The Evolution of Punishment

When the word punishment comes into mind, I think of such a word as a tern that refers to the repression of certain privileges due to an unacceptable behavior. Punishment, in my own understanding, has been an important element towards reforming the person from his or her unacceptable behavior in society through the forms of repressed freedom, penalties, fines, and the like. But that was not the same form of punishment Michel Foucault has talked about in his book, “Discipline and Punish”, towards the first few pages.
Through reading the first few pages of Discipline and Punish, one can perfectly visualize the ancient way of punishment, and that is through a means of public humiliation and brutal, merciless, and slow death of the convicted. The description of such a spectacle during the medieval times may be very disturbing and bloody for the modern man like me, but such spectacle was for me the perfect execution of absolute and infinite power of the prince, the kings, and various leaders. This execution of power was able to present to its people the sense of discipline in the eyes of a prince. This imagery of the overwhelming power of the prince (or any leader during the medieval age perhaps) was the primitive form of punishment that has existed.
Imagine: breaking bones, burning hot pincers, beheadings, horse pulling, limb separations, burning bodies - these very graphic images were not of horror for the people back then, but more of a spectacle. It is like they do not care for the body of the convicted. It is like they do not fear God. It is like the princes are the God themselves. And yet this grand execution of power just showed how fragile it is at the same time; these grand representation of power can go down to the ditch. An example? When people would find out that their prince is useless. The overwhelming power of the Prince in this case can be destroyed or overcome by the people, leading to a great downfall to the prince.
And after decades of years, the definition of punishment has drastically transformed from a brutal, spectacular, majestic scene into a humane, static, and reformist scene.
Through the introduction of the prison, the brutal killings were stopped. The majestic power is gone. The people no longer see a fantastic spectacle of a ruthless death. Instead, we are now faced with the reformation of the human convict through going through a daily routine as he is deprived of his freedom, a cause for his unacceptable and immoral behavior in society. To make things simple, punishment in the modern sense has become a light of hope for the convict instead of a fatal nightmare, as represented with the spectacular death of Damiens the regicide in 1757. Eighty years after his spectacular death, the way convicts were punished became a time-table based way of punishment, where the officials reform the convicts instead of killing them publicly.
Sure the way convicts were punished became somewhat very bland and static, but I believe such change occurred for a reason. One main reason is that power is not absolutely strong and overwhelming at all. Through the existence of a time-table based schema for a prisoner’s daily life, the power of officials are re-channeled such that these officials realize after eighty years since Damiens’ death that these prisoners can actually do something less inhumane; simply speaking, I guess that the officials have a more merciful heart and soul as compared to before, that is why they had a one-hundred-eighty degree change on how they would punish the convicts.
Another plausible reason for this is that the rationale behind a time-based schema as a means of punishment is the fact that the objective of punishment was changed by itself: instead of eliminating the convicts and keep the state pure of immoral individuals, they instead insisted on correcting these individuals, which for me is the more appropriate part. Instead of killing them brutally, they are corrected through enclosing them in a protected area, where they have a daily set of activities, from waking up, eating lunch, attending class, praying, to even leisure time. Such time-based principle has helped the convict to reform himself and save himself from humiliation for his inappropriate acts at the same time.
As a result of this, reforming the convicts would mean for the leader better productivity of the state; through reforming them, they go back to society after serving a number of years in the prison, being able to be of help in the constant progression of the state and society.
This long duration of labor being implemented at the prison becomes like a purgatory for the convicts; they stay in this enclosed, heavily guarded area, they follow a certain schedule and a particular set of activities, and become reformed through education, interaction, and the like, coming down to a point wherein once they go out of the prison, they are a totally different person: a person who is no longer a convict but can serve society.

To forgive and forget?

