Evaluating Sheol: A Discourse on Hannah Arendt’s Borderline Liberal Democracy and Notions of Reconciliation

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: January 27, 2009

Finishing the study of Hannah Arendt’s monumental work on underpinning the nature of “modernity’s darkest potential,” The Origins of Totalitarianism seemingly sends out a message in the line of the following statements: “Modernity as an order is self-destructive and totalitarianism as a means of governing and community-building prevents the maintenance of communes: therefore, we should abhor it and reject its existence, as well as the possibility of it ever happening again.” Such a position is, in many ways, a comfortable, safe and acceptable one which can be argued to public approval: it is after all a well-accepted notion that totalitarian leaders are the embodiment of the evils of the modern world, most notably Adolf Hitler of Germany. Despite these, however, we would be doing the discourse on totalitarianism a disservice if we are going to close all our doors on it, not trying to understand its capabilities of political action and mobilization. In fact, we must make ourselves aware of it all the more in our daily lives so as to be able to sense its presence and potential to control and warp our very notions of what is just and what is the good for everyone. It must be made clear, however, that allowing totalitarianism to be brought to our collective awareness does not mean that we also open ourselves to accepting and condoning the horrendous crimes it has committed in the name of political progression. Totalitarianism, therefore, should become the post-modern world’s image of Satan: a reflection of humanity’s darkest potential for social change and yet an enduring symbol of what is inherently unacceptable and forgivable in our collective consciousness.

Arendt identifies the tools by which totalitarianism propagates its existence and entrenches itself into power through increasing bureaucratization. There is also the very vital element of using propaganda for the purpose of instilling lies in the minds of the people. Some might make the hasty comparison to the Socratic imperative of establishing “noble lies” for the concretization of the institution of the ideal polis being founded, but they are entirely very different. Totalitarian propaganda does not practice elenchus or persuasion in the process of proliferating these lies as a pragmatic means of strengthening the foundations of institutions; instead, it uses terror and compels everyone, whether possessing one’s free will or not, to participate in propagating such lies to the point that it effaces our own preconceived notions of justice. As such, the transition between a totalitarian movement seeking to attain power and a totalitarian regime striving to maintain power becomes a study of contrasts. On one hand you have an overzealous movement seeking to present a “sincere” and “truly accurate” picture of themselves so as to garner the support of the masses, while on the other hand the same movement, in entrenching itself into power, seeks to hinder or even exterminate the search for what is true and just in order to prevent any possibility of the being replaced the moment they become incompatible to the contexts of the progressing historical dispensation.

In this light, therefore, we look into the case of the Jewish people as a point of reference in understanding how totalitarianism promotes an unprecedented level of incomprehensive, mindless action that leads to the deconstruction of human dignity as something of value. Despite the fact that they are, indeed, the worst victims of a totalitarian rampage which has redefined and demonstrated just how mindless humanity can be even in the face of incomparable evil, they are actually to blame for institutionalizing the mode of community-building through blood relations and not through persuasion and critical thinking. These nepotistic tendencies have given leeway to other people to define themselves as specie beings as well, which found its most disgusting articulation in Hitler’s declaration of the Aryans as a “master race.” Karl Marx rightfully indicted them in his essay On the Jewish Question when he demonstrated how wrong their desire is to gain their own nation-state when they have not contributed to the communal experience of the European countries they have found themselves in. Obviously, this is tantamount to them denying the capability of the nation-state to assure the rights of the German people and deconstructing the concept of the nation-state in general.

The question on whether totalitarianism is still relevant and a potential weapon in the destruction of the existing repressive liberal-democratic global hegemony does persist. Arendt herself has been under fire from the Marxists and other movements which promote a scientific, behavioural approach to the social sciences, being condemned as an apologist of the CIA. This accusation, however problematic, does present a semblance of motivation on Arendt’s part. Being a Jew herself and despite the fact that she has been excommunicated by the Jews, it is not unlikely that she still seeks the attainment of the Jewish cause and their desire to have their own nation-state, which is what the hegemonic United States is pushing in their desire to have a stronghold in Southwest Asia in the same manner the Philippines was their stronghold in Southeast Asia. This is not to say, however, that we should throw away everything which Arendt has argued and laboured to explain about the excesses of totalitarian rule. It is still, indeed, a good counter-reference in the perpetual moving tendencies of totalitarian movements which has been their constant impetus to sow terror on their peoples.

Without question, the inhuman actions and effects brought about by totalitarian regimes should never be given consideration nor should it ever be effaced from our collective consciousness. We cannot sweep under the rug the fact that through regimes of pure action, many lives have been lost senselessly and purposelessly. As such, Arendt’s own proposition of forgiveness as a political action contradicts itself, as the notion of forgiveness entails the downplaying of significant historical events that transpired within peoples. To forget these nodes of historical progression is to be subject to a dangerous tendency of amnesia, which will allow the resurfacing of the ugly capabilities of totalitarian movements without our knowledge. Reconciliation, therefore, should not be rooted in the action of forgiveness but in the transcendence of human limitations and concupiscence to re-establish modes of communication smashed by the desire of totalitarian rule. Systematic disruption of human interaction can only be restored by deliberative means of understanding the human condition, as well as the recognition of one’s own responsibility in these actions despite the benumbing and desensitizing conditions that total politics has imputed on both victim and perpetrator. The notion of forgiveness, however beautiful and binding, can only be practiced in the confines of a communion which shares the same contexts and objects of faith. To compel forgiveness would not be binding or significant at the very least, and as such, will not bring forth the repair of broken lives and milieus which will finally allow people to truly move on and continue the vita activa.

