Existing

by Trixia Tan

Last Thursday, the thing that really boggled my mind was the question of Existence. I mean, how to really know that we exist? How to know that we aren’t just in a dream or a figment of some imagination or hallucination? Or that we aren’t invisible?


This question seems to be answered easily with just saying “because I exist” but the things is, how do I know that I really exist? How do I know that this is the real world and not a dream reality that I just conjured up? Like in the 2010 movie Inception, wherein the protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife forgot about the real world because they lived in their conjured up “dream” reality, only knowing the real from the imaginary when Leonardo found his totem spinning endlessly. However their going back to the real world caused the wife’s hallucination of the dream world as the reality to surface, which raises the question for me, how do we know that we exist in the reality?  To help me answer these questions, I compiled a list.

The ways to know that you exist

1. When there are documents that give proof of your existence. You have birth certificates, diplomas, records, and other documents that can attest to the fact that you are existing in this world.
2. When you check the mirror, and you can see your reflection. A ghost or someone who doesn’t exist wouldn’t know to look in the mirror, and there wouldn’t be any matter to look at.
3. When a person looks at you and doesn’t look through you. This means that you are not a ghost. It tells you that you exist in the eyes of that person and that you are physically in existence. 
4. When something you move would move and fall like any normal object. An object wouldn’t move in the first place without any existing force from an existing person and as was in the movie,Inception, the protagonists’ totem doesn’t stop spinning when they are in the dream world, so when the object we move falls, this can also mean that we are in reality.
5. When you do something and you get recognized. Like when you won something and an award was given or even in more simplistic moments when you are thanked at. 
6. When you touch someone. Like physically touch someone, it means that you are physically present for that someone to feel your presence. 
7. When you think of this question. This means that you are aware enough to ask this question and that can certainly assure you that you exist.

Based on this list, one can say that to know that we exist, there should be an interaction with the world. We can know that we exist when we are part of the community. As was discussed, we can know that we exist when we participate in the world and when we know that we are aware of the things around us. When in a sense, we are in being. 

Spectrum

by Miguel Jimenez

For this blog post I wanted to attempt to illustrate Gabriel Marcel’s meaning of Truth through a medium in which I thought related to the topic. I feel like the best way to try to explain philosophy is to try to give examples that relate, albeit weirdly, to the topic. I’m no physicist but, whenever I thought about Marcel’s truth and being in the lighted milieu, I was always reminded about one of the most interesting physics topics that I learned in high school, the Visible Spectrum (ROY G. BIV) that the human eye could see. So, taking the “lighted milieu” and the “light” literally, I will attempt to explain Marcel’s idea of truth through some examples and insights I gathered throughout the course of the lectureas well as during times of my own personal reflection using some concepts of the visible spectrum.

In a physical sense, white light, when it hits a glass prism, breaks up into the visible spectrum. This spectrum is the range of colors that our eyes can see. When light hits an object, the color it gives off or reflects is the frequency of light that it cannot absorb. In other words, a particular object, other than the color that it gives off, is absorbing all the other colors. If light doesn’t reach the object, no color is given off. Imagine a leaf in the tree in your backyard; you go to the tree, and notice that the leaf is green in color. Because sunlight is being shown on the leaf, it is reflecting the frequency of the color green to your eyes, and therefore you can say that the leaf is colored green. When it is night time, no light is shown on the leaf and therefore, the leaf doesn’t give off any particular color.

We can relate this to Gabriel Marcel’s interpretation of truth wherein we have to be in the light to be able to witness the truth that is illuminated or has been reflected from a specific object. We have to put ourselves in a lighted place to be able to see the truth. Similarly, we have to make light shine on the leaf for it to reflect it’s color in our eyes. If you are blind to the truth, you will not be able to see it becauseyou are preventing light from shining on it. It’s like trying to determine the color of the leaf in the nighttime or in darkness. In darkness, although you know that the leaf is there, you cannot determine its color because there is no light for it to reflect a color. However, if you are open to the truth and let the light shine into your eyes, you will be able to see the truth in its essence. This is just like being able to see the color green reflected from the leaf. Gabriel Marcel teaches us that you will only see the truth if you are willing to step into the lighted place, or the lighted milieu, if you are in darkness you will not be able to see the truth. We must place ourselves in the light in order to see the truth of the reality that is in our midst.

