A pill to cure onion-skinnedness
April 11th, 2009 by benign0Over the nine years of Get Real Philippines‘ illustrious history, I’ve elevated to a fine art the rendering of the rich world of Filipino cultural dysfunction in the written word. As such, I’ve been reflecting lately on the many admonitions I get from my readers to go the whole nine yards and propose solutions — admonitions that also pepper GRP’s history.
I used to be baffled by the continued call for me to come up with “solutions” given that I already have an entire section in my site dedicated to proposals underpinned by my core message. Lately though I’ve come to realise that Filipinos need specific steps to take. And guess what: I’ve come up with one!!
Before I get to that, I just need to explain first how this groundbreaking realisation came about. It came about as I followed the last couple of week’s hollow-headed soul-searching in the wake of Tsip Chao’s satirical take on our society’s preferred means of livelihood. Admittedly, as I went further I even revisited my trolling roots by jumping into a discussion on the subject in Peyups.com where I couldn’t help but take on board some “friendly” advise from one of the inhabitants of that thriving forum…
Gusto natin[g mga Pinoy] diretsahan. We don’t want to get tangled up in “pa-intelekwal” talk just to get a point. We want it fast and we want it raw. If the joke is a joke, we do not want it mushed up with writing technique or verbosity.
… for all of ten seconds, that is.
This latest of Filipino blog fodder topics just adds another case study to Clarence Henderson’s insightful treatise on our renowned onion-skinnedness, so I doubt if this whole “Gusto natin diretsahan” horn blowing holds any real water. For that matter, one’s got to question whether it is really students and alumna of our venerable State University that inhabit Peyups.com considering what seems to be an aversion to “pa-intelektwal” material over there.
Consider then our collective character — an onion-skinned people. Where does this onion-skinnedness come from? Could it be that we try so hard to be something to everyone else so much so that we ultimately end up being nothing to ourselves? It seems that this is consistent with our inability to get it clear in our heads exactly what “the Filipino” stands for.
So getting back to my latest epiphany, my prescribed specific First Step that will see us off in the journey towards our ultimate goal of becoming something of a people; something of substance upon which a robust identity can be built; one that is not dented by insults perceived due to an inability to grasp satire, and other subtleties of the communication arts; my proposal is quite simple:
Filipinos should aspire to be more like ME.
Thanks goes to the venerable blogger and commentator jcc for asking the right questions as it was in a recent response to him that this simple solution was revealed to me, to wit;
jcc, in case you haven’t noticed yet, I am in fact my biggest fan. I am flattered by pats I get on my back the most when it is MY OWN hand patting it. You know why? Because the person I respect the most in this world is ME. I am my own biggest critic and therefore work that I do that passes MY OWN standards is what I consider to be the best.
If more Pinoys had MY kind of attitude, we as a people wouldn’t really give a rat’s arse about what other people think and focus on achieving stuff FOR OURSELVES.
It’s simple, really™.
Standards for excellence are really quite straightforward. All we need to do as a people is internalise these standards and then rely on ourselves for validation.
Only then can we, as a people, act with conviction in a consistent manner.
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April 11, 2009 at 7:45 pm
HAHAHA great one
You can count me as a fan. :)
But why the indian?
April 11, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Onion skinned or not, intellectuals or masa. We are Filipinos. We are
unique in this Planet Earth. We have our downs. We have our ups. We
have clowns, contrabidas, bidas, suffering heros and herroines. We
have Opportunists of all kinds. Anyway, this make our lives interesting.
April 11, 2009 at 11:53 pm
BenignO is the center of our universe, we are just myriads of floating bodies revolving around him. Brilliant!
We need a Copernicus and a Galileo to wake him up.
April 12, 2009 at 3:24 am
Hey Galileo was almost burned on the stake. For his theory that
the Earth revolves around the Sun. I think I will prepare the
stake now…
April 12, 2009 at 12:35 am
Benign0,
Go hug and kiss your wife and children. They too can be your greatest fans aside from yourself.
You claimed that you were a spectacular success and therefore had been fncking the prom queen, and the little minds like us have been fncking the wind, citing Sean Connery of the film The Rock.