The Blob as Threat: A Discourse on the Nature of the Masses and Its Bifurcating Capabilities through Terror

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: January 20, 2009

Inasmuch as the illustration might sound unsuitable, it appears that we Filipinos, in functioning as a democratic unit, always subscribes to the maxim of community-building shared by the iconic 1990s rock band Eraserheads: that every good and relevant action should consider the well-being of what we love to term as “the masses” (para sa masa, sa lahat ng binaon ng sistema). In an appeal to the notion of collective experience and thinking about the practice of politics as a fulfilment of social imperatives, we unwittingly subsume ourselves to a dynamic of communal experience that is, in itself, following the order of modernity which, in turn, proliferate the seeds of its darkest potential in the form of totalitarianism. Consonant with the Hobbesian proposal of power as necessarily centralized, it then appears as if society cannot function if the accumulation of property cannot occur and thus, the necessity of increasing power parallel to the intensity of accumulation for the bourgeois. This imminent greed of the bourgeois catalysed the retaliation of the lower social classes in the form of “the masses” as the proletariat, illustrated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s The Communist Manifesto. This, however, is problematic if we are going to consider the fact of the claim of historicity in action. To centralize political action into the welfare of the masses is to commit once more the error of the French Revolution in thinking that community-building could and should be equated with the desire to accumulate and preserve property.

Hannah Arendt defines the masses as the product of the breakdown of class structures which, though related, is not at all similar to the relations of the mob and the bourgeois. The mass is, in more ways than one, the conglomeration of directed interests of people displaced from their class in the aftermath of the breakdown of society. In the destruction of the nation-state, the security of each individual is put to question, which leads to the attempt to assure the rights of an individual in the enactment of Universal Human Rights. This is in itself, as may be garnered from the declaration of Jacques Derrida, always suspicious as human rights can only be guaranteed inside the nation-state. In such a situation, we cannot help but be under the suspicion that the supranational agency declaring such is on its way of attempting to establish a world order under its hegemony. Thus, it comes off as no wonder that any action of the United States of America that is claimed to be interventionist will always fall under the lens of scrutiny as an imperialist move.

It must also be noted that, contrary to the belief that the masses are the exact equivalent of the demos in the public sphere, the driving force of the masses is a sense of despair and loss of significance to themselves; a form of “pervasive emo-ness” which makes them think that society and the world in general will never understand nor tolerate their existence. Thus, they are predisposed to all ideologies as these ideologies present “grand narratives” which will explain their situation without them having to deliberate upon it. The masses follow a very Rousseauvian (and therefore problematic) view of the means by which the community caters to the development of the individual. Entering the self no longer produces neither enlightenment nor recognition of desires and appetites but a hysteria acknowledging one’s brokenness and inability to change it.

It is in this context that totalitarianism feeds upon to promulgate its radically evil agenda through the destruction of distinctions between the public and the private. Contrasting to the Classical and Early Modern perspectives of ruling through virtue and/or the utilization of fear, as well as the valuing of honor and material gains, the aforementioned have been eliminated in favour of establishing a regime of terror. A tyranny can only exist in the presence of fear amongst the people, causing inaction among them; in contrast, however, a totalitarian regime encourages action and constant movement, carefully planned and systematically eliminating types of people. The callousness and detachment of the proliferators sends chills down the spine of people who cannot comprehend human capability for inhuman tendencies and, in a disturbing fashion, seduces people with grand personal projections. Such an occurrence is not new not only in the political sphere; in fact, this idea of constant movement with the absence of deliberation for its massed composition also is practiced in the various illegal (or counter-religious) cult organizations.

How then do the masses play into the picture of totalitarian establishment? This is explained by the fact that they, being the most emotionally and psychologically volatile portion of the state, is likely to be taken in by the totalitarian leader’s self-image as a deprecating and non-ambitious person. The charisma of this person will likely draw the attention, support and, ultimately, fanatical devotion of the masses in his quest for setting up the regime of terror organized by his party. This, in turn, will likely pose questions of moral judgment which will test the capability of the human person to actually consider disowning his held scruples. In playing upon ambitions of both leader and followed, they begin to think that one cannot exist without the other, and therefore has to retain semblance of arbitrariness in order to project the image of a normal political state. Yet it is actually carefully deliberated upon by the leaders and they labor enough through propaganda and indoctrination of certain ideologies which will help in their holding sway over the hearts and minds of people.

