Day after Midterms

The start of February was met with much hope and big expectations for the things to come that month. This was particularly true to today’s meeting. It was again Christmas on a warm February humid day. Judgement day was at hand. The questions that were in the midterm examinations were discussed one by one in class. The three questions given at the first part of the examination was the first to be discussed. The syntax of any appropriate answer lies on the organization of the writer’s thoughts. In discussing what are ISAs and RSAs, one has first to discuss Marx’s battle at the material base and then proceed to Althusser’s relative autonomy of the social superstructure. An effective answer should also state that an ISA is used to perpetuate desired values and maintain social order. When the mechanism employed by an ISA breaks down, the mechanism of the RSAs will then take over. The second question was somewhat a give-away question. The religious ISA is obviously the most dominant among the existing ISAs. The religious ISA was able to penetrate the other ISAs. With the catholic values in place, the focus shifted to an individual’s spirituality rather than one’s materiality. The Church was success in their effort to package their values to that of “the Word of God”. Secondly, the Church’s obscurantism was the focal point of their ideology. The natives should be kept in the dark away from the light a formal education offers. In the end, the religious ISA present in the time of Rizal was able to retard the development of the factors of production and, in turn, maintain the Feudal system.

The third question was a bit trickier than the first two. After studying both Marx and Hegel, it was confusing which of the two philosophers was Rizal most influenced by. As it turns out Rizal was more of Hegelian theorist. The primacy of thought was his utmost concern for his all his reforms. Rizal, being a true nationalist, felt that to be liberated means one has to get rid of one’s false consciousness. One has to be aware of the inter-play of the forces at work, forces that subconsciously affect how people live and emulate certain social values. It was only at this point that I truly appreciated the approach in which Professor Fernandez handled the first half of our class’ PI 100 discussions. Instead of focusing on Rizal’s trivial facts, she focused on what is essential. This was Rizal’s obsession on the Hegelian theory and from which, his groundwork to his novels and other political writings sprouted. The answer to the fourth question reveals that bias is inherent in history-writing. A writer always has a political agenda in consideration that consequently leads to focus on certain areas. I particularly liked the example used for this number. The local Philippine media has had varying focus in their reports. Most of these deal with issues concerning corruption and weak leadership, but never on critical issues that addresses the issue of the national sovereignty and how foreign external forces always breach the Philippine sovereignty. The fifth question was simply answered by stating Rizal’s understanding of Antonio de Morga’s limited perspective on the customs and norms of the natives he was writing about. Rizal’s annotation gave light to misconception on the pre-Hispanic natives and ultimately depicts the Philippines with a golden past. I answered the sixth and last question by using the contrasting examples of J.M. Sison’s subversive Rizal and the elitist and timid Rizal portrayed by the Knights of Rizal’s ideology of him. Overall, the exercise of looking back to these critical questions made me appreciate more the method this class was handled – focus on the essentials and the ideologies Rizal used. I found out that it is only by this approach can one give meaning to the brilliance of the philosopher in Rizal. (02/01/2011)