The reign of totalitarianism has ended for many years now, but through critiquing the flaws and the terror totalitarianism has come into mind, the question to ponder with totalitarianism as being a part of history is on whether we should forgive and forget the existence of totalitarianism or not. Such an act seems to be very plausible in modern society, of which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the best example for such an act as she granted executive pardon to the ousted president Joseph Ejercito Estrada for his case involving plunder and corruption, among a long list of crimes committed by the ousted president. It may seem to be the ideal act, given in the context of the Christian Roman catholic Church, where we are taught to forgive our enemies for any wrong acts they have committed on us.
And yet this act is heavily debated when it comes to the case of the totalitarian government. Some people refuse to forgive and forget it, while others would prefer to simply forgive it and forget all about it. When asked about my opinion regarding the said debate, I would go for the former. But why be unforgivable to a type of government that has not even existed during the time I was born? Why be mad still at Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Lenin, even if they are dead already? Why should I support Arendt’s view of totalitarianism as an evil government, even if the real intention of totalitarianism was not meant to be as evil as how Arendt has pictured it?
First of all, we should put in consideration the very fact that the human being is by itself an historical being, meaning that by being historical, we all progress ourselves throughout the course of time, by learning the successes, failures, mistakes, and good decisions of the past. Having said that, I beg to disagree in forgetting the evil Totalitarianism has brought us in the books, the documentaries, and the testimonies of people who were a part of such reign of terror. Forgetting totalitarianism is tad amount to saying that totalitarianism was nothing, and that totalitarianism is something of insignificance to the human race. It is obviously not like you can make up for the millions of deaths it has occurred. I mean, even if Adolf Hitler’s descendants pay the Jews even a trillion dollars just to make the Jews forget the brutality of Hitler’s reign and in his effort in exterminating the Jews, the past is past; you can never pay up for the death of a human person
Second, we should not forgive totalitarianism because of the inhumanity it has caused to people, especially to the Jews. By the mere fact that totalitarianism is incomparable to any other form of government system that has ever existed and by the fact that totalitarianism has degraded the state of humanity is a clear, pinpoint indication that it should never be forgiven or forgotten as being part of history. Hitler may be dead, but that does not mean that we forgive him for his brutal acts. The same applies to the likes of Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot. These leaders, no matter what, have become perfect representations of abusive power and reigns of terror, that our descendants should hand down to their children and beyond. This era of terror should serve as a reminder of the flaws that man has made in an attempt to stabilize society.
Hence, although there have been recent criticisms on Hannah Arendt that she made the idea of totalitarianism purely evil in her own perspective, I guess she had every humanly possible right to do so, even if it may be right or wrong. First of all, she is a Jew, and seeing Germans brutally killing her race by itself can be very traumatic to a typical Jew like Arendt. If I were a Jew (realistically I am a Roman Catholic), I would do the same thing that Arendt has presented totalitarianism to my fellow Filipinos as well. How would you feel if a certain leader attempts to exterminate your race for no particular reason but just because of black propaganda? I myself would be perpetually infuriated by such an act. If it was possible, I would plan a counter-attack against the race of Hitler, doing the same brutal acts to his fellow people. But that is on the ideal perspective.
In the more realistic perspective, the rationale on why Hannah Arendt had to describe totalitarianism that is because she wanted the world, her audience, to see how injustice, racial discrimination, and dehumanization was done to a particular group of people, in her case, the Jewish people. By describing the horrors of totalitarianism, Arendt depicts to the audience that although the era of brutal killings and excessive racial discrimination has ended already, Arendt wants to serve this as a reminder of the mistakes committed in the past and through this she hopes that these mistakes should not happen again.
Hence, my rationale why I refuse to forgive and forget totalitarianism for what it has done and for what it has contributed in history is that what totalitarianism has caused should mark as a reminder that we should be careful with what we want in the progression of both history and humanity; going beyond human means could possibly destroy this important progression if we just forget about totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism: The surprising facts