The conception of ideologies might be considered as an evolution (or a horrible transmogrification, depending on the situation) of the necessity of fabricating “grand narratives,” as Socrates once proposed in his establishment of the polis. And yet, however, the way totalitarianism uses ideology is never for the sake of community-building but, in fact, to destroy communication among the citizens. In seeking to instate the rule of terror through deft massages of ego and ambition, the masses are likely deluded into believing that politics will only be relevant to them through the salvific nature of a totalitarian leader, which is, obviously, against everything politics stands for and will spell the disintegration of the public space.

Re-appreciating the Significance of Fear: A Discourse on the Conflicting Desires that Mitigate Totalitarianism

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: January 13, 2009

The notion of strong and collected leaders has been, for quite long, part of the standing and common perception of what totalitarianism is. The word itself has been quite used interchangeably with the words “tyranny” and “dictatorship,” due to their having the common trait (or image of such a trait) of the condensation of power in a state figurehead reminiscent of the Hobbesian Leviathan’s influence, power and motivations. This is, however, an oversimplification of the dynamics of a totalitarian’s effect on the mindset, the perspectives and the collective consciousness of the people he is governing or oppressing. In retrospect, a totalitarian regime is never established with the people explicitly surrendering their right to the sovereign in the spirit of political maturity and culpability for their actions. We might state, then, that Hannah Arendt’s work entitled The Origins of Totalitarianism exhibits the horrifying potential for encroachment and reduction of human life to mere statistics. For a totalitarian regime to be at the apogee of power and have dominion over the state, a substantive and driving force of fear and apprehension of loss and the desire for accumulation is always maintained and considered paramount.

A novel reading of Arendt’s critique of Karl Marx’s perception of human existence as one driven by perpetual motion posits that it is in this perpetual motion that the origins of totalitarianism are established. The absence of an avenue for pardon and the mending of human relations is a perfect means by which a cycle of hatred is institutionalized. Through the installation of motor at the hub of historical progress, we are no longer able to make sense of our free will and our capability to will or make promises. In depriving ourselves of the avenue to repair and re-establish our broken relationships with others, we deny ourselves the capability of reinvention and thus effectively countering the original purpose of critical thinking: understanding the limitations of our historical situation and working on it to build the ideal community, which in a way lays the foundation for the succeeding philosophy developed by Michel Foucault.

We insist, as mentioned a while ago, that totalitarianism is always brought about by the presence of any substantive amount of fear in losing what most of the entities in state and society have accumulated. This condition is brought about precisely by the pessimistic nature of most established traditional political philosophy; that is, they are always large possibilities for failure, which is in a way vocalized in the Machiavellian notion of fortune as unpredictable and prone to being our adversary. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, however, impresses us with his insistence that being fearful of the tragic consequences of political success will always be counterproductive in the pursuit of building the ideal community. He is aware of the possibility that the Vanguard Party’s actions can lead to totalitarianism, yet he is unfazed. His successor, Josef Stalin, however, was so concerned with this “negative development” that he laboured to force the people of the state into subscribing to his notion of what should be done to prevent the advent of totalitarianism, which ironically led to it precisely.

It is in this light, then, that we try to understand the roots of anti-Semitism through the experience of fear and desire for accumulation. As established, the black propaganda against the Jews was made due to the desire of the bourgeois to undermine their proximity and influence to the ruling classes. Thanks to the peculiar alienation of the Jewish Europeans to the bourgeoisie of their respective countries despite their equal footing in economic power, they became easy targets of “ethnic cleansing.” Their unofficial alliance to the ruling families and classes are preventing the bourgeois from influencing these sovereigns to expand their territories instrumental to the creation of new markets, so as to prevent the saturation of wealth and the eventual dichotomization of classes foretold by the crisis theory of Marxist thought. (Of course, Marx is neither born nor aware of these during the beginning of global colonization, yet the phenomena that occurred fits nicely in his theorization.) This irresponsibility of the bourgeois eventually brought forth the social experimentations carried out by the colonies through the merger of finance capital and monopoly capital, culminating in the experience of Imperialism which burdened most countries in Asia, America and Africa. Such obnoxious conception of “community-building”, which traces its roots from the classical notion of conquest are warped to serve not the people of the conquered communities (which are impossible due to their alienation from the community of the master country), but the unquenchable gluttony of the capitalist class. Cecil Rhodes could have not illustrated this thirst for accumulation better: I would annex the planets if I could.

Verily, these horrific situations could not but stir our spirits into revulsion and the burning desire to exterminate such conditions; more generally, we are likely being invited to act, which is of course consistent with the 11th Thesis of Feuerbach: The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. The take on Arendt’s conception, however, appears that it would actually be necessary to resist this call to action. This is due to the fact that the context of these societies dichotomizes action and deliberation. To act in the capitalist environment through rebellion, one cannot help but forego thinking for the benefit of accomplishing the actions and the plans for change one has embraced. This, of course, is very counter to the proper political action of elenchus. In fact, there is also the proposition of rejecting Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s absolutization of the classes in the advent of the struggle for change. This absolutization, seeing how it evolved into the heavily-economic and stoic representation of human life in Marx, reduces people to mere statistics who do not have individual stories, who are not and will not be expected to think, but merely to follow. In rejecting this, the pluralization (therefore, the proliferation) of human opinion and thought in political action shall be reinvigorated. Mao Zedong realized it when he once asked for the blooming of the hundred flowers; unfortunately, the fear of losing what has been achieved, despite the fact that what is present is realized much better, stifled it once more.