Here is my own Sinko Nire: Ang taong mahilig magbuhat ng sariling banko ay salat sa pansin, or SBS (sobrang bilib sa sarili). Get real, have some iota of humility. Last time I checked the great people on earth had never idolized themselves but other people did so and built them monuments as a sign gratitude for their achievements.
In case you want to build your own monument, please do so inside the comforts of your home.
April 12, 2009 at 1:05 am
Good on ‘ya mate!
Pinoys should settle in outback Australia and not in Sydney or Melbourne. The harsh sun and dry air and the lack of a flush toilet will make your “mukha” and arse become “makapal”.
But our larrikin Benigno’s pagka Pilipino comes up to the surface. No true blue Aussie would ask anyone to be like him/her!
April 12, 2009 at 2:21 am
Be yourself Benign0. and say what you want. your detractors are hypocrites, hindi daw sila self-praise pero low level ka daw dahil self-praise. So they feel arrogantly superior than you. isnt that hypocrisy?
buti pa ikaw raw ang statements mo. from the heart. walang doble kara. at satire and hyperbole mo di nila na gets. I pity JCC. cant get a hyperbole. sayang ano.
April 12, 2009 at 4:56 am
i’m just curious, benigno. what in the world have you accomplished, that’s ennobling to your family, friends, neighbors and country, and which is extraordinary enough to be worth emulating by your countrymen? i think, in the philippines, we have more than enough of legendary figures, legends in their own mind, that is.
April 12, 2009 at 5:28 am
i have a deeper question:
what in your opinion is the link between onion-skinnedness and the lack of economic development in the philippines?
can you give examples how retarded growth?
April 12, 2009 at 7:06 am
In other words, and yabang ko, right jcc?
Well, check out this piece from the esteemed Michael Tan:
Excerpt:
Read the full article: The Myth of Asian Modesty for the full context. ;)
April 12, 2009 at 8:06 am
thanks for sharing that mike tan piece. i usually agree with Prof Tan, but here, he leaves me puzzled. i am genuinely suprised that pinoys would say that that guy is yabang. i emailed him to press for more details, i can only hope he answers.
April 12, 2009 at 8:09 am
on the other hand, you are mayabang. there is a VAST difference between:
“Sorry, man, but I don’t have that in stock right now, but hey, I can order one for you if you want.”
and
“my prescribed specific First Step that will see us off in the journey towards our ultimate goal of becoming something of a people; something of substance upon which a robust identity can be built; one that is not dented by insults perceived due to an inability to grasp satire, and other subtleties of the communication arts; my proposal is quite simple:
Filipinos should aspire to be more like ME.”
in fact, if you were being literal, this might even be narcissistic.
April 13, 2009 at 10:01 pm
any one remember the pinoy adage “ang naniniwala sa sabi sabi, walang bait sa sarili”.
now reflect on HK… ROTFLMAO!!!!!
April 13, 2009 at 10:15 pm
any one remember the pinoy adage “ang naniniwala sa sabi sabi, walang bait sa sarili”.
now reflect on HK… ROTFLMAO!!!!!
********
having said that, benign0’s prescription could have been written two centuries ago in this manner:
To Thine Own Self Be True
Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for.
There … my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
– William Shakespeare
April 14, 2009 at 2:53 am
Benign0,
Not at all impressed with M. Tan’s article. I can be humble but dignified. I read with a chuckle that an American clerk offering to buy the item for a customer and a Pinoy will interpret it as “yabang”. Get real. :)
April 12, 2009 at 7:37 am
also, a follow up:
what is onion-skinnedness? when people defend themselves from an accusation, is this onion-skinnedness?
here i am talking about hernderson’s note. he seems to make the leap between what happened to him on a forum, to some kind of conclusion on philippine society. i have no idea what happened in that forum. but i wonder if the way he made the connection made sense:
“I hadn’t really thought that much about how it plays out in the broader context of intercultural debate. Now, however, the bruises incurred in the battles described in “1. The Facts” have made me acutely aware of how much Filipinos hate being criticized and (especially) how much they hate foreigners (or other Pinoys for that matter) being critical of the Philippines.”
in the “The Facts” link, he talks about the forum incident. Now, from what he wrote there, i don’t think it can be described as ” Filipinos hate being criticized”. from his own description, the discussion just went off topic. that happens all the time, me thinks…
next: all his examples in the link of benigno here… is this hatred of being criticized? or is this standing up to defend oneself?
i invite people to look at that link and think about the examples of mr henderson. simple introspection will show that the examples of henderson is more interesting that he lets on…
i also invite people to think about other societies. people in democracies will always disagree about things.