Truth is an aspect of reality, of which is two-dimensional. There is an objective reality and a subjective reality in which the aspect of truth is embedded.For this metaphor, the physical object, leaf, that I can touch, feel and be in the presence of is the objective reality. Alternatively, the color of the leaf is the subjective reality because it depends on the frequency of light that hits it which determines its color. The color it gives of is the subjective reality where the aspect of truth lies.

One cannot claim to hold the absolute truth, because if someone says that, he is saying that he is like God.God is the one and only holder of the absolute truth. As humans, we can only derive from the absolute truth because of our own biases, perceptions and different points of view. Additionally, it depends upon ones sense of values, backgrounds and experiences which defines the truth for them. Because we can only pick out derivatives of the absolute truth, the closest we can get to the absolute truth is a consensus between people. Using our garden metaphor, God would be like the sun, who shines the purest form of white light, making the leaf reflect its perfect and absolute color of green. The subjective aspect of truth would be like flashlights, which have different lights that aren’t as pure as the sun’s white light. This is so because whenever the flashlights shine their lights on the leaf, although it may reflect the color green, the leaf isn’t emitting its purest, absolute color.

Truths are subjective because it depends on the person who interprets the truth or the light that determines what is true for them. To illustrate this further, imagine it is nighttime and two friends are in the backyard each holding their own flashlights that are different in brand, use(tactical, work, camping flashlights) and luminescence (strength of light). One friend goes up to the leaf and shines his flashlight that gives off a yellowish light;because of this, although the reflection of the leaf is still green it would have a different hue or contrast in color than that of the leaf under sunlight. Another friend goes up to the leaf and shines light on it with his blue colored flashlight, again, a different hue of green appears which differs from the first friend who was holding a different flashlight and the pure form of white light coming from the sun. Say these two friends were quarreling about what color the leaf actually was. The first friend says that the leaf was (as an example) “yellow-green” while the other friend said that the leaf was “dark green.” Both friends say these things because they knew that when they shined their flashlights on the leaf, their respective colors reflected from the leaf. However, if they both shine their lights at the same time, wherein they combine both of their flashlight’s strengths, colors and luminescence, they would get a similar color. This in essence is what is called consensus.

Truths are limited and personal within the person’s immediate environment. In my opinion, truths have a radius, where if we were there to see it, then it would be our personal truth no matter how limited and shallow it may be compared to reality. As humans, we can only mold and interpret facts that we obtain from the objective reality and create our own personal subjective truths about a particular topic. Adding to this, we can also only hope to get close to the actual truth by learning more and obtaining more facts so as to be able to interpret and analyze it to form a deeper truth in which we know isn’t absolute but more of a consensus that is agreed upon by a community of truth seekers. I guess this is what Marcel meant when he talked about being with the lighted community and being in the lighted milieu. In relation to the illustration, this is why the friends have different flashlights. Independently, they both see the leaf in a different color, but with the question of what the actual color of the leaf is lurking in their minds, they can only hope to get closer to the answer by putting their lights together and shining them both at the leaf at the same time. It is this difference of illumination that creates communities of people with different truths. What might be green for a certain community might not be so for another community. This might be one of the reasons to why we have issues such as differences in religion or the correct way to raise a child.

With this being said, it is hard for humans to want to be open to see the truth because of the responsibilities and consequences that come with it. Marcel mentions an armor in which we put ourselves in to shield ourselves from the light of truth. In other words, because the fear of the truth and the responsibilities it brings is real and innate in humans, our defense mechanism is to shield ourselves to the truth in order to keep ourselves in this constant state of unknowing, which is what I think human nature is comfortable with. Therefore, it takes courage for one to take off his armor and fight the naïve side of him and look and see the truth and find out what responsibilities and consequences he has to undertake by knowing the truth.