The Power of the Gun Barrel or the Germs? : A Discourse on the Means of Fulfilling the Proletarian Revolution

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: January 6, 2009

We tend to view any movement for radical reform and revision of existing social systems as a suicidal attempt of making a dysfunctional society take the first step towards repair and regeneration. One need not look far beyond us to see that there is still a considerable majority among the Philippine population who believes in the position of resignation, to the jubilation of capitalists who arrogantly brandishes their “victory” against the Leftist forces. They seem to have successfully implemented the maxim of complacency from satisfaction with the present conditions. “Ganyan naman talaga e, pagtyagaan na lang [It’s always the same, so let’s just endure it],” they would say when, in fact, it is actually out of despair and the fear of losing what little they have that drives to inertia. Many are of the opinion that this atrophy explains why the Philippine Communist revolution has never arrived in its most potent form, why it spiralled down from the stalemate with the oppressive, fascist and American puppet state that our government became under Marcos. It seems to us that what it has worked hard and many of their comrades died for to achieve was all in vain. This notion of irredeemable failure for the proletarian revolt, however, misses the possibilities of the entire corpus of Marxist thought and reveals what is problematic in the dogmatic and historical progression of human action towards the stateless society. To be able to proceed towards fulfilment of the revolution, we must subscribe to the continual reinvention of what Marxism founded (and therefore contradict historical progression) for it to survive and outlive the manipulative nature of capitalism.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s statement of the proletarian class being organized by the vanguard party is working under the assumption that the dichotomies of class struggle have already been achieved; that is, that the capitalist systems and all that falls under it are seen as the summation of all evil. Therefore, there is this consciousness that the proletarian camp really is and truly believes that they are the antithesis of the capitalists which is constantly devouring and mangling society. To truly progress, then, the proletariats have to arm themselves in smashing the capitalist state. The common misconception about the concept of the “withering away of the state” is that it is the capitalist state that is supposed to wither; it is not. Capitalism itself should be smashed and then replaced with the communist state which will then “wither” at the end of historical progression. This is why Karl Kautsky’s proposition of parliamentary struggle within the capitalist state is considered by Lenin as a betrayal of Marx, as it does not help in the progression of history and even gives capitalism some semblance of legitimacy. In our context, the consistent failures of our identified Leftist party lists such as Akbayan, Gabriela, Bayan Muna and the like to bring forth legitimate reforms in the “peaceful manner” illustrates this all too well.

The problem, however, begins when the organization process escalates. The question of whether there should be only one centric and solid camp of the proletarian party or there should be multiple pockets of proletarian organization becomes relevant in order to speed up progression towards the stateless society. The standing Communist Party of the Philippines under the chairmanship of revolutionary ideologue Jose Maria Sison might be seen as a very good case study of proving the historical progression of a reformist as stated by fictional District Attorney Harvey Dent: “you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” As the National Democratic Front would propagate, the CPP subscribes to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist tradition of establishing the vanguard party. This was to be the cure for the “adventurist errors,” as Sison would put it, of the former leaders of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 under the brothers Jose and Jesus Lava.

Antonio Gramsci illustrated that capitalist structures are not simply governed and maintained by the economic modes of production. There are also historical and cultural blocks which intervene. Since capitalism does not assert its authority through coercion but by consent, the capability of capitalism to weather the advances of the proletariat is very stable and formidable. Thus, there is the need for strategic movement and waging two types of wars: that of direct conflict or aggression, and that of position or establishing oneself in historic blocks and the consciousness of the demos. As seen from the events of the 1970’s, the vanguard party is very effective in waging their “protracted people’s war,” dismantling the authority and credibility of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, in part thanks to the increasing corruption that state institutions have descended into. However, by their own admission, their inability to properly organize and indoctrinate to the people the steadfast adherence to their philosophy allowed the displaced bourgeois forces (in the form of Corazon Aquino) to wrest power and re-establish old capitalist institutions. Worse, the failure of the vanguard party to remain coherent in the aftermath of this “restoration” brought forth the purges which killed many Party stalwarts, most famous being former NPA commander Romulo Kintanar. Sison himself is condemned for supposedly masterminding the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing which taints the credibility, as well, of the Party and the legitimacy of the Communist movement in general. The recent discovery of the “mass graves” does nothing at all to efface the suspicion and paranoia of the people they were supposed to fight for.