Through re-analyzing the important points and view on Totalitarianism through Hannah Arendt’s book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, one can see many unexplored views on Totalitarianism that most of us would often misinterpret about.
Among the first essential points I would like to discuss here is the fact that the concept of a stateless society. One of the potentially dangerous things Totalitarianism has done is the fact that when it meant a socially equal society, it meant the removal of the identities of the human person, that is, the human person as being unique and different. In the case of Totalitarianism, it has transformed every human person into a mere big group of species. Resulting from the abusive power of Capitalism, as seen through Marxism,Totalitarianism likewise treats history as a perpetual process, revolving on the cycle between the totalitarian leader and the masses following the totalitarian leader blindly. Likewise, Totalitarianism is considered to be a part of modernity due to the exchange of roles of the public and the private sphere. Before, the public sphere in classical political theory is managed by the lawmakers while the private sphere is managed by the people of the state. In modern political theory, what happens is the the public sphere becomes the people, in the case of Totalitarianism, the masses, while the private sphere became the rulers, and in the Totalitarian aspect, the Totalitarian leader who has absolute control over the masses.
Like how Arendt discuss how Totalitarianism came about, we can look at Totalitarianism as being originated from Capitalism. How? Because in Capitalism, the main goal of it is to gain as much profit as possible with the least investment. Hence, Capitalism attempts to expand the overall power of the nation state, but what it has underestimated is the fact that this “stretching of power” has a certain limit; there will come a time wherein there are little to no possible ways of expanding the profit power of the nation state. As a result of this Imperialism was born.
Through Imperialism, the emerging capitalist nation state now then expands without any concern for territorial borders, capturing as many states as possible. Now because of this further expansion of the capitalist nation state to other states, the capitalist nation state would then give an illusion of helping the other states of their needs, yet in reality, this certain support the capitalist nation state can give would be only guaranteed to its people; hence, it does not give absolute protection to every state it captures since the capitalist nation state would not bother to protect nation-less states. The main priority of the capitalist nation state is always its people first.
As a result, the captured states are then absorbed to a bigger blob - that is, the capitalist nation state, and hence would result into the degradation of the people of these captured states into the mass man, wherein they are species being who do not belong to anywhere, which has been the case for the anti-semitism approach of the Nazi party during the rule of Adolf Hitler.
Another important point that is seen with Totalitarianism is the nature of the masses being discussed here. The masses here are being described into a feeling of uselessness - a result of the first point - and hence bringing the masses into a state of loneliness. What happens is that the totalitarian leader, through the power of propaganda, tries to “relate” to these masses, and hence persuading the masses to join his movement. What happens then is the masses becoming obedient blindly to the totalitarian leader, and because they are the followers of the totalitarian leader, they end up being dependent with the totalitarian leader.
Now what makes the totalitarian leader problematic? First of all, the problem with this is that the masses, which would amount to millions of people, end up trusting this sole human person leader they have when it comes to outside relations, giving the image of the totalitarian leader having control of one big blob, that with the one big blob, everyone should agree to it at all costs. In addition, because of the existence of mass movements being for the leader, criticizing the leader for his wrong decisions or flaws is now an impossible task since the mass movements are people who are brainwashed in the first place, and because they still remain powerless, the result of it becomes simple: the masses believe therefore that the leader is always right.
This does not mean therefore that because of this the totalitarian leader is absolutely powerful; it has its downfall as well. The major downfall of Totalitarianism, which is surprising, is its lack of ambition. Because of the totalitarian leader being “perpetually” right in away, this makes the leader himself not desiring for more as he has reached the end of the line. Also, because of the blurring between friends and career in a Totalitarian government, the leader therefore is torn apart, ending into an uncompromising desire.

Totalitarianism: The evil child

While learning about the principles behind totalitarianism, which is best associated with leaders like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Lenin, a quick and concise way of describing what totalitarianism is all about can be summed up with five words: Big Brother is watching you.
I am referring here to both the reality show and beyond it. In lay man’s terms, the idea behind a big brother society is simple: we stay in an isolated community, where we are voided of any contact from outside that state we live in, and every move we make is constantly being monitored by a certain person that the residents of that state should follow to. In this isolated community, every request and order the “Big Brother” says to the people must be followed or else they will face a certain consequence. Whatever “Big Brother” likes, his people should conform. This is how the reality show goes on.
In a totalitarian sense, the “Big Brother” show is indeed a less violent form of totalitarianism, since the real totalitarianism that we are talking about here, of which had its peak from the 1920s up to the 1940s, is that totalitarianism injects violence and fear to its people in order to make everyone in the state follow and supposedly “live in a stable environment”.
The real totalitarian government is not as simple as what “Big Brother” is doing in the reality show; instead, the totalitarian leader has total control (hence, a derivation from the root word or totalitarianism which is total, meaning complete and whole) over the whole state. In addition, when I mean total control here, I mean that the totalitarian leader has control from what he likes the media to show to the public to the days when certain activities, such as sports and entertainment, should be held. And not just that the totalitarian leader watches every move of the individual living in his state, he in fact forces each of the individual to not be unique and instead have every individual carry the same thought and beliefs all throughout every aspect regarding the state, which therefore discourages the formation of elite classes, middle classes, and lower classes in the state.
A classless society who think alike - that is what totalitarianism is all about. No one can go against the government, no one can say that the government is wrong, as the government is always right. No one can share ideas and innovation as it is forbidden by society. No one can have it their way; it has to be always in the favor of the totalitarian leader. What the totalitarian leader says must be followed. If the totalitarian leader does not like you, he can have you killed instantly; if he does, then good for you. The whole point of this? The individual becomes like a toy or pet of the totalitarian leader, where he can do whatever he would like. The totalitarian leader is a child - an evil child - that does brutal things to his toys and pets. This evil child does not care what happens to his toys or pets whether they get destroyed (in the case of the toys) or if they die (in the case of the pets); the important thing is that he is happy and satisfied.
The result with such? The people living in a totalitarian state become paranoid with their every move, with what they say, with what they do, and with what they know. They have been degraded from intellectual human beings into just mere species of animals with no intellect in the sense that the uniqueness of the human being, and its ability to reason, has been stripped out of them by the totalitarian leader. Because of this, people belonging to the totalitarian state act like robots, who follow orders unconsciously even if it is wring in the first place.
Hence, the idea behind totalitarianism resulted into pure horror to the human race. The degradation and the violence it caused has transformed the classless society of human beings into just a society of robots being governed by a lone “human” being. Instead of promoting equality in a peaceful way, totalitarianism forces people to be equal, robbing them of their basic rights as humans. For me, the ultimate flaw with totalitarianism is the fact that induces violence and that it gives overwhelming power to the said totalitarian leader, which in the end would still not lead to equality but instead would lead to injustice, making the totalitarian leader use up all his power to force people to follow him, creating an illusion of an “equal” society where in reality it is never equal.
Maybe through what totalitarianism has caused within our history, we should realize that although we would desire to have a equal society (as what Marxism and Communism desired in the first place), it is indeed ideal to form a equal society where justice is served properly, people are treated equally, and everyone is given basic human rights, but realistically such is an herculean task that will be really hard to accomplish, but nonetheless, we can still work it out to make society as equal as possible, but not in a violent way as what totalitarianism promoted.

