Angela had quite a lot to say about Nick’s attempt to come up with a manifesto for Filipino Voices. The bottom line of all that came to what she says here:
fv’s goals are just a tad lofty. scrap the manifesto. forget about making a difference or influencing the national discourse or doing better than mainstream media or climbing mountains a la martinlutherking. like cvj and marck say, happy naman sila the way it is, which works naman, fv gets a lot of traffic, di ba. and isnt that what counts in the blogosphere?
So stripped of the rest of the fluff, Angela’s core message reveals the raw nature of the underbelly of the Pinoy psyche that infects our society like a deeply-entrenched cancer. Underneath the veneer of sophistication among even the most elite of Pinoy society, manifest in our university vocabularies, stamps on our passports, and superficially trendy cafe-and-nightclub society lies a little insecure adolescent wracked with a compulsion to constantly check out peers head-to-toe and dismiss their aspirations.
On the other hand, Angela reveals a disturbing general reality about Pinoys that I myself have observed for the longest time of which the FV community is merely the latest validation of said observations.
When asked to collaborate and come up with a structured solution, we simply refuse to step up and build.
Nick, for his part, did put forth a call to contribute to the manifesto and issued a challenge to propose a Vision statement (Section 5 of his manifesto) to which I and a couple of others responded. Not a very encouraging response rate, I must say. So Angela’s criticism is fair if it were addressed to FV collectively but a bit unfair if directed to Nick alone who merely provides the environment for the FV community to chatter away.
Having myself attempted a few years ago to elicit some input into a solution framework, even going as far as creating a wiki site to get some random suggestions nailed down, I’m quite aware of how disinclined Pinoys are to stepping up to the task of actually creating a bit of structure around any information that is accumulated.
It is this failure to dream that is the reason behind why we remain stuck with the jeepney and forever addicted to OFW-ism as a pathetic cashflow solution. I’ve often lamented that a lack of imagination is behind our inability to build from what is otherwise a wealth of resources. Whether these resources be physical or intellectual/cultural does not seem to matter. We squander either just the same. Turning chaos into order, the raw into the structured, potential into value; you name it, Pinoys suck at it. In a 2003 article, The wasted collective intellect of Philippine society, I pondered this bizarreness of ours:
Take a moment to wonder: What happens to all the collective experience, skills, insights, and philosophies accumulated by our countrymen from the work they did overseas?
You’d think with all that knowledge, some of it is bound to be properly applied to the Philippine setting. This glaring lack of a nation’s capability to tap the vast knowledgebase residing in the minds of its returning overseas workers further re-enforces the issue of our country not being an environment that rewards innovation and doing things properly.
For all the “ingenuity” we fancy ourselves to possess as a people, the enduring question remains:
Where are the results?
Admittedly I myself am happy with the way FV is at the moment — a great place to test one’s ideas in a free-wheeling blog format. I can’t presume to speak for the rest, but I believe that the opportunity to table ideas and attract debate and discussion among peers is what keeps me coming back. That’s where Nick comes in. He’s rightly so, being FV’s creator, taken it upon himself to see beyond the present state and explore options where FV can evolve beyond.
Somebody’s gotta do it while the kids play.
If the vision succeeds or not or if the options explored are realistic or overly idealistic is not the point. The point is that at least there is an effort to exercise a bit of foresight and vision (which I might remind has NEVER been a strong trait of Pinoys). I personally hold Nick to the task of not simply joining the fray and/or blending into the woodwork as a mere contributor. Just like a love affair that will go stagnant if it does not evolve and grow, FV needs to be constantly seen as a project. There are only so many movie and dinner dates, beach trips, and nightclubbing binges that can be had. Fun and carefree as that stage may be in a relationship, truly strong bonds endure when all parties at least see a possibility to evolve and grow beyond and upon what it’s currently achieved.
There is always a nexus.
Those who do not think so are the ones who I hold responsible for our chronic inability to progress — because they cannot at the very least imagine a prosperous Philippines. It’s a mindset that is bourne of our world-renowned Heritage of Smallness. A mindset that is happy with subsistence and scornful of — no, threatened by — audacity.
