Tuesday, April 10, 2007 Arinday: Vagary and its shadows By G.H. Arinday, Jr Sunfare
FRIEDRICH HEGEL demonized the Oriental philosophy or Asian thought and compared it to "many other bizarre things in the world of man, such as the Pyramids, it is only philosophy 'in itself', that is, it does not contain mind in its conscious or ideal state but only gives an indication of its to the philosopher".
Further he carried his criticism of the Oriental way of thinking that "for mind is not yet mind insofar as it is separated from and set above appearances: the
counterpart of such abstract thought is the tumescence of unmatched appearances".
Well, it is not difficult to understand Hegel's protestations against the way Orientals or Asians say and do as he proceeded from the materialistic premises. Let is be said that aside from Hegel, who viewed the Asian thoughts, there are others without understanding the Asian profiles of knowledge like Confucius, Lao Tse, Tagore and even Rizal, they did not have a thorough grasp of the immensity of the "deltas and estuaries" of the philosophical world of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, etc. which Hegel thought that these are religious principles in contrast to the Western culture of philosophy.
On our part, we may have what they called as the "ventriloquos philosophy", as we have mixed some of the Western thoughts with our own ethnic cultures embedded in our folklores or folk beliefs including our acquired habits from our conquerors, the most demeaning of which is the "cacique system" or feudalism refurbished by laws purportedly intended to liberate the tillers of the land or the peasantry from the slave-like state of existence. This is where we may fit Hegel's lamentations. We could not point out any living and flowing stream of philosophical meanings even in our political exercises.
It is not enough to fancy ourselves, especially for those who have studied in prestigious schools abroad that we can easily relate to our fellow, but what matters most is that we have learned our existence which is ultimately coexistence with our Being as Filipinos.
But what we witness today are vagaries and their shadows. Take for instance, under what intelligent reasons did the respondents give in rating the political candidates conducted by the poll surveys? Do the majority of our voters cast their vote with conviction? Andre Gide, novelist and philosopher, did not believe in voting as he reasoned out that his choice could be defeated by those who possessed no intellectual conviction at all. If we have to believe what Thomas Jefferson said while in exasperation that democracy is the rule of mediocrity. How true! It is not farfetched to assume that among those highly-rated by poll surveys would shout and damn the whole electoral processes that they are created by the electoral fraud experts of the administration, and then followed by the multi-bannered herded "followers" straining their voices yelling invectives, short of calling the people to revolt.
Take the political ads on the televisions. They are absent of any idea which would prick your simple thoughts. "Love-the-poor" slogan is so ancient. With a month to go there seems to be lacking in excitement in the arena of competition, especially in towns or component cities where the political machinery of the Genuine Opposition is practically mired for lack of grease to make its engines whirr.
What is perceptible in the narrow sense of the term political discussions are created on local candidates. The writing of senatorial names on the ballot would just be a matter of choice but not with conviction but merely to fill up the blank spaces provided.
Leaders of senatorial candidates of both parties are busying themselves in dealing with the local fiefdoms so that their names could be plastered on the sample ballots (well, to be copied, as usually the case may be). This is the common modus viviendi. There are few headliners, to be frank about it, if we speak of party loyalty and "straight" elections. As what philosophers would say: "Logical objectivity is also eo ipso, objectivity in the sense of intersubjectivity." Like solipsism, it is "constructed subject" which intends to reveal what is really the reality of thought.