A remedy, but not a permanent solution

Among one of the current conflicts within the principle of capitalism is the fact that given the ideal of the capitalist’s mind of thinking of higher profits with lower investments with their business, there will come a point wherein with all the efforts of the capitalist to increase the maximum profit of his business, from increasing work hours to replacing his men with machines, which are supposedly “more reliable and more efficient”, he will end up decreasing his total profit due to the abuse of the capitalist, as Karl Marx has pointed out with Marxism.
In the modern context of discussing Marx with its transition into imperialism, it is said and discussed in class that although Marx’s predictions were proven to be wrong by modern critics, his contribution to the world of modern political theory is nonetheless relevant in terms of criticizing capitalism and its problems towards human society. What makes Marx’s criticism of capitalism with Marxism relevant is that through pointing out the flaws of capitalism, much is remedied with regards to capitalism, thus preventing the flaws of capitalism to occur again. With this in mind, Marx actually made an effort in improving the state of capitalism though pointing out the flaws of it.
In addition, although the idea behind Marxism and Imperialism, which will be discussed later in this paper, leaves a radical impression of which is not totally new to the human being. That being said, the origin of being radical started even before Marxism has ever existed; in fact the radical approach can be rooted upon the early capitalism era, wherein the abuse of humanity prevails the most. As the radical approach is rooted upon capitalism, it is through this root, or primary cause, that the radical approach is used as a means of instigating a revolution, which is clearly seen with the birth of the French revolution. Likewise the instigation of a revolution has brought upon a progression through history, as mankind learns overtime from the good and bad points capitalism has caused. A good example of this is the existence of class struggle, as stated by Karl Marx, wherein because of a capitalist society, two clashing classes existed, which are the bourgeoise and the proletariats. Because of the oppression the bourgeoise does to the proletariats, the proletariats, through class struggle, work their way towards eliminating the bourgeoise class, which is among the key points in Marxism. Hence, the bourgeoise class, the capitalists, are the supposed “bearers of universal evil”, of which the proletariat class, the working class, has to work upon through propaganda to eliminate the evils of the bourgeoise lass, and eventually replacing capitalism. This occurred in the French revolution as the proletariat class manage to crush the bourgeoise class, which then leads us to the birth of imperialism.
Vladimir Lenin, a primary figure of imperialism said that through the abolition of the capitalist state and the creation of a new state, a state dominated by proletariats is therefore created after the elimination of the bourgeoise class and the capitalist. Through this, the state starts from scratch, and therefore reorganizes itself; as capitalism is replaced, it therefore replaces the modes, the means, and the cycle of production through a proletariat perspective. Although the idea of a state dominated by proletariats may seem good as there is no capitalists or anyone form the bourgeoise class controlling them, the idea of having a purely proletariat state can still become problematic. Despite that the proletariat is defined to be universal and progressive with our discussions in class, the problem that lies within the proletariat state is the problem of representation.
In the proletariat class, we should be aware that there are various divisions within the class and because of that it is hard to determine how to create representation, and in order to remedy this, the vanguard party is therefore formed. The vanguard party, of which represents a particular group of people from the proletariat class, exists so that the proletariat state can become stabilized and not end up in chaos, which could possibly result from the abuse of the newly-discovered freedom of the proletariat class. In the end, creating a proletariat state would not be entirely proletariat since the existence of a vanguard party being in the forefront of the proletariat state would mean that hierarchies would still exist and therefore abuses of power would still remain.
Although the conversion from a capitalist state into a proletariat state would be a great idea as it puts an end to abusive capitalists, it is not indeed a permanent solution to the proper distribution of power among the people, the proletariat class in particular, since it is realistically impossible to create absolute equality and absolute communal sharing in a proletariat community. The fall of communism in the early 1990s attest to this, as since a leader is still needed in a communist society, there are still possibilities of abuse, of which exists even with a capitalist society.