Veering away from the leaf example (although it would technically be like trying to determine the color of the leaf at night or while wearing shades during the day), I’d like to illustrate this point by using one of the scariest things that all college students will have to face in their time in school, marks on an exam. Say you pulled an all-nighter studying for a midterm that you were so sure was next month, but instead, someone tells you that it is on this day. You get to class, take the test and the following day, your teacher hands back the exam. Before you get the exam back, or even, after the test when you’re going home reflecting upon which questions you messed up or what word you misspelled, your brain is constantly fighting itself over whether you did well or not in the exam. Your mind is in the constant state of unknowing, and because of this, is mentally building and constructing false truths or “what if’s” that may either scare you more or keep you at a confident state. So you’re in class, patiently waiting for your name to be called out. This whole time, your mind is scared of the possibilities that may arise. Personally, when my teachers call out my name for me to get the test in front of the room, it becomes, literally, one of the scariest parts of my entire life. You’re name gets called out, you walk toward your teacher holding your paper, you get your exam paper, walk back to your seat and you fold your paper in half covering the score. Without light hitting the bright red ink markings of your teacher’s pen in the front page, you will not be able to see the score of your exam because it is being blocked by the back page where you folded the paper. This is like the armor that we put on ourselves to shield us from the truth. Because we fold our papers to hide us from the score we got, we shield ourselves from the responsibilities we will have to face by seeing our marks on the exam. It really takes courage for one to open up his exam paper, look at the mark and accept the responsibilities and consequences he has to face. By opening up the page, you allow light to reflect on the front page, which makes the scribbles of the ink in your teacher’s pen absorb all colors except red.

The Fallacy of Sleeping With A Goat

by Nick Fortuna

I want to contrast with a lot of the answers we got earlier to the question of when we would be most aware of our own existence - the answer was often to the effect of our emotional highs: Major achievements such as getting in to a preferred college, or being immersed in your own passion.

I want to talk about situations where we forget, or even deny the "I." Appropriately, these are moments of shame.

There's a certain thought experiment my friends throw around as a joke that I brought up to a few people recently, and it goes like this: Would you rather sleep with a goat, and no one would ever find out, or would you rather not sleep with a goat but have everyone think that you did, with absolutely no hope of convincing them otherwise?

Now, it is a perfectly legitimate and defensible answer to prefer not to deal with the social consequences of having society think you shagged a goat, and to therefore just shag the goat. That isn't the fallacy here.
The answers I got though were subtly different, and, I believe, relevant to our class: If no one knows, then it's as if it never happened. The difference isn't very apparent at first, but we must look at the language. It is as if the event had never happened, not that it just doesn't have any consequences. It is, then, as if the existence is premised on an other's experience with that reality. One person even went so far as to say that they were basing their answer in Heidegger, comparing the act to a fallen tree that no one ever sees.
The fallacy here is quite simple - If you shagged that goat, then you would know, regardless of if anyone else does, and therefore the situation will have actually happened - but it would seem that there were a subconscious attempt to avoid that reality. It feels a bit like a stretch, but I say this because unless you deny the "I"'s presence at the act, then the argument that it may as well not have happened simply wouldn't feel sensible.


This happens in real life all the time: When people are at fault for something - and experiencing the shame of that - they try to deny accountability, or fault, or agency in the situation. They deny the self's presence (and therefore derivative things, like agency) to justify fault. For example, lawmakers deny having been involved enough with the cybercrime bill to have known about the libel clause, despite having discussed and voted on it.

Press Start

by Riel Evangelista

In our last discussion in class, we talked about truth and how people opt to find and see the truth. We have different views on the truth and it varies from one individual to another, although there are instances in which one’s truth is the same as another, so in a way, the truth is intersubjective. As we had this discussion, it reminded me of a videogame. Thinking of video games during class isn’t really the best thing to think about while discussing philosophy, but I started to relate our discussion to this video game.

The video game is called, “Curiosity - What’s Inside the Cube?” it is a mobile cellphone game made by 22cans, a small game company, headed by Peter Molyneux (Creator of Fable and Populous). The game is different from other games, since it’s more of a social experiment than a game. The mechanics of the game is simple, you are given a virtual cube with a LOT of layers and cubelets (more than 10 billion cubelets) and you are tasked to break each cubelet by touching it and in doing so makes you one step closer to discovering what’s inside the cube.

You may think that doing this alone is a huge pain, but the game is a multiplayer game, meaning you’re not the only one doing all the work. People from all over the world, who are playing the game, are also taking part in this tedious task of breaking cubelets, just to find out what really is inside the cube.