Ex: Benign0 likes “Live Show”. Mr. X does not. is Mr. X onion skinned? is the society of Mr. X onion skinned (whatever that means)….
its not simple.
April 12, 2009 at 10:18 am
So do you consider being called a “nation of servants” an accusation, GabbyD?
April 12, 2009 at 10:45 am
interesting! the answer is: it depends!
1) in the tsao article, it is levied against the fictional maid to insult her (while the true satirical target is different). its an insult coz the word servant here connotes a lack of respect and power, which he extends to the whole population of OFWs, and then pinoys. yes it is an accusation are useful only in so far as they are servants; otherwise they have no voice.
i recall you defending the term servant, saying its good honest work. i agree. it is this fact that the tsao article undermines.
2) in another comment thread, someone said that “nation of servants” has been used in a textbook. in this case, i argued that it wasn’t an accusation. it was a term the author coined to describe the filipino globalization experience.
April 12, 2009 at 8:03 am
I found the referencing (to evolve a word, if you please) to Clarence Henderson’s “The Pearl of the Orient” and Michael Tan’s “The Myth of Asian Modesty” worth reading but not the self-reference to benigno’s much less superior treatises in “GetReal Philippines” and self-referenced blogs.
The herein blog, while it professed to be a cure to ‘onion-skinnedness’ (if there be a word), cannot have prescribed a cure nay solution to so-called Filipinos’ cultural dysfunction (a sociological term)since in all its length and breadth, it is nothing but a vacuum theory as all the ’self-referenced’ blogs are.
benigno’s self-indulging theory that for us to becoming something of a people or something of a substance is by aspiring to be like benigno – is a naked piece of IDIOCY.
April 12, 2009 at 10:18 am
Help me here, Primer. What is so “idiotic” about aspiring to be like moi?
Cite specific examples, please. :D
April 12, 2009 at 9:38 am
get over yourselves people. all benign0 is saying is that we should all adopt a set of standards for excellence four ourselves and be uncompromising in our adherence to it. this is what he thinks he does, and if you just got your heads out of your overly-literal arses for awhile, you’d see that despite benign0, this is a good prescription.
April 12, 2009 at 10:48 am
can one be blamed for reading bening0 literally? there is no evidence in any of his work that he doesnt want to be understood literally. he himself has never said that anything he’s written is figurative.
when he says that he has a solution — and that solution is “BE LIKE ME”, he truly means it. why should we not believe it?
if he writes somewhere in this thread that he is being figurative, then i’ll believe him.
April 12, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Well, if you want to pick the interpretation that suits your pre-conceived notions of the man, and not the interpretation that, given the gestalt of the essay, makes the most sense, that’s yer call. :D
April 12, 2009 at 6:01 pm
but rom, he himself has never said that any of the stuff he’s written is nothing less than literal. his true opinions.
this blog post reads like his others, where he means what he says. why should we ‘interpret’ him here?
i have no pre-conceived notions. i read his work. i asked him about it over the past several months when i was confused, or wanted more info. i respect his opinions, regardless of if i agree. when he explains (if he does!), i believe these are his real opinions, coz he gives me no reasons to not do so.
its all straighforward…
this isn’t like reading the bible. benign0 can write. there is no need for interpretation. he can tell us what he thinks. he says he has a specific suggestion for a solution. he’s given it. “BE LIKE HIM” he says.
if he says its figurative, then i’ll believe it.
if he says its for shock value, i’ll believe it.
but i agree that if this is his suggestion (for real), then it doesn’t make sense.
but he may certainly BELIEVE it makes sense. i hope not; but he certainly may…
April 12, 2009 at 11:46 am
Your proposal – “Filipinos should aspire more like ME” – in the journey toward that ultimate goal of becoming something of a people, offers no definition of ME.