Let’s kill the Capitalist

Among the main topics discussed for this week’s session on Marx is about his principle of alienation through labor. Though the activity of labor itself, man has eventually become alienated through acting instead of a human into a mere robot at work. How come? In the capitalist society, everything is governed by these pieces of paper and metal objects called money. Through this, the relationship of the slave and master, basing it from the Hegelian philosophy, eventually becomes a relation between the slave, who is the worker, and the master, who is the capitalist, wherein money is the one that bridges between the two in a Marxian context.
Among the key points with regards to the Marxian philosophy is that 1) Alienation is the result of the labor of activity itself, and not the product of labor, 2) That in order to stop alienation we should do it through production and not consumption, and 3) The solution to the full freedom or emancipation of man is to abolish private property.
In the first two key points, the main reason why we should be targeting the production instead of the consumption is that alienation itself affects the worker more than the buyer or the consumer. Why?
Let’s analyze the work in a capitalist state; in a capitalist state, a worker is given a minimum wage for his daily labor of work by his boss, the capitalist itself. For this, I will use a hypothetical principle of manufacturing tables as an example. Provided that a worker works for a fixed rate of 50 pesos per hour, and works for 10 hours, he is able to make 5 tables in that span of that time period. So this should mean then that the worker can make a table in a span of two hours, and theoretically speaking, the table’s manufacturing cost is at 100 pesos. Given that he is able to make five tables, and works for ten hours, he then earns 1000 pesos on a daily basis. Now what does the capitalist do? In order to gain income, he sells the tables at double the price at 200 pesos per table, and while the capitalist can sell the 5 tables the worker has made during the day at a total of 2000 pesos, the capitalist ends up paying the worker only the minimum wage, which is 1000 pesos, for that particular labor. Where did the other 1000 pesos go? It went eventually to the pockets of the capitalist, and the other 1000 pesos that the capitalist kept is his profit from selling the tables, hence creating a surplus value with the tables the worker has made.
What makes this unfair then? It is the mere fact that the capitalist makes use of the worker as a commodity to his expanding business, such that by thinking of money, profit, and income, he dehumanizes the laborer by making him into a mere robot that does an automated task of manufacturing tables for the benefit of the capitalist and for the use of the consumers. Marx makes sense when he says that it is the laborer who gets alienated rather than the consumer. Although in one way or another the consumer becomes alienated since he is dictated by the capitalist to buy his products for various reasons (take in the marketing strategy of Apple’s iPods for example), it is still the laborer at the end who is deeply alienated at this modern, capitalist society since he becomes dependent with the work and the (unfair) pay he gets from his master the capitalist. Having said that, this causes the worker in the end to be powerless against the capitalist, his master, as he becomes a dependent entity of the master.
And we all know that in the capitalist society, capitalist always desire for a higher profit while at the same time, investing less. So how does the capitalist compensate for this given that he has given the maximum number of hours to work for the laborer and thew maximum number of laborers he can have in his company? The answer to that is the use of machinery to do the work. Since theoretically speaking the machine can do much more work than the laboring human in a fraction of a time, this then will give the most profit to the capitalist, of which he deeply desires.
In both cases, whether the laboring man is replaced by the machine or the laboring man is abused by the capitalist, you cannot remove the sense of exploitation in the capitalist society. If you use machines, you don’t address the means and needs for survival of the laboring human by not having him work. On the other hand, abusing the laboring man instead of being replaced by machines would jeopardize his health and condition, no matter how much benefits or insurance can the capitalist give to his workers.
And at the same time, machines are like humans; they sure may be much more efficient than humans but we should know that they have to be constantly maintained; wear and tear with its use overtime can make it inefficient, reaching to the point that the capitalist would merit a negative profit because of neglect and abuse to the machine, just like what the capitalist does to the human laboring worker.
And given these problems with Capitalism, and given the Marxian principles of alienation, what should be done to resolve the conflict? Simple. Kill Capitalism, the capitalists and the bourgeoisie class..

Why not have a unified stand anyway?

