Everyday Politics

Politics today is already a part of life, with it we define and make sense numerous everyday problems but it is not only found within the government where there are arguments and discussions being resolved but in our everyday lives. Take the internet for example where almost everyone dwell in almost every day, the number of people who use it in a day is daunting enough so there has to be some form of politics found here. There are actually different forms by which politics is practiced here, it can be thru chat rooms where there are discussions and arguments being formed and debated upon, there are people that have the power to steer the conversation or whose words carries a lot of weight that is very much considered upon by different people. This is where everyday people can communicate with each other and freely discusses whatever it is that they want. It is here that we are able to communicate with other people and could have considerable influence towards the world, take for example the campaign of President Obama during the elections where his youtube videos garnered 14.5 million views and possibly made a huge impact on the votes that he got. Nearly three-quarters of American Internet users went online in 2010 for news or information about the midterm elections or to communicate with others about the campaigns, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That figure represents 54 percent of all voters. It is thru this media that the government has the means of delivering their intended messages, where they can maintain the flow of information to the people and at the same time give out what kind information they want to show to us. Can the internet really have a huge effect on international politics?  Yes. Especially today that majority of the population in any country have some knowledge about that internet and they have the ability to use it anywhere and anytime of the day, with the kind of information you can get at the internet anything is really possible. The flow of information is really the factor that can have a huge effect on international politics. The problem here is that it must be regulated if there is ever to have some form of control over these things, especially something as dangerous as information. There is even a site where I can learn to create bombs out of everyday household materials. With this kind of information spreading in the internet it can have great or disastrous effects to the world in general if not properly regulated. It is here that we can create false stories and fantasies that if you are not careful would not know how to interpret it. It is the abundance of information that is a problem when the people reading about these information don’t know how to properly analyze what they have read. The saying “With knowledge comes power” can sum up what the internet is able to deliver, with the number of information delivered everyday it would be up to us to properly discern which is true or not with websites such as Wikipedia almost anyone can write about something which is not even true and someone who does not critically analyze the information would just blindly follow and believe what is given to them. Ignorance is dangerous with easy means of delivering different kinds of information it is truly scary what a normal person is capable of doing today.   

Critical Western Theory

According to Marx the central driving force of capitalism is in the exploitation and alienation of labour. From this statement alone I can say that the western focuses more on its self and ability to be independent on their own but a significant feature of western theory is the ability to critique their own philosophy and that they do not depend entirely on their own. The problem with capitalism is that they depended on manipulating the class consciousness and it became more of an ideology than a fact. What Western Marxism of Lukacs, Gramsci and Frankfurt try to do is to critique the failure of Marxist capitalism. Gramsci gives the term hegemony referring to capitalism and how it came to be accepted. The problem with capitalism is that it continued to manipulate the class consciousness making it seem more of a dream that cannot be attained until they wake up and face reality. Since the development of science and technology made a new era for mankind, with the failure of capitalism science and technology finally emerged proving in fact that capitalism is holding back human development. The free market does not in fact drive different corporation to produce new kinds of tech, medicines to better their profit but it actually delays or stop them. Why? Well because there is a need to make money and while the most plausible idea is the one that we should endorse logically it hinders the development of new radical ideas because who would depend on an idea that could fail? It stops us from thinking out of the box because with this kind of thinking it is not profitable and risky, when you are talking about money risk is a negative factor that is taken seriously. With the development of technology positivism was also promoted. The creation of the media then paved a new way for different ideologies to manipulate culture and the people especially with the emergence of media as a form of entertainment where people can be easily manipulated by controlling the stream of information that the media shows. It also paved the way for the emergence of popular culture where borders of other countries is slowly being torn away and the different cultures especially western culture is spreading to other countries. Take us for example, the number of products that we have from the US compared to our local brands has a wide gap. Just thinking about international brands we would already want them because it shows how rich you are if you have these. Here arises a problem then as Habermas points out how can we the people create cultural meaning from the ground of everyday life if the production and distribution of culture take place through the massive institutions of mass media? Because of our dependence and the continued admiration towards western culture over our own is really the problem. With the continued growth of media and different cultures borders are thinning down giving way for globality and maybe in the future a global world. We can see globality in Europe today with the formation of the Council of Europe they are ultimately trying to do what the United States have been successful about, the formation of these countries into one nation maybe in the future that would happen but until then we can only see the continuing growth of this relationship. The western critical theory originally from Europe helps us to understand the different ways by which a country can develop, since each country is unique and different in many ways not one theory can clearly give us the means of achieving peace and stability but we must adapt to the needs that we need to achieve today and for the future. Only by understanding the roles that must play can we grasp the different idea that is presented to us with these theories, although the western critical theory greatly helps us in understanding the challenges that they met and the challenges in Europe that gave rise to the continued criticism to these approaches.