So where’s the discussion in “The Mystery of Being” play out in this? In this game, we are put in this place where we are tasked with this giant cube, this place is the “intelligible milieu”, the place to see the truth / a community of seekers of truth (other players also playing the game with you). “You can only see the truth, if it has value to you”, so in a way if the truth has value to you, you would spend hours breaking each and every cubelet in the game.

The other “seekers of truth” and their different points of views on the truth are reflected in that the cube has different “faces/sides” and one may work on a different side than the other. In breaking the cubelets we are slowly overcoming our fear of seeing the truth, since it takes courage to see the truth (and its a lot of work to break these cubelets). Once we finally break all the cubelets (finding the truth) we feel enlightened and it is an end to an inner struggle.


Truth is a mystery. There are moments in our life where we makes these choices that would have a huge effect on ourselves. I believe that life is a journey in which we find our own “truths” in this life. We may find it in different forms and it will be a defining moment for us, once we find it.

Animality

by Mao Tan

Reflection is what feeds human desire for transcendence which ought to flourish human existence, to find value and meaning in our lives. True it is that without reflection, man forgets his nature of exigency that will make him fail to realize meaning and wholeness in his life. However, in the modern setting of our world, what seems to be true is that people seemingly indulging in the idea that reflection kills life. Included in this setting is me.

Just yesterday, I was walking along outside the Katipunan LRT station on my way to have a fancy dinner with my friend.  As I passed by the station, which is like always filled with beggars, street children and people rushing from the station, I thought to myself, don’t these rushing people put any value in those beggars? From the distance, I thought that the people from the LRT were thinking nothing about those beggars but trashes and eye sore. As I was approaching the beggars, one kid went to me to which I did not bother to give alms. Why would I concern myself with them anyway? All I had to look forward to then was the dinner that I would surely enjoy and not those beggars, coming to me and asking for coins. Then I realized, I had reduced the concept of my life to a manifestation of animality, only myself mattered above everything.  I thought that only those passersby were selfish but in the moment, I too was being egocentric. Nothing mattered to me except for joys and pleasures that I experience in my life. Because the only thing I thought about was the fancy dinner which would feed my enjoyment, I forgot that life isn’t just about my own joys but reaching out to the others around me. Looking at my whole experience, I realized that reflection does kill life. As I was trying to reflect, I was awakened from the illusion of selfishness that I got myself into.


During that moment, I thought that the joy and pleasure I find in food would give meaning to how I would live my life which got me disconnected from the beggars, forgetting that they are also humans and we live in the same world. Looking at it, I wasn’t really living out what human life is supposed to be. All throughout the moment, I was just trying to ignore the importance of reflecting on it which I knew would get me off the tracks to my own enjoyment.Yes, reflection kills life only if you think that life will just revolve around your own joys and satisfaction.  Reflection is somewhat KJ but we should remember that life isn’t just about joys. It is not just about ourselves but being with others to whome we must reach out. As humans, we should look at our own lives, and remind ourselves of what the primary essence of our being is.

Mulan

by Chris Estrada

What is reflection? Allow me to tear a page out of sir’s book by defining the word through its etymology. The word reflection comes from two Latin wordsre- "back"  and flectere "to bend". To put it in another way, reflection means that we look back on a certain thing or ponder on a certain problem that we are facing.

Allow me to reflect for the moment. In order for one to reflect on something, he must first find a problem that is worthy of putting his thoughts into. At the moment, my main concern is the smothering of my friends. At times, I feel as though I’m usually with friends. Most of the time, I don’t have much time for myself. There are times when I even sacrifice my study time because a certain friend has abandonment issues or another friend is spazzing about this new girl in the org. I feel as though there’s not enough time to just unwind from my already busy schedule. I find myself obligated to cater to my friends’ needs all the time.

I then ask myself why I try so hard to cater to my friends’ needs? I ask myself, “Why do you sacrifice you time and effort for them at your own expense.” I’ve been asking myself this, and only one answer keeps popping up: I know what it feels like to be abandoned. I know how it feels like to be abandoned by someone you care about, and how a void is created that just can’t be filled. I know the feeling of betrayal when most of the people you respected and trusted just decide to find another person to replace you. The pain is unbearable, maddening even. It is not something that should be experienced by anyone. Ever. I take this as the most logical cause of my sacrifice. It may sound arrogant, but it’s the best answer at the moment.