As the case may be, maybe FV will simply remain the way it is and never realise Nick’s vision. But then how do its detractors presume to know it fails when they cannot even imagine an attempt to succeed big time?
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better to evlove in this case. In “building” we might lose some of our much-enjoyed freedoms, like calling that Manifesto, which I haven’t read, idiotic.
Reading this post, I now more or less understand why Dr Rizal was promoted as the national hero by the interloping Americans. The Americans had the good sense that the people they “benevolently assimilated” need to build up something, even if this were “in their own image”.
Rizal wanted to build. Build a school in Dapitan, build a university sans friars, build a political movement, build up a an anti-clerical consciousness etc.
I think FV is on the way of becoming the 21st century blogging version of “La Solidaridad”. Rizal wasn’t thrilled with Solidaridad in the end, due to pettiness of the Pinoys (and Plaridel) on board.
If you bothered to understand what Angela wrote (in her main entry), you’ll see that she was actually agreeing with you (and by extension disagreeing with my own proposed stand) in favor of the need for FV not to be ‘inchoate’ and to build a consensus view on the various subject matters being dealt with.
blackshama, if FV is going to be today’s ‘La Solidaridad’, then our EnC (Nick) better establish some association with Brian Gorrell, who is this era’s equivalent of Ferdinand Blumentritt :-)
between mere traffic in the blogosphere and the refinement of ideas into workable and pragmatic solutions? hmmmm. tough choice. :D
between mere traffic in the blogosphere and trying make a difference, to foment change by influencing the national discourse? really tough choice. :D
vive l’audace, i say. on the other hand, that’s the implicit challenge — shall we take all these offline and make these all real and not remain merely online?
i like to think it’s possible.
the thing is, cvj, i think it’s the very nature of FV that will not allow it to form a consensus. we all disagree at some point.
i think the value of FV will be on how it will influence others (as pat’s previous entry implies).
My Vision for FV:
1000 bloggers by 2010,
almost all half as good as Angela.
Let’s each be responsible for recruiting at least two or three such writers, who will also take up the challenge.
Then let the wisdom of such a crowd determine these weighty questions of direction, purpose, and vision.
No need to worry the sheep just yet.
CVj
Kung may Blumentritt, dapat may JP Rizal! Sino ang pwedeng barilin sa Luneta? Si DJB? Nick? :)
I think FV should be required reading in all Makabayan classes in High School. By both students and teachers.
DJB is otherwise known as ‘Rizalist’ so it’s a no-brainer. Besides, Nick is already Ninoy Aquino (in his avatar). FWIW, I think FV is already superior to La Solidaridad because of Bencard’s presence. It’s like having the Guardia Civil as one of the contributors of the Soli.
The psyche of Pinoys isn’t simply defeatist, it’s “defeated” — ano or all efforts to do “something different” or will “move towards change” is merely romantic and is not worth doing, whether or not the plan has any merit, is feasible, is intelligent, etcetera.
This is the framework people like angela, and sadly, too many Pinoys, love to live in. I couldn’t blame them — such a cozy atmosphere wherein failure is excusable and easy to blame on “being in this godforsaken country” is certainly an attractive proposition.
That being said, if I were a modern personality I would wish to become my own namesake patriarch, Jacinto Limjap or his brother Mariano. They were involved then, I wish to be involved now.
^^oops. “ano or all efforts” should be “any or all efforts” and “if I were a modern personality” should be “if I were a modern version of a revolutionary personality”. Too quick on the Submit button makes for a dull comment :P
I don’ know BlackShama but dis early, i like him.
fv will become what it envisions it to be.
A rizalist is not Jose Rizal, any more than a christian is jesus christ. Neither does a rizalist worship the hero. A rizalist feels for Jose Rizal the emotion called agon, which is a kind of envy that has little chance of being cured. A rizalist even feels a little bit of resentment towards Jose Rizal, much as Sigmeund Freud and many other students of human nature resented, feared, envied William Shakespeare, because they know they will never equal or exceed him. I hope my colleagues here will make no mistake about this, that this pen name, Rizalist, is actually a declaration of humility and not self-aggrandizement.