When one of Marx’s teachings meant that we are the one who actually makes the world, I would say no more but to simply agree with that teaching.
Why? Because there has never been a time in history ever that views the rise of a nation as a result of ideas helping in the development of the nation. In fact, Marx’s materialist perspective does make things more sensible through viewing the development of the world through the actions of man. Of course, it is no one but man that makes the changes in the world a possible task. After all, we are told by God (and I’m speaking here in behalf of theology) that we humans are stewards of his creation and that we should be responsible for these creations.
Hence, I agree with what Karl Marx said that theory is practiced, and put into action. A good case study for this is the emergence of corruption in the Philippines. We keep on complaining about our government officials, the President and the senators to be specific, to be corrupt. We blame the tycoons for being inconsiderate to the poor in their ambitions to increase their wealth. We blame the thieves who steal our things, or even kill people just to have something on their tables. They did not happen because it just happened or it was a result of a discriminative society, but it all bends down to the actions of every human being who is part of that society that aggravates to the problem.
Try to take the analysis to a micro perspective, say in schooling for example. Have you ever wondered how do government officials have this certain tendency of becoming corrupt, doing illegal activities yet at the same time they are perceived to be good by the public? Believe it or not, these large scale illegal acts starts in as early as during schooling, even to the grade-school days. How? Through small scale acts such as copying, stealing, teasing, and the like. From these small acts, they develop overtime, enhancing the skills of a corrupt adult-in-the-making, until they have become seemingly impossible to solve problems, into a large scale, macro perspective, into these corrupt government officials. In addition, these seemingly small but illegal acts committed by children and teenagers gets aggravated through peers and other factors like economical factors, making the idea of corruption and injustice a bigger problem to deal with.
Another example that we can put in consideration on theories being put into action are the existence of the People Power revolution in both the times of Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada. Since all three classes then believe at the fact that these presidents are not doing their duties well anymore, then the acted as one for a revolution to make these two tyrannical presidents step down.
Having said that, given the fact that all of us are essentially a part of this problem with corruption, Marx further elaborates his argument, stating that there is no such distinction between theory and practice, wherein we should maintain our biases and hence, recognize our one-sidedness towards the problem. Since we are a part of this problem, the solution to it is essentially not to be for or against solving the problem, but instead abolish those who are against solving the problem, and instead make everyone be on the side on being in favor of solving the problem, in this case, the problem of corruption.
What interests me with Marx “one-sidedness” is the fact that it contributes to a conflict-less society, wherein everyone would simply agree with each other, and together as one community help each other in battling corruption. Yet such an idea is idealistic in nature, and is a challenge for it to apply in terms of the present situation of the Philippines. Why? Because of the conflict between three conflicting classes: the rich elite, the emerging middle class, and the struggling poor. In such case, it becomes more complex since we are not dealing with two sides but with three sides instead. When applying the one sided principle in the context of the Philippines, it is hard to determine which of the two classes should be abolished and which class should remain. Ideally speaking, in my own perspective, the rich elite and the struggling poor should be abolished because once these two distant classes are abolished, then therefore there may be no more conflict within the state, and hence people will be equal in treatment, both sociologically and economically since every one would end up belonging to the middle class, wherein everyone is not too rich, and not too poor.
Again, that is the ideal situation we are talking with that, because with what is happening now in our Philippine political situation, it is perceivable that the rich elite, with all of their wealth and power, will make most of what they have in efforts of eliminating the struggling poor and the emerging middle class in the process. Despite that the Marxist principle of one-sidedness would seem to be impossible to apply in the context of the Philippines, it would be a very effective approach in combatting corruption when it is applied properly and fairly.