In short, they were indeed able to sustain a war of aggression, but they failed to properly position themselves for the movement to remain relevant and pressing to society. The question of whether to persist in the vanguard party or begin the rhizomatic proliferation of centers and focus points of conflicts become more relevant in the pursuit of smashing a constantly mutating capitalist society. By looking at the historical achievements of the Philippine proletariat, it does appear that stubbornness in maintaining a form of engagement that is no longer conjunct with the current historical block will hinder the success of the progression towards the stateless society. As long as the CPP-NPA-NDF is unable to reinvent itself, they will remain as impotent as the Lavas which they displaced and, in the words of Benedict Anderson, “Stalinist bores”.

Echoes of Pacifico Ortiz: A Discourse on Social Guilt and Its Role in the Fulfilment of Marxist Crisis Theory

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: December 16, 2008

The expression and acknowledgement of human culpability in the current state of social injustice in the public sphere seems to be the growing norm among the corporate powers-that-be. As such, there are growing and conscious efforts to facilitate in the alleviation of the economically-challenged citizens from known business and capitalist institutions, which led to the conception of the idea of “corporate social responsibility” or CSR, a value which almost all businessmen are being trained into and which the Ateneo has been repeatedly touting as its contribution to social change. If one would look at it at face value, it appears to be something very good and helpful in the development of a society that is increasingly and desperately becoming more and more uninhabitable, a means of closing the gap between the haves and the have-nots. If we would dissect its individual actions and implications, however, we shall see that this concept is here as only a renewed means of the prevailing capitalist system in disguising itself to perpetuate itself longer in power and prevent the masses from actually realizing the need for its overthrow through a revolution guided by Communist principles. Perhaps one of the most elaborate means to mislead the people into a false sense of fulfilment and self-realization is the induction of the concept of private property, as it is grounded upon the principles of alienation. Private property, being a product of the labourer and yet is not being experienced (that is, taking benefit from it) by the labourer himself, demarcates the product of the labor from its creator. This is best illustrated in fast food restaurants. As a child of eleven, I was fond of eating at Chowking in my hometown. One day when I entered the establishment, I noticed two staffers of Chowking having their lunch of nilagang baka with three cups of rice. I approached them and asked them if Chowking serves nilaga as well. When they responded in the negative, I ask them why then are they not eating any of the foods that the restaurant is selling. They replied that they are not allowed to eat any of their products but may make their own.

The alienation of the labourer from the fruits of his labor makes the labourer himself a commodity no different from the products he creates. He is objectified twofold by his condition of being in labour for a capitalist overlord and his inability to relate with his produce. This relation, if compared to the Hegelian state of living of the slave, is far worse. For Hegel, the slave is important to the master for the master cannot produce without the slave, and the slave has his means of realizing the wretched state he is in to allow for the moment of revolution. Marx’s description of the labourer is harrowing: it transmogrifies the labourer into an unthinking beast of burden, an animal and statistic only defined by his labour. If there would be anything common with white-collar office workers and blue-collar labourers, it is the underlying fact that for the system they are working in, what is only important is more quantitative and fast-efficient production, regardless of the costs to human self-development. It is in this light, therefore, that we consider how private property has made human society stupid in its over-reliance to it. Quoting from the corporate terrorist Tyler Durden in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, it appears that in a capitalist society we are obsessed with accumulating property, so much that in the end “the things that you won end up owning you.” Despite the fact that private property does define a semblance of humanity for a person, it is only through the transcendence of private property that man could be emancipated. As such, it is advocated that private property be abolished. Though there might be the danger of abandoning the concept of being free, what is given importance is the establishment of the relationship of brotherhood, one that is not meant through any ends whether for monetary gain or benefits. There is only the brotherhood for brotherhood’s sake.

Karl Marx wrote in his Das Kapital that “the value of commodity is defined by the amount of labor invested in the production of that commodity.” What allows capitalists to accumulate larger and larger amounts of monetary compensation is the concept of surplus value which, as we have mentioned a while ago, ensures that the labourer shall not partake in the fruits of what he has laboured for. Through a set means of wages equal to a supposed capacity for production (which is not valid due to the dynamic capability of the labourer), the profit shall always proceed towards the capitalist. And yet, it shall be through this system of increasing desire form profit that capitalism shall self-destruct, should circumstances play out in the crisis theory. The greed of capitalists for profit will drive them to mechanize their form of production, laying off workers and, unconsciously, losing that stretchable dynamic supply of surplus. In the increase of surplus commodities due to piling up of mechanically-made products, there will be overproduction and underconsumption which will likely drive the businesses to lose profits in the long run, bringing about the need for mergers. Eventually, power and wealth shall be congested in a select few (which is actually happening right now given the statistics are true). Such a widening gap between poor and wealthy shall, as illustrated by Marx, bring about increasing proletarianization culminating in what Teodoro Agoncillo mistakenly thought the 1896 Revolution to be: “the revolt of the masses.” The Filipino interpretation of the Communist hymn Internationale succinctly described what should be done: Wala tayong maaasahang Bathala o manunubos, kaya’t ang ating kaligtasa’y nasa ating pagkilos! (We cannot rely on God or any saviour, so our salvation is in our hands.)