If we travel down the lane of earlier blogs, you always throw something at the other end – call Filipinos dimwits, unable to reflect, figuratively maybe ‘bullshit’, and so on (let me revisit them later).
Rom says all these are figurative (the many nuances of language assuming there is a language barrier somewhere). Now tell us, in what sense do we have to take all that have so far been set across intelligences?
I’m sorry I have to go.
April 12, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I gotta hand it to you. Just love your conceit and shameless self-promotion. ;)
You’re full of ego it’s oozing from your ears if not from your ass. Keep the BS coming. :)
Happy Easter!
April 12, 2009 at 5:50 pm
What is the difference between rich countries and developing countries? Once upon a time for instance, all the major powers were ‘third world’ countries. What happened? Im thinking the difference is not in the quality of their respective masses, the masa, the ordinary folk. I think the difference is in the quality of their rich people; the ones who’re supposed to be better educated and all that.
April 12, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Leytenian.. :)
happy easter
April 12, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Individuals who are very accomplished have a healthy relationship with failure. They accept it, embrace it, watch for it, learn from it then move on. Oftentimes, they even publicize their failures :)modeling the kind of leadership they want to see within his community. They seem to know that who they are is not their results.
Accomplished individuals have one thing in common, they seem to understand simple reality – that they are not their mistakes and they are not their behaviors. Both of those are CHANGEABLE and MANAGEABLE. They seem to understand that who we are as PINOY human beings is constant.
So, could this mean that personalities in public office are not accomplished people?
Pinoys are very talented , hardworking and will even get out of the country to find work. Pinoys have proven themselves. That’s what constant and ” The filipino” stands for. To grasp the concept of “People as leverage for success”, leaders must understand the capabilities of its own people.
Happy Easter
April 12, 2009 at 11:45 pm
ha ha ha that what I like about you benigz, you never run out of tricks to provoke my bored thinking.
seriously, I believe that thats what the filipino needs in the first. To truly believe in themselves that we can do it, that we can change for the better… Be our BIGGEST FAN.
this posts of yours really made my day!
April 13, 2009 at 1:04 am
GabbyD: and what was that people were saying about satire? hahahaha!
April 13, 2009 at 1:11 am
A piece of literary work cannot automatically constitute a gestalt of an essay. How can any of the blogs so far written even fall in the category of a gestalt? I didn’t see the spider-web although it looks like the ‘big-headed spider’ is about to string the first strand of web (if we may call it that).
Rom, mother instinct must have always driven you to take the apologist position – for and in behalf – of good friend benigno.
The blog in question lacks all the conceptual complexities that can make up a gestalt. In any case, even with the existence of a big-headed spider, it does not mean all others are flies.
April 13, 2009 at 1:17 am
I don’t know how you’re defining gestalt, but here’s mine: a configuration or pattern of elements (in the essay) so unified as a whole that it (the essay) cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts — referring to the totality of the sense communicated by benign0’s essay. :D
As for apologizing for benign0, I’m doing no such thing. It’s just that I’m seeing sense in benign0’s absurdity. Wait .. weren’t you one of those who loudly proclaimed that they appreciated Tsao’s satire, unlike the rest of us hicks who got offended?
Why not try using that same savoir-faire that let you appreciate a foreigner’s satire, on benign0’s writing.
April 13, 2009 at 4:20 am
there is no need to invoke gestalt. if by gestalt you mean:
” all adopt a set of standards for excellence four ourselves and be uncompromising in our adherence to it. this is what he thinks he does,”
he says so himself:
“Standards for excellence are really quite straightforward. All we need to do as a people is internalise these standards and then rely on ourselves for validation.”
note that your summary and his are slightly different, and that the difference is potentially important.
April 13, 2009 at 2:09 pm
OMG, primer and gabbyd. Ayan, lifted from the wikipedia: Die Gestalt is a German word for form or shape. It is used in English to refer to a concept of ‘wholeness’
Ok? I used the word to refer to the wholeness of the essay, and not just to one sentence. I did not use the word to refer to Gestalt psych, ok, primer?
And gabby, it’s not as different as you make it out to be.
