14 August 2012
Discussed text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being
Having returned from the week-long hibernation that we all just experienced, I was not in any way prepared for anything academic. My brain wasn’t going to cooperate with me and I was sure of it, which is why I tensed up when I suddenly remembered that I was the next one assigned to write this blog entry. Oh, boy.
Dr. Garcia started his discussion by asking about how everyone was and there was, as usual, a unified silence. Everyone else in the room has not yet recovered from the week that was- the sleep-induced, “watch-all-the-episodes-of-Suits-just-because-and-not-take-a-bath-because-it’s-really-cold” week that managed to bring out the maturity in all of us by finally allowing us to stop asking for any more rains to come. However, when Dr. Garcia mentioned that we were living in a broken world, I found myself let go of the reminiscing and snapping back into attention. A broken world, it just sounded so familiar.
“Living in a broken world? Yes, broken like a broken watch. Just to look at it, nothing has changed. Everything is in place. But put the watch to your ear, and you don’t hear any ticking…it seems to me that it must have had a heart one time, but today you would say that the heart had stopped beating”The world has gotten to a point where we think that everything can be manipulated, everything can be controlled and everything would go our way. The world has become materialistic and narcissistic, which became evident to me during the past few days. The monsoon was something that we all did not see coming. We were not prepared for it. It was the first time we were experiencing it. But what caused it? We did. We were all so busy with ourselves that we forgot how to take care of everything else around us. We forgot that there were things around us that we were not capable of fixing or changing.
Most of us might think that we do care about some things that are not just ourselves, but is that enough? We forgot the duties that we have for each other. For the world. This is sad, but I believe that the heart still resides there somewhere.
This blog and the past discussion made me recall something that was said to me sometime ago by a teacher of mine, I think. If I remember correctly, the person suggested to me and my classmates that as the years have gone by, the morals of the youth, most especially, have gradually disappeared as well. In effect, he was implying that the people of the 50's, 60 or 70's were actually more virtuous and righteous than the 21st century individual. In a way, he may have been right. Drugs, prostitution, cheating and other immoral ways of life have become accepted by many people in today's era. But, I liked how Dr. Garcia pointed out last discussion that the world was never devoid of its brokenness nor was it less broken before. We have just become more aware of the world's brokenness. Honestly, I don't actually fully comprehend this statement of sir but I think he meant that sooner or later the evils of the world, and good as well, would slowly unveil themselves as time would pass by. Decades or millenia from now, we, the 21st century individual, could actually be viewed morally superior or inferior to the people of the future.
ReplyDeleteThomas Matthew M. Mañalac
Ph101-A
As sir has mentioned in his discussion, the broken world is the result of our desire to manipulate or control everything and thus, shows how it's all about self-maintenance. People have become a little bit more selfish and focused on themselves and the immediate things around them which actually makes the world broken in the sense that the ability to extend oneself to others have diminished. As the comment above states, "We have just become more aware of the world's brokenness", I think that in this time and age, we have become more aware because we already know what we want (in relation to our career, life goals, etc.) that at some point, we are so focused on achieving them, we spend so little time in directing ourselves to what is beyond us. Moreover, people become more and more materialistic due also to the fact that the world is becoming modernized each day with all these technologies coming in. At some point, sir mentioned that the technique becomes the end goal itself.. like we're living for these concrete material things.
ReplyDeleteCara Garcia, Ph101 - A
I agree with a lot of his points. But not everything. For me, he's overthinking things. I mean, yeah I get what he means that the broken world is when there is a will to control, dominate and manipulate and that we want to control everything. But for me, technique is a necessity. If technique did not exist, we would not be in this progressive world we are in now.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, I do agree there are downsides to techniques. :( If the manipulation and controlling gets worse, it could lead to the loss of the real community as what Marcel had pointed out. We'll just simply see other people as the "xerox lady", "the janitor". We have LABELS. Methods of distinction such as money, prestige, solidarity and power. And we need to void ourselves of these labels. By doing so, we will be able to see the "human" in every person and not just their job description. If we could simply try to fight this fight against labels, we will be in at least a better "broken world".
