I came across
this piece on the Wowowee tragedy through
Torn and Frayed. I laud Idiot Savant for taking an unpopular explanation to the tragedy. He claims that it is not extreme poverty that caused people to line up outside Ultra for days, he says it is "the Wowowee state of mind."
Also, those who had resources enough to wait it out for days couldn't have possibly been that poor.
"The people who massed at Ultra had alternatives. To be sure, not very attractive ones, but they had alternatives nonetheless. Hungry people do not sit around for three days in a festive atmosphere waiting for a ticket to a game show; they go out looking for food."
He then looks to link this kind of value system, one that "banks on patronage and entitlement, that thrives on false hopes and dependency, and that feeds on the simple, immature sense of good and evil in the universe at the same time disregarding the nature of actions and consequences" to the mentality of the "alipin" a pre-colonial "caste system" that he says survived the Spanish era and continues today.
While to some extent, I agree that Wowowee's audience couldn't have been that poor, after all they could afford TV sets, what is "poor?" If we do not eat thrice a day, are we "poor?" If we eat thrice a day, but have nothing but rice and talbos ng kamote, are we not "poor?" Do we need to be in an extreme state of malnourishment, ribs showing and faint from hunger to be "poor"? In a mediatized society that constantly feeds us with all kinds of wants and needs to achieve the "good life," you and I could be poor.
While those people had enough provisions to last them three days and could afford not to "go out looking for food," this does not discount their varying states of desperation. The fact that they are desperate yet "festive" is a well-evolved coping mechanism, something we Filipinos are known for.
Idiot Savant is right in claiming that it is an "insane value system." What he does not says is it's a value system that is "insane" from his view. For those people, what they were doing and the value system that prompted them to do it, was completely rational. We are, after all, calculating humans. In the end, all we want is to survive. For those people, a few days chit-chatting with your neighbors under the sun while awaiting the main event, was just part of their ordinary struggle to survive. Idiot Savant implies, why don't those people just go out and work? Work hard? Work harder?
But poverty isn't merely a state of mind, it is a social condition. Contrary to little "nuggets of wisdom" we, the educated folk, have been taught since birth, poverty cannot be overcome by simple hard work. An ambulant vendor can work 15 hours a day every day for fifty years and still die with nothing to show for. And the "good life" these days mean that in order to be happy and fulfilled, we need a lot of things to show for.
Poverty is social because it does not mean anything divorced from the environment. Poverty is social because it is relative. Poverty can be measured by a sense of lack. And when we see people in our vicinity having many things that give them happiness, why should we begrudge ourselves of these essential elements of the good life?
But then if we were born into the wrong end of the spectrum, what an uphill battle it will be for us to achieve the means to buy the good life. We would need to be superhuman, extraordinarily ambitious, extraordinarily cunning to break free of the limitations of our birth. Limitations including; risk of malnutrition growing up, sub-standard public education, pressure from family to work at a young age, and most constraining of all, overcoming the "Wowowee state of mind." This is the most difficult because it means having to go against everything you've learned since birth. Things your parents taught you, and their parents taught them, to survive.
"Wag kang masyadong ambisyoso! Mapapaso ka lang." (Don't be too ambitious or you'll get burned).
"Dapat alamin mo kung san ka lulugar." (You should know your place)
"Magdasal ka na lang." (Just pray)
"Hindi tayo pababayaan ng Diyos." (God will not let us come to harm)
Nobody chooses to live in the socially-created conditions of poverty. But because we live in a world of never-ending scarcity, this kind of poverty is inevitable. Nobody chooses to be "unpoor" either. Contrary to our bourgeois value system, it is not a mere choice. It is necessary, it serves a function. So Idiot Savant and I should thank our lucky stars our lot in life means we are able to look out our 20th story windows and survey the Makati skyline and rail about the dastardly aspects of the human condition instead of living it.
===========================================
Edited to add:
In response to comments by
Dominique/Idiot Savant and
Torn.
Dominique,
Thanks for the response to my response. I agree with some of what you said in your earlier post. What I do not agree with is causation. And maybe, your use of terms.
I don't see how the "alipin mentality" caused the Wowowee tragedy. First, assuming that the alipin value system survived the colonial period, could it have done so essentially unchanged?
Second, how could you discount 400 years of "colonial rule" and the consequent value systems resulting from the social structures created at the time and the interaction of agents of history? For example, how does the concept of an all-knowing God, one that monitors your each and every move change your values? How does the inate, natural superiority of caucasians change your values? How does a State, previously unconceived of in the pre-colonial Barangay system, the supreme authority above everything and everyone you see change your values? How does the concept of property, of exclusive ownership of land for example, change your values?
My point is, you cannot claim that "the pre-Hispanic class system is still with us" and say that this is the cause of poverty. Even I will not venture to enumerate the causes of poverty in this country (although I could). I could read and think and study it for the rest of my life and still be unable to make such statements.
Third, what I object to the most is the thinly veiled condescencion in your post.
It is evident when you say:
"Let's face it: these people are not like you and me. We live in one world, they live in another. No, they're not bad per se. In fact, they are capable of suprising displays of tenderness and childlike simplicity at times. They just have a grossly distorted value system. It's that value system that places material well-being ahead of everything else."
I'm reminded of this scene in Leondardo di Caprio's film "The Aviator." His character Howard Hughes was having luncheon with Katharine Hepburn. He was so crass as to talk about business and money-making during the meal. Hepburn says "We don't talk about money at the table" or something to that effect. Howard replies, "You don't talk about money because you have it."
Let me ask you, when your survival means getting your grubby little hands on some cash for the day or trying to feed your family on your P300 minimum wage, wouldn't you put your material well-being ahead of everything else as well? To hell with "common" decency, damn courtesy and niceties, fuck kindness?