April 13, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Re gestalt:
all i said is that you don’t need to read the totality/wholeness of the essay to get “adopt a set of standards….” as an idea of the essay. he himself writes it in 1 paragraph near the end. however, in fact, he says more. so to get at the totality, we ought to consider the rest of it. and i think he’s serious about the rest of what he wrote, coz he hasn’t disowned it as a specific suggestion, as well as in reading his other work. yun lang naman.
yes. i like the generic idea of aiming for excellence. this point we all agree (at least i hope we do!) who wouldn’t? the difference is small, but potentially important.
the difference is “who validates a self imposed standard”. bening0 says the person, by himself does it. But thats not the only way a standard (moral, intellectual, or whatever kind) is enforced and determined. it could be a group standard, or an entire society.
now, thats something interesting to discuss actually… and the answer varies from case to case… not easy to pin down…
April 13, 2009 at 11:29 am
Gestalt to refer to an ordinary essay is high-sounding word.
Psychology or philosophy makes use of the term gestalt and cannot be used, to my mind, to apply to ordinary literary piece such as a simple prose. I can understand the word better from the context of systems analysis, not literature. That is how I think of gestalt.
The web of the spider graphically represents gestalt.
April 13, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Heheh. Well, Benigno, thanks for making me smile on a crazee, manic Monday. You are an entertainer!
And solusyon mga kaibigan is maging katulad nya. Tall order I suppose.
Let me share my thoughts on irony and satire though: Satire and irony as literary devices have their limitations and are actually passe’ (they are so 19th or 20th century IMHO). Check what the late American writer DAvid Foster Wallace had to say about irony:
“And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit “I don’t really mean what I’m saying.” So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: “How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.”
“So then how have irony, irreverence, and rebellion come to be not liberating but enfeebling in the culture today’s avant-garde tried to write about? One clue’s to be found in the fact that irony is still around, bigger than ever after 30 long years as the dominant mode of hip expression. It’s not a rhetorical mode that wears well. As [Lewis] Hyde. . .puts it, “Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy the cage.”
April 13, 2009 at 1:44 pm
yeah, the rest of that quote is interesting too. it says that irony is destructive, not constructive. i agree :)
April 13, 2009 at 5:50 pm
The word Pride has two meanings, one positive, one negative, and as such is a double edged sword.
On the negative side is pride as boastfulness. “Yabang, angas, palalo”, marami tayong tawag diyan. And the negativity stems mainly from the act of putting down others at the expense of one’s pleasure (schadenfreude — lovely German word), which is exacerbated when the boastfulness is actually empty.
On the positive side is pride as sense of dignity and self-worth. “Taas noo, dignidad, paniniwala sa sarili” — same banana. This kind of pride is something that is earned through skill, talent, ingenuity, and other such traits. It is only truly positive when possessed by a person who does not gloat on the fact that he *is* all that.
As such I cannot blame those who sneer at benign0 for his claim to be like him, because many feel that he exhibits too much of the negative side of pride. And yes, at times he does. Which only tells us that he is nothing but human.
What Filipinos lack, however, is the second kind of pride, and it’s not because Filipinos do not have talent or a sense of self-worth. The problem is the way our culture de-emphasizes pride at all costs, harping at humility, guilt, and how the poor and downtrodden easily enter the gates of heaven. The problem is the way our culture de-emphasizes the value of genuine achievement, teaching us instead to respect feudal societal castes, encouraging us to “know our place” and align all our acts for the sake of “pakikisama”.
If being like benign0 means saying no to these cultural norms, that’s all fine and good. Just leave the bad bits behind, I guess. :P
April 13, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Benign-Zero is truly an enigma.
First he says poor minds talk about personalities, great minds talk about ideas (to that effect) then he goes on to talk about HIMSELF at great length…
…..which is why no one takes him seriously as regards to his mantra of it’s simple really (with matching trademark) because he fails to incorporate himself with his jargon-filled verbosity.
As the suicide bomber said to their great leader “Hang on a minute, how come YOU don’t practice what you preach”?
April 13, 2009 at 10:27 pm
not true at all, while there are people who doesn’t take benigno seriously. There are others who agree with him too. in my case I like reading his post among all the other poster here and always looking forward to it.