This need to not let anyone feel abandoned or manipulated however does not excuse my over-extending to others. I am still a self that must not be seen as an expendable means to an end. I am a being of intelligence and worth, and I myself must recognize this. I must treat myself the way I treat others because at the moment, I can feel depression and fatigue kicking in. I must convert myself. Become someone different because by doing so, I can become a better person who can help more people.


Some people believe that reflection is the anti-thesis of living. By reflecting, you stay in one place, and not really enjoy the present. You remain stuck in the past until you finish your reflection. I say different. Living does not rely solely on the present. The past is also an important factor in living as there is experience accumulated from it, and this experience helps us make the right choice in the present.

The Subjective Time

by Andrew Gallardo

Time, for me, is one powerful entity that encompasses the actions of many creatures. Indeed, it is a part of the way of life and it dictates the way of life of all creatures in this world. It is an inevitable force that makes the world spin, and, conscious or not, makes the life go on.

Yet, there is something about time that always leaves me wondering. Why is it not fixed? Why is it that there is no such law that dictates a set time for everyone? Can we not make an agreement that a midnight should really be a midnight for everyone, and not 11:59 in the evening for someone, and 12:01 in the morning for another?

I know that there is a new law now in this country that sets such fixed time, though administratively, I guess that it is not being followed. I mean, even until now, my wrist watch and our clock watch does not reflect the exact same time. But in a broader scope, someone in another country surely has a different time with me. To be specific, there is even an adjustment rule on how to convert your time with that to another land.

But no, I would not talk about physics, astrophysics, astronomy or whatever field of science that would explain why such difference of time occurs. Nor would I talk about how space influences time and all those philosophical explanations. I would just like to relate what I have learned in my philosophy class- about the subjectivity of the concept of truth.

For me, the concept of time concretely shows how the truth is relative to the rational that interprets it. It is hard to find a standard time that is being followed by anyone. Even the “Big Ben” in London is not being followed by all the Brits. Therefore, we can imply from the situation that the meaning that we derive from the numeric time is the one that truly matters.

We all know that in these recent days, some people, especially those who work as call centre agents, have a rather different “take” on time than what we usually have. While most of us relate night time into sleeping, some people like the call centre agents and the guards have a contrary view to this. And while for Spanish and Italians, there would always be a siesta after lunch; some countries only treat this time as a normal mid-afternoon.

Again, maybe indeed, people do not bother in setting a fixed time for everyone for it is not really the numeric time that matters, but rather, it is what we do on those times that truly affect us. Each of us has our own “take” on a time. Personally now, in my case, night time until around 2:00 is the “working time” for me and 2:00 to 8:00 is the proper sleeping time. While a friend of mine sleeps from 10:00 in the evening until 6:00 in the morning. This subjectivity of the concept of time shows how a fact can mean so much different for anyone. And we should not force ourselves into brushing off this difference; rather, we should respect it, for the truth is indeed subjective- it relates to the very person itself of the meaning-giver.


And perhaps, that subjectivity of time is the one that gives birth to the adjectives that relates to the essence of time, such as the word “timeless”. For indeed, there is something more than the computed detail between things- something that mere words could never and should be enough to describe. And contrary to what I have stated earlier, it is not really the numeric time which should dictate the action. Rather, what we do on those times defines what the time is for us. And, certainly, it is really our actions that makes a time “timeless”.

Towards the Light

by Jem Tan

The road to reaching your full potential is not always an easy one. I, for one, am still struggling. But I will eventually get there, slowly yet surely.

I used to be that person who was self-centered and apathetic to everything else but my own needs and wants. I was stuck in a routine, but it was a routine that could be likened to quicksand. I was afraid of getting hurt by others, and by extension, I became afraid of trying out new things. Looking back, it was extremely selfish. It meant that I needed to get what I wanted and expected out of others, and if I couldn't, I would just walk away from them. In order to drown my anxiety, I occupied myself with fiction and games, and spending hours on my laptop. But eventually, I realized that I could not go on living such a life. I needed to change myself. To put it in Dr. Garcia's words, maybe this was the experiencing of both dissatisfactions. The first dissatisfaction was concerning my frustration with the world. And after some reflection, I experienced a second dissatisfaction. This time, I was dissatisfied with myself. I wanted an inner transformation. I wanted to transcend my current self. I wanted to go out into the real world, and become the best person I can be—not only for myself, but also for others.

