Carvajal: New social order

Carvajal: New social order

SOME folks think of the new normal only as a mode of social behavior that prevents viral infection from flaring into a pandemic. Others have in mind a mode of doing business that leads to full economic recovery. Still others just want the good old times to come back.

We have to start some place and House Bill 6623, new normal’s Workplace and Public Places Act regulating social behavior in public places can be just that. Neda (National Economic and Development Authority) is conducting a survey of businesses to factor into a doable economic recovery plan. The Health Department might also be rethinking its priorities. It simply has to.

But these should be just for starters. We need to look beyond the recovery horizon. We have to take care not to let the success of these measures lull us into thinking everything is right again in our world and there is no need for other than peripheral changes.

The grim truth is that something is terribly wrong with our world. The old social order has plunked it on the road to self-destruction with its unrestricted exploitation of nature’s resources that current social reality proves to benefit few countries and enclaves within them. The Philippine social situation where a vast majority is poor, disenfranchised, marginalized, and hence vulnerable aptly mirrors this social dysfunction.

The old social order, if not replaced, will continue to force nature to defend itself with deadly viruses and cataclysms that allow it some respite from human depredation. Moreover, because the old social order maxes out the exploitation of its ores, forests and bodies of water for the benefit of only a few countries and groups of individuals, it cannot wipe out the poverty that is causing a scandalous number of people to lead dehumanized lives.

Controllers of the old social order run the world’s economy totally by the free play of market forces with absolutely no regard for fair play or equity. They insure that they alone and/or their proxies (politicians) run governments thus politically and economically marginalizing the majority of peoples.

As long as this system of unrestricted, often violent, competition for the world’s resources is not changed, nature will continue to defend herself with viruses and natural disasters. And because one cannot stifle freedom forever, marginalized peoples will more likely rise up against a social order that relegates them to the edges of society that disease and hunger stalk.

If you think a new social order is utopian, consider that we are living in a veritable dystopia where people lead wretched and dehumanized lives. And if you think this is a dream, remember that some dreams come true if you dream hard enough.

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