The late first Filipino president of the Ateneo, Fr. Pacifico Ortiz, S.J., once prayed for a government to raise up the hopes of a nation desperate enough that it already “stand[s] on the trembling edge of revolution.” Despite the fact that the 1970s are, indeed, turbulent times with the Communist spectre haunting the status quo, the revolution of the proletariat has not yet arrived in its entirety. The state has not yet descended in utter dispossession under the hegemony of a paltry few, but it is already nearing that state. There is still a possibility and hope for the chained labourer to win a world.

Breaking from Simounic Revolutionary Thought: A Discourse on the Futility of a Revolution with Historicity and the Marxian Views of Individual-State Relations

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: December 2, 2008

Whenever the phenomenon of revolution is mentioned in the course of the Philippine political sphere, the first images that come to our minds are usually those of the men with rolled sleeves, raised clenched fists and brandishing bolo knives carrying a crimson banner of dissent intent on bringing down tyrannical overlords. It might also be an overflowing massed humanity carrying placards and shouting slogans or demands for reform or against unjust, corrupt and self-serving leaders. It seems that our view on the act of revolution is that it is a process that could be empirically carried and something that has a definitive, absolute end. Therefore, we glorify, stress and sometimes exaggerate the supposed goals and the results that shall be garnered from any revolutionary enterprise. Unfortunately, it appears that this is the very view on revolution that has caused a lingering disillusionment among the demos to even dare to conduct or participate in such action. More often than not, we hear people saying: We have always called for change. We have revolted so many times. Nothing has happened whatsoever. So what for?

This notion of revolution as historical (that is, having an absolute and definite endpoint) has been strongly refuted by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In fact, he clarified that once a revolution has supposedly already achieved its goals (or claim to do so), it is time that this revolution be subjected to another overthrow of another revolution. Constant with Hegel’s chain of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, this never-ending sequence intends (and therefore advocates) constant change and improvement. Most revolutions, when they succeed, overthrow the institution from which they have rebelled from and then establish their version of what the institution must be. This institution, following Hegelian thought, should then be subject to another revolution which would overthrow it; a symbolical execution of the master by the apprentice as Eastern martial art tradition has been portrayed. And even yet, this very action of overthrowing the master is something that the slave cannot do, which prevents him from achieving change. This constant and repeated frustration, however, was not intended to make man think of political action as something that is futile and not worth pursuing. In fact, it should encourage men to dream, invigorate them to act and constantly refine themselves in the pursuit of the ideal life, as is the goal of politics has been defined.

Such a form of action reminds me of the thought process of student activist groups in the duration of the First Quarter Storm. As related by former journalist and writer Jose “Pete” Lacaba in his book of the accounts of the events in the political sphere of the early 1970’s, entitled Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage, these students constantly evaluate themselves and their standpoints with issues in contrast to the actions of the tightly-controlled Marcos government. They have been known to frequently reconsider their points whenever the administration actually begins to take them in consideration. In constantly revitalizing and reforming the voices of change, they remain relevant to the society in which they act and try to improve.

Karl Marx, however, would not want history and the course of political action to proceed. He establishes a form of historical action that culminates, true to his claim of “rectifying what Hegel has placed upside-down,” in the eradication of conflict and demystification of human relations. That is, there is an intent to transform humanity into a socialized whole, wherein conflict and inequalities have been snuffed out as simply fireworks intended to dazzle or even mislead us into thinking that we are progressing as a society, when in reality there is no least measure visible. His Theories on Feuerbach expresses this intent of doing away with all established norms and structures society has placed on human communities and, in a micro level, their collective consciousnesses, rejecting all of these as mere “opiates.” Marx maintains that human oppression shall always occur, as long as people have relations set by the community. Under the influence of such “opiates” as religion and obsession with rights, people cannot truly be able to assert themselves in the context within which they live, act and produce. Every produce then, therefore, is a mere product of oppression, something that should not surprise us and something that should not be enjoyed.

It appears, then, that in this light revolution is protracted and with a certain requirements – aimed at a common, timed and precise achievement of particular living conditions. This is not simply the sudden appearance of someone with a messianic complex of salvation that would liberate people from their woes without them being active themselves in their own liberation. This form of revolution transforms people into scientists willing to experiment and act according to what social change necessitates them to do, what would be needed to mitigate reforms which would eliminate necessity for exploitation: that is, human relation. There shall be a move to make men self-sufficient in the classless society so as not to cause any more oppression due to the need of production and labor in the support of human relations.

However, this is quite problematic if we are going to follow traditional notions of revolutionary action. What is Marx proposing is that we, in our act of dissent against the institution, think of our objectives as certain and ending. This is exemplified, from a different perspective, by the statement of the fictional jeweller Simoun with regards to his insurrectionist plan intended to orchestrate the downfall of a corrupt colonial system: “Fire and steel to the cancer, chastisement to vice, and afterwards destroy the instrument, if it be bad!” By ending the conflicts in the classless, communist society, there shall be the likelihood of people being complacent and not thinking about the status of their habitation as well as their neighbour. If all men would be self-sufficient, there would be no need for community-building and interactions with each other, ending politics as Marx intended. To end politics, then, would be to deprive human of their basic needs: constant change, constant improvement.