I’d rather be the slave than the master

From the lecture and discussions about Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit that has been discussed for this week, what interest me the most is the discussion of the slave and the master and the need for a fight as a means of determining who is going to survive or who will not throughout the course of history.
The interesting part on this is the fact that it can be perfectly applied in our modern context here in the Philippines. But before going to the application, let’s review the differences between the slave and the master.
The master is the more powerful of the two, who in most cases fights and most of the time wins the fight, and seeks recognition only to a person of equal stature to him. The master also is greater than the slave, and he is the one who gets all of the recognition in the significant events throughout history.
The slave, on the other hand, is the person who works and bows down to his master, who recognizes the master for everything, and seeks recognition elsewhere. Also the slave is never recognized by the master and is not given due credit throughout the significant events in history.
History, as Hegel explained, is of pure energy, which is always in a n perpetual motion, and most of the time, is rough. Because of the nature of history in Hegelian thought, man goes through three premises: the first is through speech and desire, where he attempts to speak his desires as a means of his satisfaction and survival. Then he goes through the process of negating his actions, wherein his moment of thinking and acting are performed at the same time, resulting to the alienation of his being, thus negating his actions and therefore concentrating on what he thinks instead of concentrating of his actions. Combining the two will then eventually make the human lead into fighting against one another, wherein the fight is no ordinary fight, but is a fight to the death.
But why fight to the death anyway? Why not just a competition of who is the better of the two?
I think the Hegelian way of thinking can be related to Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural selection, wherein beings have to evolve in order to survive. In this case, the slave and the master have to live up to their desires in order to determine who would win in the fight. But sad to say, the competition between the slave and the master is an unfair means of competition, analogous to the outcome of the third Punic war, where the Romans annihilated the powerless Carthaginians, killing even the women and children, and burning the whole Carthage down into ashes.
The battle between the slave and the master is unfair for two important reasons. First, although the slave is responsible for the creation of the world, and hence the creation of history, it always ends up to the master claiming such historical feat. A perfect example of this principle is the creation of the numerous pyramids in Egypt during the ancient Egyptian era. Although Egyptian slaves are fully responsible for the creation of these breath-taking structures of the ancient era, it always end up in history that the pharaohs, Djoser and Khufu to name a few, are the one responsible for the creation of these structures instead of the hundred million Egyptian slaves who worked with blood, sweat, and tears, and some of them dying of fatigue, hunger, and unexpected circumstances just to create such a historical feat. These slaves never got the opportunity to be honored of this endeavor. The second reason for the unfair fight is the extremely uneven powers of the slave and the master. Comparatively speaking, the master is ultimately powerful, evident to his commanding, managing, and strategizing abilities, while the slave has no such power expect the power to conform to the desires of the master. Because of this, the phenomenon of the slave and the master ends up with the slave creating his work, being satisfied with his creation, then the master partakes and consume of the slave’s work, the master desiring more than what the slave has created, then the cycle goes on.
In the debate on whether it is better to be the slave or the master, I would answer that I would prefer to be the slave than the master. This may be an unexpected answer from a human being perspective, given that being the master has more benefits than being the slave, since I believe that being a slave, you know deep in your mind and soul that you work hard for your creation, that you have poured down your efforts just to make that feat, unlike the master, who doesn’t really work as hard as the slave. Also, the advantage of being the slave rather than the master is the fact that the slave can get satisfied with his work, unlike the master who has the tendency to desire for more, despite of the desire reaching to a status wherein it is very impossible to accomplish. Overall, I believe that the slave should be the one who would win the fight against the master. The problem is that the slave is too scared to fight against the master. Just like Philippine politics, in the competition between the masa and the government.

An herculean principle of being

The rise of modern political thinking is not entirely political in the first place but more of a social thinking. The involvement of the social and the political has to be the biggest flaw modern political theory has made. Instead of creating a progression with the thoughts and theories of the likes of Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes and other classical political theorists, modern political theory, as Hannah Arendt said, became the downfall of the political.
How has modernism devolved the human race in terms of political thinking? First is the individualistic tendencies of the human, through the reversal of roles between the public and the private. As we all know, in the classical political thought, the public is governed by law, while the private remains to be free. In the reversal of the public and the private, as evident with modern political thought, the public now becomes a free space for reasoning while the private is now governed by law, and thus promoting self-legitimization in modern political thought.
In fact, in Michel Foucault’s “What is Enlightenment?”, he conforms to the fact that the idea behind enlightenment was never meant to be evolutionary. Instead, Foucault stated that what Kant was proposing with the enlightenment was simply a mere illusion to the human soul, since human being the ultimate arbiter of knowledge can never be placed into context, no matter what manipulation you can make to present the enlightenment as a means of a humanistic and political evolution.
The evidence to such principle? Classical political theory. In St. Augustine’s “City of God,” we have been said and emphasized that man by nature can never be perfect unless he is God. I would use this text in emphasizing the fact that by all means, you can never ever place man as the ultimate person, the perfect being, the creator of perfect laws, and the perfect follower of these crafted laws. That is why social classes exist in the human society, in the “city of humans”!!!
By saying that man is an ultimate arbiter of knowledge, then it is as if you are saying that all of us have the same characteristics, the same abilities, the same knowledge, and the same social classes, which realistically and historically speaking was never the case. Because man is a historical being as Foucualt said , we are formed and we develop through the course of history, and hence, we are crafted by our being overtime, as we gain additional knowledge through innovations and inventions. Through what the Enlightenment is saying, we are all final and can never step up. This has to be one of the major flaws of the Enlightenment, equating society with the political.
Although I am not entirely saying that the Enlightenment has totally wrecked out the evolution of being --- in fact, I am in favor of Kant’s proposal of having the courage to use your own reason ---but for me the Enlightenment has not been crafted very well to fit in the political. The association of the social, as Arendt said, has degraded the being of the human.
In addition to devolution of the being, Foucault also states the fact that with the proposal of the Enlightenment, the “courage of reasoning out on your own” in the public should be placed in a proper context such that there is a boundary on “daring to reason on your own” in the public. In this aspect, Kant conforms to Foucault’s proposition as he states that this “dare to reason” has a limit, as evident in the context of Frederick. Although it may be of something positive to reason out publicly and become quiet in the private, the limit on reasoning out freely in the public can be explained as the sake of preventing any abuse of freedom of reason in the public. Hence, Foucault would explain the courage to reason as a risky move as the Enlightenment challenges in fact the sovereign, the ordered power relations of the state.
The rationale behind this is the distinct difference of living out freedom and having absolute freedom, as discussed by Karl Marx in the Jewish question. Living out freedom means that you are not being repressed by the absolute sovereign of your concerns regarding the stability of the state. Absolute freedom, on the other hand, entails to having no sovereign preventing the public mass on exercising their freedom, whether it is necessary or not. The former is preferred than the latter as it promotes further stability to the state and that the former is what the Enlightenment is pointing out as an emphasis: having the freedom to reason on your own understanding for the good of the state through a better craft of the laws. Foucalt agrees to this as there is a need for critiquing since we are historical beings, and hence, we try to make things better through time. The latter is considered to be dangerous as having no control on the freedom of the being can lead to unnecessary exercise of freedom “based on one’s own understanding”, causing chaos into the state, which for Marx has been the flaw of the Jews as they desire for not having a state at all.