Like Benign0, I am often disgusted by the mediocre in the Filipino, but unlike him I’ve already seen the proof, in that First Filipino, that we are capable of genius that surpasses even the greatest Americans, who indeed saw it themselves when they made him our national hero. Besides I will always be more disgusted in my own mediocrity in comparison to him than what I find in others.
yeah, cvj, but this “guardia civil” doesn’t usually take “orders” from anyone without a fight, except from his wife (sometimes).
i see FV as a civil forum where all raw ideas, from the sublime to the ludicrous, are aired. it is a crucible where opinions and claims of “truth” are tested against each other in mostly civilized discourse, ultimately giving an unprejudiced mind a chance to go on the side of right reason.
FV can be most effective with open-minded people who are willing to re-examine any pre-conceived notions in their mind, and to modify them as needed. i think it won’t work with those who have uncompromising faith in their prejudices.
My comment on Angela’s blog
I like some of Ricky de Ungria’s poetry, but I think some of what you quoted borders on the solipsism that so infects the Left with an arrogant self-loathing, for example:
“. . . . If, as with the fate of colonized countries, the colonial language remains the main means of intellectual discourse and knowledge creation, …in our particular case there still appears to be no decent intellectual discourse and knowledge creation in English, or our version of it, even in Manila, and still lesser, though emergent (the word “inchoate” came to mind) discourse has come about in Filipino. . . .”
What could be more “inchoate” (and unconscious) than to criticize the inability to create “decent intellectual discourse” using “the colonial language” whilst using the colonial language to do it?
Personally, I am proud to be connected to Filipino Voices, where you never know how your writing will be received, or, and this is more important, whether it will matter to the readers.
Unless you yourself are willing to take that risk, you risk falling into solipsism. When you think you are ready and that your ideas can infect others from sheer merit, coherence, persuasiveness, then you will be ready to join Filipino Voices.
What I think we fail to see is that the topology of this medium ensures that “No Blog Is An Island” (not even MLQ3) though some seem fervently to wish it.
It is the unmitigated desire of many Filipinos to be unique. When we get over that, then paradoxically we will be.
So, we will be unique, just like everybody else?
Steven Jobs and Bill Gates were just kids when they started off to build some of the mightiest and iconic corporations on the planet.
To be fair, for every million dreamers only one Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is produced.
Still, to what Angela says here…
… I say that is a very narrow criteria that one applies to considering a leader.
I count the following as Nick’s achievements:
- Inviting some of the most, ehem, brilliant minds in the blogosphere to FV — and keeping them engaged and passionate.
- Executing a so-far successful promo campaign that put FV squarely on the map.
- Schmoozing with the right personalities to secure the profile of the brand.
… among others.
The above sounds to me like the makings of the basic job description of a typical CEO or General Manager.
My point is a general manager’s key skill should be selling and mobilising resources towards a goal.
Angela seems to want Nick to be everything — DJB’s Vulcan mind rolled up into Richard Brason’s bravado. That’s an easy call to make — when one is on the heckler’s bench.
It takes one to know one. ;)
Well said Benign0.
I agree with this:
But I also think that our resources, which are almost purely intellectual, are still quite meagre. Our goal should be to give all those lonely voices, curious minds and thoughtful writers a place to test their mettle, to sharpen their wits among fellow travelers, to keep them honest by exposing them to both harsh and kind critiques. “No blog is an island” was a title of one of my posts in 2005.
So a thing like FV can provide the connection, the glue, the platform to make an archipelago of ideas and visions in which the whole is actually much greater than the sum of the parts.
But we must get comfortable with the central idea that we cannot control that whole, or its direction. The wisdom of a crowd in Nick’s Manifesto is what we must look forward to. Now let’s gather that crowd!
One suggestion I have is this…when you go bloghopping, drop links among promising writers pointing back to articles here at FV, especially with those with whom you disagree. That will ensure “memetic diversity” at FV and make for an interesting brew of writers and ideas.
That’s a promising approach DJB. I tried to something like that when i pointed to Dennis Posadas’ advocacy for a ‘Philippine Solar Valley’.
I think Nick did something similar when he published his ‘How About Aspiring Scholars’ thread (in the Letters to the Editor section) where the letter writer did receive the full FV-treatment.