-Jason Dacuyan PH101A
Marcel did not say that we have to discard techniques altogether. Techniques are necessary, or else our own "worlds" (meaning our lives) will always be a big mess and we will have to grapple around every single day of our lives. What he is saying is that techniques are useful, but not everything can be reduced to techniques.
DeleteIt's funny that you've mentioned Suits in your blog post. I think it shows some examples of how the world's broken-ness, especially on how Harvey and Louis always try to "manipulate" Mike, and how the characters try to make everything go their way. (eg. when Louis blackmails Mike)
ReplyDeletePS.
Sorry for the Suits reference. I just feel like I had to comment that one. But basically, I was just trying to point out, from what I understood, examples of what makes the world broken.
Nathaniel Barretto
Ph101-A
Woohoo, Suits! Good job noticing that. If you are already watching Season 2, I want you to notice how manipulation intensifies with the brewing conflict between Jessica Pearson and Daniel Hardman. It will also be interesting how Mike Ross struggles to maintain his humanity and resist becoming another Harvey Specter.
DeleteAnd also how Jessica is trying to threat Louis into firing him if he chooses the wrong vote. This shows how manipulative people can get if they want something. Also, I love how we are seeing a softer side of Harvey when Donna agreed to be a witness in the mock trial. He got out of his way to defend Donna and showed how he extended himself to others, as opposed to being his arrogant self. There's hope for this broken world after all.
DeleteAnd on a related note, let's see what will happen once the season finale kicks in.
DeleteI find it also intriguing (and a bit amazing) how lawyers like Harvey are able to manipulate people into approving with a particular agreement and the like. As I reflect, I can remember some instances in my life where I also manipulated or was manipulated by someone else. I think this shows the brokenness of our world, as discussed by Marcel.
DeleteA question I wanted to ask was brought up by one of our classmates last meeting about Marcel's idea of a broken world. The question was: Is there such thing as an "unbroken" world?
ReplyDeleteThe definition of a broken world being one enamored by techniques and an obsession with the material made me think, hasn't the world then always been broken? If we talk about man's insatiable desire for material wealth, then this truth is evident in history. Violence among pre-historic humans was often due to a want for more territory and resources. As time progressed, this did not change. The same wars have been fought, compromising human life by the thousand. Even today, governments of states face a trade-off between economic prosperity and caring for the environment. More often than not, they favor the former in their policies.
I recall Dr. Garcia saying that the world today is even more broken, and perhaps with regards to an increasing reliance on technology, this is true. But I guess it bothered me to realize that in the context of material gain, our world has always been broken or at least a bit fractured. This is where I see the value of reflection come in. Our tendency to pursue material wealth may not be completely removable but at least we can achieve a kind of awareness of what really matters, our spirituality.
Forgive me for disagreeing but I do not believe it is appropriate to say that we caused this flood. Yes, we may have worsened it because of our careless attitude of clogging up our drainage for example, but like you said, we have to accept that there are things that are out of our control - typhoons and monsoons being some of them.
ReplyDeleteAnother point I want to bring out is that while I do believe that sometimes, people really tend to become too self-centered that we may forget about caring for others, I do believe that people still have a heart to care. More often than not, it just gets buried in the business of this fast-paced, technology-driven, narcissistic world that only a big disastrous occurrence like this flood would wake up that caring heart buried deep within each one of us.
- Lica Lee PH101 C
I'm not sure if the quote you put in this blog post is a part of Suits as I've never watched the series. Nonetheless, it's quite perfect for the topic at hand. The techniques we use today have brought us advances in science and technology but at the point where we have grown greedy - always wanting, always yearning. I can't deny that these sciences and technologies have eased our lives but then it is also at our own expense. We've grown more selfish, indolent and especially dependent on material things that we haven't got the heart to open our eyes and see that these things are slowly destroying us. It's as if nothing has meaning anymore. When we grow old, we'll turn into abstract individuals who'll use other people for our own benefit. Will this be the case in each and every generation? I really hope not. I've learned from this that we should take the step to become better people as we break free of this thinking that abstract individuals exist. This way, we can at least try to relieve the world from becoming more broken than it is now.
ReplyDelete-M. Cua, PH 101 A
The quote I included was from Marcel :)
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