I've had enough of we the youth/middle class bullshit
True, our opinion of the President should not get in the way of “doing our share”, but by the same token, our opinion of the political opposition should not get in the way of our duty to resist authoritarianism. There is nothing political--in the narrow sense of casting oneself as either for or against a politician--about coming to the defense of civil rights; one does not have to hate Arroyo and/or love Cory to find the idea of entrusting a corrupt, ineffective, and abusive state with any more powers ridiculous.
Furthermore, to see civil rights activism merely as a front for the political opposition’s schemes is an unfair characterization, and a politically loaded one at that--it’s the administration’s version of last week’s events, after all, a version that it has yet to prove satisfactorily. Does apolitically casting one’s lot with the current administration include treating its bullshit as gospel? I, for one, don’t think so; supporting a government also entails criticizing it.
Inasmuch as supporting the Arroyo administration in an effort to improve our collective lot is apolitical, opposing it when it oversteps its bounds should be apolitical as well. If acts of authoritarianism and outright lying aren’t considered instances of a government overstepping its bounds, what are?
On an entirely different level, I think it’s absurd how the letter, despite its slipshod logic, was able to spread across the Filipino online community with minimal critical evaluation coming from the demographic it supposedly represents.
Fair enough, the author raised some valid points, but it must be kept in mind that he raised these points by way of faulty logic, false propositions, and ad hominem lines of attack. Given these shortcomings, what merits the passive acceptance and repetition of the letter? Isn’t it disturbing that, in a time of crisis, the Middle Manileños had nothing but a copy-pasted mindset--a terribly written one, at that--to show for their expensive educations? Shouldn’t they be pissed at the author, if only because he did a lousy job at speaking in their behalf?
To me, the people who forwarded this letter are no different from the slogan-chanting tibaks they distance themselves from, in the sense that they’re merely repeating a prepackaged message they happen to agree with without giving much thought to what they're saying.
Reason should be above political allegiances; if one were to use reason as the basis for one’s stand, one must be ready to refute friend and foe alike. Given that the educated middle class is unwilling to critically scrutinize a perspective just because they agree with it, I cannot help but doubt whether they are as rational and apolitical as they portray themselves to be.
I find the emergence of a staunchly professional, apolitical middle class a welcome development, and for the most part I agree with their trabaho-muna mentality. However, the fact that its sentiments probably owe more to dogmatism than to reason should be enough cause for concern.