Anecdotes from the Wilderness

Last weekend, while on a photoshoot, a fellow ran into me who thought I looked like a prime target for trickery. Upon noticing his game, I played along and gave him the answers he was looking for, dodging a few pertinent questions here and there. When he thought he had me eating out of the palm of his hand, I told him I was with a group and backed away ever so cautiously. He didn't blink and kept trying to pull me into his web so he could get some profit. I reiterated and he caved in, wearing a slightly bummed expression as he disappeared into the crowd. I couldn't help thinking, "What if pinoys used their syosal mentality for the permanent greater good rather than temporary personal gain.. how much better off would this country be?"

This is the basis for these GRP articles, the FB fanpage and the anathema behind a steadily growing crowd of disenchanted but not hopeless individuals. We discuss the events of the day but also the classic underlying symptomatic issues plaguing our society; in this discussion, we do not always find pleasant answers. But such is the nature of such conversations and their context. Philosophers, political or otherwise, must take an epistemological approach to debating i.e. What is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? How do we know what we know?

The answers, if any, are garnered through group participation and honest, intellectual reasoning solidified by research and restraint from emotional arguments and childish retorts. I'd like to share one of these comical refutations from an insurgent into the GRP ranks trying to label me a communist simply because I espoused ideas contrary to his. Notice the obvious, yet overlooked, irony in his comment, "we are not here to debate, and commies were allergic to debate too." My point is this: If Filipinos continue on the path to individual economic wealth at the expense of others, intellectual superiority to boost their fragile egos, and don't keep their tempers in check when someone trumps them at their own foolish games, we will never progress as a society no matter how much we converse or act "syosal". It will be a dead end with rotting means. Sayang!

...we are not here to debate. Of all people you should be able to appreciate this idea. After all, we're not your fellow communists Stalin, Lenin, Fidel Castro, Dear Leader (Kim Jong Il) and that hydrophobic dirt bag Che Guevara all allergic to debates.