Yes, these kinds of values, as you say, stem from something. But not the pre-colonial caste system, not the alipin mentality. It stems from values created in the past few centuries, it stems from values created at this moment. And values do not spring out of nowhere like mushrooms. They do not linger unchanged for centuries either. Values, or "little nuggets of wisdom" or "common sense" stem from our realities. As you say, theirs is a different world. Theirs is a different reality. And so, they must create values to match their lives. Shouldn't we be grateful that our reality is so much more comfortable than theirs? And so we can afford not to talk about money, we can afford our little niceties, we can afford our kindness.
Maybe we should just dispense with safe terms like "alipin" or "caste system" because they mean nothing today compared to loaded terms such as "peasant," "urban poor" or "class system." Let us call a spade a spade.
The Black and White Movement is selling those infamous t-shirts. They also encourage you to do what you will with their logo.
While the Philippines is undergoing a crisis of a country in the process of political development, a more stable and older democracy, France, is under extreme duress in balancing its labor policies with pressures of globalization.
The CPE is seen as a solution to reduce unemployment by making the French labor market more fluid; making it easier for employers to hire and fire workers below 26 years old. While this practice is pretty much the standard operating procedure in the Philippines, France has a long tradition of "corporatism," the bargaining of State, Labor and Capital to arrive at political and economic decisions (more or less) beneficial for all. French Corporatism was central in the the re-making of modern France since the second World War, seeing the birth of national industries coincide with better labor conditions and overall increase in productivity and national wealth.
However, acceleration of global competition in the past decade has put pressure on this key bargaining mechanism, leaving smaller and smaller room for the Labor sector to maneuver.
I don't know whether it was because it was preaching to my choir or whether I'm having a bad case of PMS, but this movie was so good it made me sob. And no, not because anyone died a painful, tragic death, not because anyone was parted from anyone, not because an innocent was murdered or an injustice commited.
An abbreviated discussion in our department has convinced me that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s spin doctors are doing a stupendous job. They are doing their job so well it has got perfectly rational, thinking people agreeing with them.
So now the much abused CPP-NPA is again being whipped out of the toy box as a way to scare us usually sensible folks. The Extreme Leftists are conspiring with the Extreme Rightists to overthrow the government. Communists are getting in bed with Military Adventurists. Wha’da’pak?!? That’s like claiming Wacko Jacko impregnated (now ex-wife) Lisa Marie Presley and had a hoot of a time doing it!!!
So what’s with all this religious fear of Communists? We are deathly afraid of Communists because Americans were (and still are, if Dubya’s any indication). And what Yanks thought and said, Pinoys thought and said. Now that the Cold War is long over and Communism thrives in only 2 out of 200++ states, what the heck is the fuss all about? How can you conceivably imagine the Communists taking over at this day and age?!?
And because I’m a language teacher, I am obsessed with words, how they are used, manipulated, morphed into different meanings to suit different purposes. The problem is conflating “Leftists” with “Marxists” with “Communists” with “Party-Lists” with “Civil Society.” I understand the red flags, or all sorts of multi-colored flag-waving, might be a little confusing. But come on. When you want drama and maximum effect, don’t you wear red?
He came in, a man in his thirties of small stature, skin darkened from doubtless hours of walking under high-altitude sun. His eyes kept darting to the door at the very back of our small room, as if expecting the bogeyman to come jumping. He then awkwardly introduced himself, a couple of stutters here and there. He reached for the whiteboard marker and started scribbling on the board. He paused in between scribbling and explaining the Marxist doctrine. Scribble, cough, nervous scoping of room and back door. I don’t remember the details of what he said, but I remember thinking he didn’t say anything I didn’t already know and could’ve done a much better job lecturing. If we had waited with bated breath, we would have asphyxiated waiting for enlightenment.
Youthful ideals and democratic rights led to the confrontation of hundreds of students and the French gendarmes in Sorbonne University last Friday. The police used tear gas to disperse the 3-day sit-in.
Le Contrat Première Embauche or the First Contract Employment allows companies to hire young people for a two-year trial period, and fire them without cause. This new policy is meant to spur employment by making the labor market more "fluid." France has been dominated by socialist governments and policies for the past few decades, ensuring secure employment conditions for citizens. French labor unions are also notoriously active.
Now that the white young folks have joined the desperate cries of black young folks, is the state paying closer attention to a crisis slowly creeping? Is the continental socialist model finally giving in to the pressure of a more "flexible" labor market comme aux États-Unis? It is certainly showing symptoms. Will the cradle of le contrat social finally succumb to TINA (There is no alternative)? On verra.
You know it, I know it. And having to deal with them is an unpleasant, time-wasting, sometimes hilarious experience. Since I am an ebayer, and Ebay Philippines is growing by leaps and bounds as I write this, I have been dealing with more and more morons.
Soundbytes from Channels 2 and 7 on February 24, 2006. Recorded around noontime, minutes after President Arroyo declares State of National Emergency.
First, the Filipino alipin was “a man in debt to another man. His subordination was therefore obligatory, not contractual: the other man was technically his creditor rather than his lord…(93).” This highlights the difference from the known European concept of slave at the time. For detailed difference of the Spanish concept of slave, see Chapter 1 of Slavery in the Spanish Philippines (SSP).
Is Scott implying that the march of history, the coming of the Spaniards and the gradual destruction of social bonds of pre-colonial/pre-capitalist Philippines made way for the pre-requisites of a capitalist society: intensification of agricultural production, increased differentiation and power of the ruling class and the complete and total disenfranchasiment of former lunch-mate and almost-family, the "alipin"?