To Write or To Strike: A Discourse on the Dichotomy of Historicity and Consciousness, and How Such Affects Human Relations and Revolutionary Intent

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: December 2, 2008

It is lamentable, in more ways than one, that human relations have not changed very much compared to the past five centuries. Some may find this statement quite unusual, paradoxical, and erroneous even, due to the fact that many forms of human relations exist today which have not existed before, or may have been considered as unusual or potentially dangerous associations. Today, developed and developing countries have been patrons of liberality and are obsessed with obtaining and maintaining a limitless degree of freedom which will allow people to shape their selves as they please. Such cannot be said of the societies of centuries past where norms, rules and regulations are firmly in place, intended to inhibit the individual from straying from the community of his origin. And yet, despite this supposed situation of open floodgates allowing people to be free as they can, they themselves are now the ones who claim to be unfree. They blame history, fate, predestination and all other supernatural abstractions which supposedly pull the strings of their lives as if they were puppets on a stage.

One cannot help but either roar in laughter or wallow in pools of tears in hearing such a blatant washing of hands more crass than Pontius Pilate’s. It appears as if man, who was supposedly created in the likeness and image of a Supreme Being, is now simply reduced to a mere instrument created at some particular point without reason. Such would be a description of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s notion of history and historicity as conscious and ever-moving. This belief gave birth to the now-cliché yet stupid statement of “history repeating itself,” when it is in fact we ourselves who repeat history due to lack of hindsight, the ability to learn from experience and respect to tradition. To say that history should define us is to deny the human capability for action, deliberation and change.

It is in this light that we try to understand how, then, could man should learn how to negate action while being active and engaging his desire. To negate action, it was said, is to consume the very feeling or sensation of desire by the act of fulfilling that particular desire. For instance, one person might want a blueberry cake. This desire for the blueberry cake is so intense that it can only be quenched by presenting him with that blueberry cake, and for the person to eat it. In consuming the cake, the desiring person negates the very object of his desire, and thus negates his action. In this sense, man is transformed a person who is not one who controls history but is controlled by history. His desire to act is always frustrated by the fact that he finds no sense of accomplishment, that everything he does cannot make a mark, and yet is thus that he lives in society and practices politics.

The imagery is, in a way, a good example of perpetual tension; uncertain departure, uncertain arrival. I am reminded of the socialization of the pre-Martial Law Armed Forces of the Philippines as described in Alfred McCoy’s Closer than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy. It was said that to ensure civilian supremacy, the officers were socialized into placing the authority of civil government at highest regard. Through this, they could not possibly nor dare think that the military can initiate a government on their own, much less govern the country better through a military junta. As events and history proved, this form of socialization was nullified by the Marcos presidency. This was mentioned to illustrate the fact that this conscious sense of frustration, contrary to what Hegel intended, is not political, if not should be detached from the proper political course of action. The armed forces are never supposed to be politicized: any attempt to politicize them will cause a chaotic phase in the life of the state, as we will discuss below.

The notion of political action as one that is laced by the element of surprise, as promulgated by traditional and classical political thought as well as the contemporary notion created by Hannah Arendt would be, in more ways the one, be the better political course of action as it And thus it is set that the discussion of the master-slave dialectic is put in focus. It is said that the master and the slave must fight to the death, as it is through this that the wheels of history are seen at motion. No one between them initiated the conflict; it is the dictate of history.

The slave, guided by the belief that he is not actually bound by the world, but his master is, would be led to rebel and try to break off the chains that restrain him from the moment of his defeat at the hands of that master. The fact that he is the one who creates the world for the master who consumes it shows that he is detached from it, that he can transcend it and use it to gain his freedom. Such would evolve later into the famous battle cry of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto: “they have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

And yet this could not be, and should not be. To think and believe that man can actually gain freedom through denial of his very own existence and giving up all his scruples to the dictates of history (or believing that such scruples are the dictate of history) suggests that man has no free will, that he is not someone who can hold his destiny in his hands. This might be consonant with St. Augustine on a particular level, but it runs counter to classical notion of politics as community-building. The politicization of the armed forces, leading them to believe that their restraint has created the world as they see it and they can create it in their own image, eventually brought forth the downward slide of that state into tyranny, rapaciousness and extreme alienation to the people. The names and events are countless: Pinochet, Franco, Idi Amin and more so, Marcos. The Reform the Armed Forces movement, though seemingly a group for reform, are in reality still soldiers who have been misled by a sense of overflowing power and now wishing to end their restraint by indulging it and holding on to it, not consuming it for the good of the state, something even Hegel himself would disapprove of.