As Dr. Garcia said in his lecture, finding the truth is an inner struggle. There are two aspects of every person: the "you" who wants to open the door of the truth; and there is also the "you" who is on the other side of the door, who wants to keep the door closed. The truth requires courage, but once the door is opened, it sets you free. Perhaps that is why we experience an inner struggle when we finally realize that there is something we need to change in ourselves. There is always that part of us who resists change and wants to keep our stagnant routines. Whenever we try to get out of our comfort zone, there is always that tiny devil on our shoulder whispering: "Don't bother with change and just stay where you are right now!" That is why finding out that you need to change something is just the first step. It requires courage to actually accept that you need to change, and to go through with that change.


If we want something to change, we need to plug both ears in order not to let that devil's words get to us. We must follow that light which beckons us. We must dive into the unknown, and it is by doing so that we get to know more about the world and also ourselves. We may never fully get to know the Truth—but if we sit on our laurels, we sure won't get any closer to it.

In A Trance

by Cole Tan

Reading Marcel, I honestly did not understand the word transcendence in the reading. Granted I was En 10 but even using context clues on the reading made me more confused. =)) Anyway, silently listening to Dr. Garcia, and yes I mean silent because again I had no idea what to recite, I started understanding the word transcendence.

Transcendence is doing more than what is expected, at least how I understood it. So like Dr. Garcia said “For example you’re in a corridor and you see people doing different kind of things, some people are laughing, some are studying, some are sweet you are aware of these people. Being aware that you are aware of others is like being transcendent. More than being conscious of others, you are conscious of yourself being conscious of others.” (I might have paraphrased a bit but that was the general idea ahahaha) And Sir Earl asked us what we have done recently that is in line with the whole idea of transcendence.

Last semester, I was faced with a grave dilemma (at least it seemed that heavy at that point in my life) whether to run for Second Year Batch Representative and retain my position in the Executive Board or drop my position and start from the bottom up for something I truly want. Like anyone would do, I weighed the pros and cons. If I stay in my position, I would have been EB for three straight years in the same position with only the first three characters in the title changing (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), the freshmen will remember me faster, I would still have a voice in decision making for the org, I will have free org shirts and lanyards, I get to go to Lex Camp for free and would probably have a greater chance of becoming a president having known the constitution at the back of my mind and the would have been three executive titles to back my campaign. Cons: It’s going to be another year of weekly 1.5 hour meetings and monthly 3 hour meetings, another year of texting all 135 LM majors for updates, another year of un-magis-like studying for long tests, and another year of questioning my worth to the org.

The pros truly outnumbered the cons. However, I knew I will not be satisfied nor will I be happy in that position. And so, I chose to give my position to a person I truly believe can do the work, trained her and I moved on to work under both the Executive Board and the Associate Vice Presidents as a Core Head, a Project Manager , and a Marketing Director. I have exemplified transcendence by choosing to do what I love and in extension doing more for my org rather than fulfilling my wants and my desire to be president. Well, as for that last part, there’s still a way. AHAHAHAHHA But we’ll still see.


xoxo

Savagery

by Robert Go

Okay, so I just had my first Long Test a while ago in my Hi165 class entitled Rizal and the Emergence of the Philippine Nation. Since a lot of the concepts and topics that I studied for are still fresh in my mind, I thought that it would be best to use these tidbits and actually attempt to relate it to Marcel’s piece. I realize it might be a bit boring talking about these pre-colonial native Filipinos, but please bear with me. Who knows maybe you could actually learn a thing or two?

Did you know that the indigenous society during pre-colonial Philippines possessed an extremely flexible social structure quite unlike the rigid Indian caste system. The flexibility and high degree of social mobility was caused by the fact that people were more important than land. In the past, indigenous society experienced low population density which meant that there weren’t enough people to cultivate the surrounding land; the lack of labor force made land irrelevant. As a result, the power of the tribal leaders (datus) lied in the number of followers they possessed. However, since there was a high demand for followers, the people had to ability to choose which datu they would follow. They would often times choose to align themselves with the ‘better’ datu who not only had more alliances or military conquests but also one who could provide his followers with more protection, feasts and even gifts. With this, they could shift allegiances at any moment based on their assessment of the datu.