Beat the Status Quo? or Not?

"Have the courage to use your own understanding."
This is found among the opening lines of Immanuel Kant’s “What is Enlightentment,” of which is the motto of the Enlightenment as Kant said. Through my understanding of Kant’s principles regarding the enlightenment, he encourages the people during his time to actually step up and speak for their own reasons in the public, while conforming to the law in the private. Such principle is a complete opposite of what is being taught in classic political theory, wherein it is being taught that we should obey and conform to laws in the public, evident with the application of masks as stated through Machiavelli’s political thoughts.
I like the idea of Kant here on having the courage to reason out in the public as it gives the people an opportunity to step up and do greater, hence not being withheld within the sovereign. In his proposal, his justification of the private conforming to the law and the public being not withheld with the law is the fact that through such principle, we can legitimize ourselves internally in the private through speaking out our own reasons with courage so that we then develop what we call self legitimization. Self legitimization, in one aspect, is good as it prevents the abuse of power of the sovereign, of which usually results to tyranny and hence the repression of the public, as in Kant’s proposition, he encourages fair competition and equality within the public, such that it is through the public, the people’s voice and reason that the sovereign is then developed, hence creating an equal society in the process.
Yet, Kant’s proposal of having the courage to reason out to your own understanding does not mean having total freedom but merely just living out freedom. Hence, what Kant is pointing out as an emphasis to his proposal is the fact that having total freedom and living out freedom are distinctly different. In this aspect, I conform to Kant as having total freedom, unlike living out freedom, is of a negative connotation to the human soul such that total freedom will just make the human being end up being consumed by that freedom as he is not governed by any law nor sovereign, hence causing chaos eventually to the human race. As with living out freedom, which gives a more positive connotation as compared to having total freedom, it means that you get to voice out your own understanding and reason to the sovereign without fear of being attacked or repressed by the sovereign. In addition, living out freedom also points out that there should be a conformity within the limits within the sovereign. Hence, Kant here simply elaborates the principle of democracy, wherein there is freedom of reasoning out within the limits of the sovereign.
In agreement with Kant, Karl Marx also proposes a similar idea in “On the Jewish question” wherein he stated that the problem with the Jew’s desire to have a state of their own being free from the hands of the germans is that fact that they are being too particularistic with their demands. In fact, what they were actually demanding to the Germans is to be liberated out of the hands of the Germans, which just as Marx emphasized, became problematic with the Jews because of the Jews desiring for total freedom, not living out freedom.
As both theorists propose equality in society and hence eliminating competition, it eventually becomes a contradiction of the desire to step out of the status quo and uphold equality among the society because in such manner not that it puts an end to the political and a beginning to the social, it also ends up people going back to the status quo principle and not working hard to be the best. In Ateneo terms, the people, following what Kant and Marx proposes, will eventually not desire for magis and instead be tempted by dementors who encourage students to be just contented with a C instead of encouraging a student to aim for an A.