Uniquely Filipino

What Virgilio Enriquez is trying to point to us is that we should not be so hasty in accepting western ideas as correct and accept it without even thinking about it. We are all gifted with minds and a unique culture that defines us as Filipinos but these definitions tend to be a negative description to us Filipinos like the Crab Mentality where if someone is gaining the upper hand or on the way to the top we tend to pull that person down to our level denying him/her that success and by steeping on these other crabs we would be able to climb up. This kind of thinking should be debunked and instead explained in a brighter perspective like we are not really pulling that person down in a way helping each other up by willingly stepping down so that person would have the means of going up with each of our help. We should start praising our own like what Virgilio Enriquez is trying to tell us we should start supporting our local authors and sources and stop depending too much on western ideas when we have so much potential that we should start tapping into. We as Filipinos have a lot of history and experience that we have so much to offer, when we learn to start looking in our own with admiration and respect can we truly start depending on our fellows and maybe create our own unique way of viewing the world instead of depending too much on foreign nations that differ greatly in our own ways of thinking. I don’t know why we depend so much on western ideas when they are a world apart, we should believe and trust in them to an extent but not wholeheartedly. Look at what Japan has done over the years, they are a clear example of a nation that has become independent and fully believing in their own. We should see this a role model of what we could be if we start to trust in our own and not to depend on others when we can become independent.

Deconstructing the Filipino Movies

Thru the years our movie industry has been growing and evolving in different ways that would define our movies as unique unlike those of the movies from other countries. Although at some point we have experienced a decline, even now I would say that we are evolving but experiencing a decline at the same time. We are growing in terms of movie production and quality but we are experiencing a decline in the number of movies we are showing to the public when there are a lot of potentials in the independent movie industry. We are showing at least ten movies internationally when there is more than that created a year. I guess the problem with us today is that we refuse to love our own and instead we indulge ourselves to American movies. When we watch Filipino movies they seem to have a general theme on their whole story. The main character is always brave, good looking and poor, just by watching old Robin Paddila and Fernando Poe Junior movies which for me is one of the best films even if they tend to redo the plot in his different movies.  The main character will meet his leading lady and be stunned with her exceeding beauty, there are usually famous pairs that are always together in different movies but they are usually paired with each other whether it be a love or action story like Susan Roces and Fernando Poe Jr, Vilma Santos and Edgar Mortiz, Sharon Cuneta and Gabby Conception among others. Their love is tried and tested, there will be trials whether someone would be falling out of love, another woman or guy, one of them would have amnesia. The antagonist of the story is always rich, whether that guy is a drug dealer, someone who owns a lot of land, or a politician. The place where the real action happens is always a warehouse or a big mansion owned by the bad guy, they would usually fight here because the hero would rescue his love from the bad guy and the bad guy usually kidnap or have a confrontation in their own territory. The fight is always a hundred against one, at this point the hero would face impossible odds and still win even if they win in the most impossible ways. The hero will now face the bad guy, whether it would be thru a fist fight or a gun battle the hero will always win. The police will arrive after the hero has settled the problem, the police would always be late and useless because the hero will always handle everything by himself no matter the odds and the police would always be late although in some movies the arrive just in time just to be killed by the bad guy resulting in the hero doing everything himself. Our movies are mostly like this because this is how we define our society, as a bunch of underdogs aiming for the win. These movies sell a lot to the masses because they could see themselves in these movies, they want to believe that they are the hero, that they can face impossible odds and succeed I mean who wouldn’t want to do that. These stories that we create for the masses gives them hope and even a temporary reprieve to their everyday lives so in a way this style of movies that makes our industry unique is dependent on each other. The masses want to watch these types of movies because they see themselves in these movies while these movies make a lot of money from these people and since its so effective and it sells to the masses they replicate this style numerous times, but it is so effective why would they want to change from that direction? Although there have been some attempts and it has been successful as well in some degree like Darna although she is a superhero compared to that of a normal person and I am sure that Judy Ann Santos had a role before that made her as the heroine doing exactly the way a male role would do. Before this has been the norm in movies although today there is still a glimpse of the plot being like this but we have evolved and have made different and hopefully independent and unique ways. My only fear is that we copy too much from movies of other countries, western movies mostly and ignoring in making our own unique films.