The very fact that pre-colonial Filipinos would shift their commitment to someone else based on who could provide them with the most benefits shows the lack of loyalty and the high priority set on self-interest during that period thus giving us a glimpse of how broken our world really was and even is. Marcel talks about how this world is broken because of our narcissism. We are filled in a world full of I’s and me’s, in a world where people have become reduced to abstract individuals. Our brokenness stems from how we only see people as investments; we immediately look for what that a certain individual can provide us or how can they be useful to us. Their specific functions then overshadow the other aspects of their humanity that we fail to see. Consequently, this detachment and lost sense of community affects how we interact with people today just like how the pre-colonial social structure used to operate.

Another fun fact: when Magellan and the Spaniards arrived in the Philippines, they were able to persuade a local datu named Raja Humabon to pledge allegiance them. However, once Magellan was defeated in the Battle of Mactan, Raja Humabon invited all the remaining Spaniards to a feast where they slaughtered all the Spaniards. A very ruthless yet practical action since they could no longer benefit from the Spaniards. The natives saw no reason to align themselves anymore with the foreigners since their lost portrayed them as weak and useless to them. It may be an extremely brutal act on the part of the natives, but can we really say that we are less barbaric? In modern context, we may have actually done something similar where we just get rid of people who are no longer of use to us as a result of our broken priorities.


At the end of last Thursday’s class, a question was given to all of us: how do we respond to this brokenness? Unfortunately, I have no answer to this question since I believe that to finally fix and create an unbroken world is too ideal. It may sound a bit pessimistic, but I believe it is just truly impossible. The structure in which we are live in calls for the survival of the fittest. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there where one’s own self-interest prevails over all and this has continued on for the longest of the times. The world wasn’t broken just when Gabriel Marcel wrote this piece 50 or so years ago, but it was already broken even during pre-colonial times. This world forever was, is and will be broken, but it’s just how we choose to live in this broken world that could set us apart from the savages.

From Computer Screens To The Real World

by Anna Grafilo

Social networks changed the way we communicate with other people these days. It became easier for us to talk with our friends and relatives through instant messengers like Skype and Facebook messenger and e-mails. The purpose of these technologies is primarily to bring people who cannot be physically near you closer by allowing us to have a faster way to communicate with them. Some people say that social network is one of the things that caused this world to be fragmented. They say that the technology that was supposed to bring people closer also is one of the reasons why our society becomes more and more fragmented. An example of how social networks show how fragmented we are, are in the photos itself. Humans are social beings and it reflects on some older photographs where most of them feature a family or a group of friends but we can see a shift that from family and friends the photos that we take are slowly becoming centered with ourselves. In one Facebook account we could see that the owner has may be hundreds of thousand of photos with them but there is also sometimes one album besides the profile pictures album containing their 'selfies'. Selfies are basically pictures of only yourself and no one else.

But it is not with the pictures that we see how social networks are instruments or further fragmenting the world we live in. We could see it also by the way we interact with each other. Sometimes I would see people in the cafeteria sitting across each other but their attention is not with the person they are with it is with the person on the phone or sometimes they are with the person physically but the attention is not there it is with their phones or laptops playing games or another person they are talking to. For me it is rude because you are together supposedly to spend time and interact with each other but what happens was that they are there physically but not mentally.

People say that because of social networks our interactions with other people becomes more and more distant, in a way we prefer to talk to them facing the screen than talk to them face to face because it is more comfortable. We have thousands of friends in Facebook but we do not know all of them personally. But is it really the social networks are not really the ones to blame for the further fragmentation of the world, we are the ones to blame. Going back to the purpose of social networks it was created by the people who wanted it to be an instrument to connect people all over the world to bring our loved ones closer. It is us that give these technologies a purely selfish purpose and then blame them for the growing distance among us mentally and emotionally.


I think that the world that was broken years before us and our own broken world are the same. The world during 1950’s are the same as 2013’s people go on with their lives without a care for what other people do and what they are experiencing. But we can still try to repair this broken world. It may not fully heal but we can still try by doing simple things like greeting other people or like trying to relate to other people and not just the class you belong in by getting ourselves to be more exposed to the reality that not all of us have it easy. Maybe the world will never fully heal from its fragmentation but maybe just maybe we try to reach out and give an effort to heal it.