Yes, your political beliefs reflect on your moral standing, your worldview, and ultimately, your character — but it would be remiss to say that it’s that simple.
(c) mara rivera
The world is poised in a way that people can neither escape nor completely nullify disagreement. It is a prerequisite to belief, and everyone believes in something, even if someone claims to believe in nothing. Belief in nothing is kind of like thinking of nothing, it’s paradoxical. In gripping with the fact that each individual is precisely that, an individual, one who has a unique experience of life, then everyone’s set of beliefs must be unique as well.
True to its form, beliefs themselves form pillars of society, like religion, morality, and politics.
As the national elections of the Philippines draw near, there is growing hostility between groups that continue to disagree with each other. This hostility is continuously mounting, from ignorance, to ridicule, to resentment, to disdain, and eventually, to the physical manifestation of that disdain.
I find this hostility, though far from new, incredibly unfortunate. How can we move on as a people when we are divided?
While we fight and squabble over educational diplomas and less than adequate servings of spaghetti, the political class live comfortably, playing the people as if we are expendable pieces that serve a role in their ascension to power.
Regardless of how much I feel like the political discourse online is veering farther and farther away from redemption, there are things that must be recognized as truths:
1) You can believe in something without necessarily agreeing with it.
We can classify realities in life as either practical or ideal. Though I am sure we can come up with more classifications, these two, I believe, are the ones that are significant when it comes to socio-political beliefs.
The practical, meaning the realities that we expect to see and have grown to live with, and the ideal, meaning the realities that we wish to attain and to manifest, are not dichotomous. The practical cooperates with the ideal as much as it rejects it.
But we must never confuse one for the other, even if there are large swathes of overlap between them.
While we, as people, must always wish to attain an ideal world (the concept of which is dependent on the individual, though I would imagine there are universal similarities among those of us who are sane i.e. a safer, healthier world that offers more opportunities to people without discrimination), we must never forget the existence of the practical world. For example, while I may wish for the streets of Manila to be safe and to be free from crime, I can’t just lazily walk around its side streets during the night with bright alluring jewelry. Though I hear my more youthful self saying “hey it’s my right to wear what I want to wear!”. While true, the point is, if I had gone into that situation knowing of the reality of crime and knowing the danger, then it is my responsibility to avert danger from myself and the people I love and care about.
There are realities in the world that we can understand and reason with, but that doesn’t mean these realities are justified in any sense. There are precautions that people take and beliefs that people hold that are brought about from tradition or practice that are necessary perhaps for survival, perhaps for safety, or perhaps for a multitude of other reasons.
Nevertheless, that which is necessary, while not always ideal, must persist and remain because they serve a purpose.
It’s internal moral compromise.
While some of us are adamant and blatantly unmoving in our political positions, there are those who choose to vote for people they outright disagree with if they think it would mean putting the country in a better position.
This is also the reason why people do not choose to vote for who they believe in if they think that their particular candidate has little to no chance of winning. Compromise.
2) We must accept the fact that there are many things we do not know.
One thing about our modern-day political discourse that I do not appreciate is the enthusiasm of “educated” people, those of us who have attained some pride or accomplishment within educational institutions, to believe that they are innately mentally superior to others.
Let’s not get confused. Education does not mean enlightenment.
(c) giammarco
Even Socrates, one of the most well-educated and enlightened individuals to ever walk the Earth said that for all that he knew, he knew nothing.
Although we see much and many, too much if you’re asking me, in circulation around mainstream and social media, there is an exponentially greater amount of content, context, and substance that is hidden away behind closed doors and red tape that regular people like most of us would never get to see.
There are many people, in my own experience and maybe in yours too, that seem decent, honest, and altruistic from behind our screens, but in truth are none of those things in “real life”. What more of these politicians? What more of the skeletons they’ve hidden, both figurative and literal?
Maybe this is the reason why I am not too quick to jump the trigger in judging a person who I know close to nothing of. Or why I’m not too eager in severing ties with others because of political stances on things I will never have a full grasp of even if I tried my hardest. Of course, circumstances change when overwhelming evidence is produced to justify allegations. When movements are started and sustained on the basis of fact and justice. Especially when that justice is not attained.
Sadly, rarely is there ever evidence that is widely accepted these days. Everything is now subject to opinion. Maybe social media and the distance to repercussions it brings has given us more confidence to publicly commit mistakes, either intentional or not —for better or worse— and have little to no accountability for the ramifications these mistakes bring.
We’re all so caught up on our own personal biases, and what irks me is the sense of entitlement we have to our own “truths”. Not all “truths” are of the same caliber nor validity. Even the concept of personal “truths” is contradictory to truth itself. This dissonance is killing reason.
And this dissonance exists only because, to a degree, some groups of people believe they are better than others, and this sense of righteousness gives them entitlement to both moral and mental superiority.
When in fact, anecdotal accounts, most of which are neither based on research nor provable evidence, are significant in creating connection and are, at the same time, indisputable. You may believe in God or not, but it is hard to convince someone who has experienced God to disavow His existence. These anecdotal accounts are priceless and largely shape the landscape of Philippine politics.
We would like to believe that we, ourselves, know what is best. But that is rarely ever the case. Rarely, if at all, are we given the absolute truth in the machinations of politics and political movement, yet we try to assert most assumptions as fact.
There is much we do not know, and there is much that we do. As people, we trust the things we know and hold on to these dearly. This is bias. Bias is inescapable. But don’t let that stop you from trying to escape it.
3) Political tribalism is detrimental to healthy progress.
It never ends well when a hefty group of the population vilifies the other. There is no path to healing or progress when destruction is the means for connection.
I find it oddly common yet undoubtedly sad that people are breaking friendships and relationships for individuals they know close to nothing about.
Don’t get me wrong. I feel it absolutely acceptable to dislike, grow an annoyance for, and hate others who praise and worship oppressors. This is justified, of course. But once again, that which is justifiable does not necessarily equate to that which is ideal. Ideally, we find political compromise. After all, that’s what a democracy is for. It is based on the tenet that we get the government we deserve.
But our democracy is tainted if not drenched in toxicity and deceit. Nevertheless, we must hold our own selves accountable even within this flawed system.
Never idolize a politician.
To place blind, near wholehearted faith, on individuals we barely know is the very naivety that allows our country to be blindsided, tricked, and played for fools through generations. We often forget that politicians are in their positions to serve, not to command. To lead, not to trip over their own power while the nation hopes for the best.
(c) jc gellidon
The rich and powerful would have us believe that we are weak, aggravated, and don’t know better. I refuse to believe this. The Filipino people are not weak, we are strong in heart and spirit. It is not our fault that we have been led astray and manipulated to the point that we have identified with our own weakness. The Filipino people are not aggravated, we are hungry for change. It is not our shortcoming that change has not come when it has been promised to us for decades. The Filipino people are not simple-minded, we are kind and discerning. It is not our sin that our hospitality as a people has been used as a tool for blind compliance to authority.
There are more things that connect us than divide us. Let’s not fall into the trap that we are different from our brothers and sisters. We all want the same end result, a better country, a better nation for everyone.
So keep your head up and eyes open. The true enemy is not the diehard apologist. Nor is it the self-righteous supporter. All of us are just subjects to a broken system none of us asked to be born into. The true enemy are the people that play us for fools. It’s time we recognized that.
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