Thinking has to do with mastery of
language and Heidegger once said that “language is the house of being” and
being is because of thinking. I have
listened to a lot of people lately who are already in college but the problem
is “Are they really in college?”. I kept on reflecting why thinking ever since
is one of the major problems of human beings and maybe it is right to question
Aristotle’s claim of man being a rational animal or it is right to say that
others are not even human beings to begin with. English is not the measure of
one’s intelligence; however, some people are plagued by a disease that even
their own language they do not have the words to express for the sake of
conversation and being understood.
Having known also Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action, it is a presumption
according to him that there should be rationality among human beings so that they
can participate in what we call communication or discourse in which is useful
for man inside the society in order to create social cohesion with others.
Quoting the masters of Modern Philosophy that of Kant and Hegel, then there is
a strong presumption again that “reason” has to be the central and integral
part in the social activities of man, be it of politics, ethics and other
applied social practices. The question here is, how can there be a fusion of
horizon from one subject to another subject when a) one subject is without
rationality and b) both subjects are without rationality? Hegel even emphasizes
the power of reason to capture reality and eventually is reality as he said “what is rational is real” and to Kant
emphasizing the power of reason as the gateway to have assurance of what we
know. Sad thing is that, reason has downright devolved when man is not anymore
the center of the cosmos but technology.
Technology is supposed to be an
appendage for man to develop his capabilities into the manipulation of the
world he is in at. It came to be because of man’s desire to control the
unpredictable external world he is immersed into with a drive to survive and
perpetuate. However, with a system that creates a trash bin for the extortion
of resources, there has to be a promise of marketable convenience to the
consumers so that they will feel the luxury of technology, later on, becomes an
indispensable part of the being of humans. Technology has now become a parasite
to the unsuspecting, not yet rationally develop man wherein instead of him to
elevate his reasoning capabilities to master the world, he has been given a
false environment that makes him feel that the only quality there is, is to
consume, be a consumer and a slave to technology. Having to update themselves
yearly with all unnecessary accidentals forgetting the substantial; therefore,
molded the consciousness of an individual to be trivial and never at the core
essential. Social media is now the new breeding ground of acceptance to where
the youth who seek such attention has a free wide avenue to be accepted. A
deceptive photograph, deceptive smile with deceptive features can create an
edifice that the community can learn to love and appreciate. Therefore, is a
good training ground for pretention. Acceptance to a group can now be measured
by the manifest of DSLR captured profile photo and not anymore the worth of an
individual in the rational, artistic and social level. Although, there are some
who uses the social media for the propagation of ideas, but that is not the
main theme of the commoners, the herd.
Another problem lies with a
problematic education system in the Philippines wherein, we have a rich pool of
education graduates who cannot teach the young ones very well thus leading to a
floodgate of college enrollees who are not even fit and ready to be called
collegiate. With so many private schools in the HEI’s who are thirsty for
enrollees to fund their business who are willing to risk the honor of one being
a university by open enrolment with no restrictions thus we have a heterogeneous
population of differently abled students. Whether the training before in the
secondary and elementary levels were from a private and public institutions,
the drive of every Filipino family seeing the hardship of a third world country
sees the educational institution as a diploma mill which will provide them a
ticket to economic liberation. It is all about just passing the semester that
counts and not anymore the noble goal of expanding one’s knowledge. Knowledge
is not anymore as sacred and profound just like in the halls and lecture rooms
of academics, but its value has now reduced to serve technological mentality,
and that is, what is useful for production is the knowledge deemed acceptable
and those that are romantic about philosophy and art are now reduced to being
obsolete. Come to think of it, the humanities are now bracketed because nobody
wants to be human anymore, they all just want to be cogs in the machine,
mindless appendages to the whole system whose only job is to keep the status
quo and benefit from it carnally without the promise of the expanding one’s
wellbeing through rationality and realizations. No wonder the minds of the
students are trained only for mediocrity and compliances sake to be just that
screw and just a screw nothing more. Let the decision making be for those who
are on top. This is a clear line of how the system alienates people from their
rational being and reducing them to a mindless-worker-consumerist.
Let me take for example my ethics
classes. Ethics is one of disciplines of philosophy which has an observable
relevance to the society at large because metaphysics are for the wizards in
towers intoxicating themselves with truths of which I too am into. But let me
take for example the classes I have, wherein the generation of the youth are
technologically oriented but as mindless consumerists, abundant in wealth but
not in wits and whose family values does not include critical thinking and
seeing the university as a dispenser of diploma and vain wizardry at the
commencement rites. The word university has already lost its academic
reputation and molded it into a technocratic institution as how the system
wanted it. Students whose rationality are not that of a secondary level
graduate, whose language is a product of utter confusion of colonialism and
nationalism with crab mentality. Whose world are locked into the beauty of
teenage romance of which I have nothing against but we can just see how the
libido is leveling up resulting to libido thresholds such as parties, one night
stands, HIV/AIDS and early pregnancies. Their logic already at the tip of their
dongs and crevices not anymore where the part when we man are now separate from
our reptilian origins. When comprehension is a
gift and reasoning is a talent; therefore not all who embody the physique of a
human being is essentially a human being. Because in the contemporary times,
where status is derived from social media fame, being on trend or the meaning
and value is already at the lens of the smartphones; who then needs to be
honorable and intelligent? When recognition can already been given to people
who do senseless acts captured on phone or their profile has now become a diary of how they have become mindless
consumerists; I see that being rational in not anymore a concern among the
people not even the youth nowadays. They take pride on senseless chatter, idle
talks and in an environment that does not elevate their being rational. I hate
seeing them with smart phones, whose intelligence are in the phone and not in
the user. Or is technology getting smarter to serve the lazy human being,
desynthesizing him or her from rational effort into mere reception of programmed
rationality? If I too were a good parent, I would never spoil them with the
happiness they can get from material-trivial things, rather I would spoil them
how to have a beautiful thought, honorable character and an excellent artistic
expression. Food only rewards Pavolov's dog, but as how Mill said "I would
rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied". The generation I
see before me is lost and there are few shepherds who are embracing their
vocation devoted to guiding the flock towards a greener pasture and liberation.
They will grow old soon. They will take part in crucial
societal decision makings for the betterment of the future for the nation and
the entire world, but I can foresee the problem of automatons ruling the world
who pump and fuel themselves through non-stop consumerism. I see the future
bleak when these people will take hold in the world I am and soon was happy to
be in with. Moreover, it will be like history repeating itself when my offspring
will be the one struggling to correct the errors of so many. Stupidity is an
epidemic. It has ever been the case but I am deeply grieved to what I have with
me in front. Again and again, six months is not enough to build an individual,
because my skill, my rationality came early. A tree has to be watered from seed
until its full bloom, no seed can be a giant tree in a day. My task is a hard
one and that is to water the barren land plagued by so much drought. The youth
absent vocabulary, absent logic, absent will, absent reasoning, absent courage,
absent effort, absent honor, absent wits but abundant in wealth in coin are the
very seeds I am laboring to water. Their reasoning soon will be used in society
but hopefully, hopefully, a correctly functional one.
Sad, stressed and tired I am for a laborious task I took.
A boulder that I happily push ontowards the top off the mountain in this world
of absurdity but with a spec of hope for a utopia come true. There are rare
lotus flowers which rise above the murky waters, but only a few. Those murky
waters have to be gone. If possible. Mission possible, feeling impossible. Let
the beauty of rationality dawn to them
if I fail to let it grow in them. Let the other lotus flowers help me guide to
remove the cancer in the whole body of
humanity. A social cancer, the cancer of the species.
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