the value of education.

Education aims to liberate and empower. Unfortunately, we send our youth to schools not to develop their idealism but to train them for the demands of the workforce.

This is the rationale behind vocational schools and the K-12 program – to equip the student with enough knowledge and skills to land a job that will provide for the family and to contribute taxes to the government. To make something clear, I am not against these programs. I am against most Filipinos’ misplaced motivations for sending their children to school.

When the K-12 program was initially announced, a lot of parents were dismayed because they would have to wait for two more years before their children can graduate from high school and find a job. Meanwhile, the government sold the program to the public by saying that once students graduate from high school, it will be easier for them to find jobs because by then, they would have acquired enough knowledge and skills for vocational work. I am not against this, but then again, such motivation is misplaced.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “Although our age far surpasses all previous ages in knowledge, there has been no correlative increase in wisdom.” Our children may have gained more than enough knowledge in schools, but have they grown any wiser?

Again, in order for democracy to work, the people must be educated. But education here does not simply mean acquisition of knowledge and skills. The future generations must be educated in ideals. What our education system should strive for is to teach the youth how to be wise for it is only through wisdom that we can make proper choices in life.

Knowledge can be used in the service of evil and selfish gains, but wisdom helps us to choose not to do so.

Ultimately, if only we strive to regain the sense of idealism that we have lost; if only we protect our young from losing their ideals; if only we put the collective good before our own personal interests, I believe that we will have a fighting chance to transcend the culture of politicking that have been pulling us down for so long towards that ideal world that Plato was talking about. – Rappler.com

Leander Penaso Marquez teaches Philosophy at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He believes that ideals are the driving force to human action. And with the proper ideals, the Filipino people can move forward.