Losing the Three Flags: A Discourse on the Notion of Kantian and Foucauldian Enlightenment and the Demise of the Political to the Social and Economic

Hansley A. Juliano, II AB Political Science: November 25, 2008

The notions of Enlightenment as expressed in the essays of Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault, both entitled “What Is Enlightenment?” has been given a precise demarcation, marked by a question that is bounded by the realms of the finite, the rejection of scientific deliberation as a consonant to achieving a certain level of understanding. Despite the fact that Foucault abhors scientific methods of discerning the philosophical and the political, he does not reject its very inherent roots of careful and methodological analysis and criticism. At the same time, he also disengages from the Kantian notion of subjectivity as universal, having had a firm belief in the being specific of an entity based from its cultural and historical situation. It appears, then, that Kant was stemming from a theological tradition that, though almost fully immersed in the political life of the Classical and Renaissance era of thought, is something that is not given much consideration in the Modern and contemporary era of philosophy. In believing that there is a universal definition by which men are governed and deliberate their actions, we run the risk of giving them a stereotypical characteristic, something which would trap them in a blob. This, then, runs counter to the traditional Classical notion of men as individual and assertive of their personal identity but do so in service to the state.

Such a discussion brings to mind a parallel argument that occurred between the jeweller Simoun and the supposedly-liberal peninsular politician Don Custodio in José Rizal’s radical novel El Filibusterismo. The jeweller, in secret the vengeful former ilustrado Crisostomo Ibarra, intended to wage a revolution which will bring forth the downfall of the Spanish central colonial government. He planned to bring this forth by corrupting the government and forcing the enslaved indios to despair, which will cause them to take up arms. One of these policies he devised is to once more enact forced labor to create a waterway in the Pasig River, one which was met by strong criticism from Don Custodio. This was not brought forth by his belief in his projected conviction of being a Liberal (affirming the right and equality of men), but due to the fear that such harsh policies might incite insurrections dangerous to the status quo.

Knowing fully the danger of being considered unpatriotic, I would say that it was Don Custodio who was following the sounder political course of action, though his motivations are not entirely in consonance with what politics require. In seeking to drive the people to madness and despair, Simoun intends to create a society driven by pure desire to accumulate, a people only driven by their wanton drive to fill empty stomachs. Rizal himself repudiates this, as witness the rebukes the fictional Father Florentino gave to Simoun at the end of the novel. A revolution is only validated if it is for a noble belief on uplifting the human condition, the desire to recover a lost means of communication and community-building. To build on the ashes and remains of vice and collective brokenness will mean only simply to repudiate the historicity of the people and risk committing the same mistakes that our predecessors committed. History does not repeat itself; we repeat history.

It is in this light, then, that we attempt to look at the circumstances that brought forth the events of the 1896 Filipino Revolution. It appears to me that there is a question that has been left out for so many years now, a question which we will attempt to give a few initial answers: the question of its effectivity. By comparison to its predecessors in the French Revolution and the American Revolution which gave birth to leading and powerful nations, what it has only accomplished is the birth of a stunted and weak nation which immediately fell at the first swoop of invasion by the Gringos.

Contrary to popular (and heavily Marxist-influenced) opinion that the call for revolt originated from the hungry masses, the roots of revolution, reform, were sowed by the middle-classes, the very same people who would rise to prominence as the highest Filipino caste (if one may be allowed to use the term). They have, in fact, cultivated a novel approach into the objective of community-building that has not actually been considered by both French and American: a desire to return to the original traditions of the people, reclamation of their identities and their communities which were, supposedly, mangled and perverted by the establishment of the highly-discriminatory Spanish conquistadores. This is actually by far nobler, if not as noble, as the desire of the Founding Fathers of the American Union.

And yet they fell to the same trappings that brought forth the downfall slide of the French Revolution. In their discussions of restoring foundations, all made the unfortunate error of considering first economic questions as those of utmost importance. To channel the hot and burning fervour of the people simply to place food on the table is contrary to the interests of community-building; it, in fact, dissuades interaction with each other, converting each citizen into a mere carabao waiting for a day’s worth of hay and would have no other interaction with others of its kind save during mating season. This pre-eminence of protecting self-interests was, in fact, the very root of the First Republic’s downfall and eventual evolution into puppet republics through the promises of “Benevolent Assimilation” and inclusion in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, all strewn in paths of blood. The selfish desires of the Malolos Congress are to be blamed a lot for their rational choice of seeking to preserve and accumulate, even under the “protection” of new colonial masters.

Thus it did happen that the banners of liberté, egalité and fraternité were swept under the “merciful embrace” of Madame Guillotine, only to be stopped by the imperialist designs of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thus did it transform the supposedly- egalitarian United States into what would be today’s world-hegemon, endlessly babbling about bringing civilization while it is actually only creating a global empire. And thus, the Philippine Islands has remained in slavery, stunted growth and disunity.

The "Thinkpiece Series"

As a means of opening and reinforcing life into this abandoned blog, I have decided to re-post some of the "thinkpieces" we have worked on for the class on Contemporary Political Theories, coded PoS 61, under Mr. Rene Raymond R. Raneses. I welcome people to critique these pieces of textual diarrhea.

They will be posted in chronological order based from the date of submission (or fabrication if not collected). Wishing to hear your opinions.