The Economist Special Report on the Taming the Leviathan.

Some of you may be interested to spend your extra time, especially this coming vacation to read this special report  on Taming the Leviathan. This is a series of articles examining the contemporary status of the state, to a certain extent we can say that this is a re-reading of Hobbes’s Leviathan in the age of technology and financial crisis.

To those who are graduating, teach yourself to always stay close to an academic or intellectual life before you are gobbled by what ever profession you may end up on later on. It is not uncommon for me to hear former students complaining about the erosion of their intellect the moment they start working. Out there, there is a strange world where you can survive and succeed even without reading a single book in your career. Its terrifying, its dangerous for your intellect. Its like being in the middle of the Sahara, Sahel or Atacama.

Side Stories  No. 13

Brian C. Ventura

Miagao, Iloilo

 

All swans are either checkered or have zebra stripes

Over dinner, my colleagues and I had a short discussion about the movie Black Swan and other Oscars winners. One colleague shared the reading by the main star of the movie, Natalie Portman, which I incidentally forgot. I shared my reading of the film too and another colleague told me that it is a Freudian reading. I am not really very well versed with Sigmund Freud’s ideas so I do not know what to say. But this is what I shared to them as my reading.

Nina’s (Ms. Portman in the movie) struggle is really about taming the black swan in her because she has been suppressing it all her life in order to appear white-good girl, clean, disciplined.   In other words, what I am suggesting is that there is really no such thing as a white swan or a black swan. All swans have both colors. Nina struggled to unleash it because she needed to free herself to float on stage and allow her blackness to vibrate to the audience, in the middle of other white dancers. However, this need to unearth something from her darkness unleashed a part of her that she really needed but was not able to tame early on. As a result, the only way for her to benefit from her black side is to be almost totally out of control, not just on stage but most especially in her life offstage.

She would have been in a less precarious situation if she allowed the black swan to spread its wings early on, feel the freedom but  control it as well. It needs to be released early on because the taming requires a long time to master. It needs to be released because you can never tell if one needs a black feather or a white feather to deal with things confronting life. A person should be able to know how to use both, and doing so means the need to master how both types of feathers can be placed on standby and under disposal. It is somewhat similar to Machiavelli’s suggestion that a prince should be able to fight using law and force, to be both a fox and use intelligence, and a lion to use force, this is because there is no certainty as to what circumstances will require you to use.

I don’t know if this is Freudian, but I sure am more familiar with Machiavelli than with Freud so the slant of my interpretation.

Side Stories No. 12

Brian C. Ventura

Staff House Study

Miagao, Iloilo

Because we need to deal with the outside world

Unfortunately, however, the blogosphere is like a desert without even a single oasis in sight when it comes to academic discussions in Philippine international relations and foreign policy. There are plenty of journalists’s blogsite reporting on Philippine international relations New York Times Manila correspondent Carlos Conde has NutGraf, or we can also check many independent journalism sites like PCIJ and Newsbreak. These sites, however, do not exclusively focus on international relations and foreign policy. Therefore  it is fair to say that there is really no home for Philippine IR and foreign policy discussions in the blogosphere. And that is why I think a dedicated blog will fill that gap.

Actually this is just a semi-pretentious way of  saying that I have finally mustered enough energy from a cup (Or more) of espresso to start giving life to a long dormant and next to empty blog. I am of course talking about my other blog Philippine International Relation Forum.

I am inviting everybody to visit it and comment. Also you may be interested to contribute. I need all the help I can muster to keep this blog flowing, either from a warm body or from a hot cup, just let it flow and flow.

 

Side Stories No. 11

Brian C. Ventura

Bluejay Cafe, Iznart Street, Iloilo City

M and M: Marcos and Mubarak and the Manila-Cairo Parallels

New York Time columnist Paul Krugman floated the idea of Manila Parallel to start a discussion that would compare what is happening in Cairo today with the fall of Marcos regime back in 1986. The similarities in the two cases are interesting.

Mubarak stayed in power for too long,  and just like the case of Marcos, his former supporters and the public became so tired of his staying in power.  Apparently, in both cases, it shows that a the public maybe able to support a strongman but the strongman really cannot learn to tell how long is enough.

The military, instrumental in toppling Marcos by withdrawing their support, is also a major player in “easing out” Mubarak from power. Both in the streets of Cairo today, and in Manila in 1986, the military appears to be in a precarious situation, doubting whether is will stick to the chain of command in the very moment when that very chain of command is starting to become a very brittle chain. Interesting too is stand of both militaries that they will never shoot the public and that they will only help maintain order.

The role of the US is another striking parallel. In EDSA I in 1986 as in Cairo today, an important ally that is totally out of the bounds of the democratic leadership that Washington claims to promote is in big trouble. The public seems to know what democracy they wan much much more than what Washington can claim to lecture to them. For Marcos then as for Mubarak today, the puzzle is the same, how will Washington project an image of global leadership without appearing like it is suddenly dropping an ally because of change in climate of public opinion, a change in climate that Washington was not able to predict, much less like to happen.

But will the events in Cairo lead to the same ending as the events in EDSA in 1986? Will it also lead to a Constitutional Convention that will try to create a new institution to cement the gains to the popular victory, only to be penetrated again by the same booted out elite after a decade or so?

Maybe there are other stringing similarities? Is there something that EDSA I can teach Egypt?

Side Stories No. 10

Brian C. Ventura

Bluejay Cafe, Iznart Street, Iloilo City

Silvio’s Heart-Stealing belly dancer and Tunisia’s imeldific first lady..

I mentioned in class a modern case of Machiavelli’s view of problem of women in politics in The Discourses. Machiavelli’s view is obviously sexist, but a more sensitive reading of his view is to point out that it is really about how leaders, predominantly man then as today, conduct their affairs with the opposite sex. Two examples in some of the most recent events in the world illustrate that Machiavelli’s warning to leaders still needs to be taken very seriously.

Aptly enough the one example I mentioned is about the affair of a leader in Machiavelli’s own country, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and his alleged affair with an underage dancer. Prosecutors in Milan started to investigate Mr. Berlusconi’s alleged involvement in a case of juvenile prostitution based on the allegation that he hired the service of an underaged belly dancer  not just to dance but to offer sexual services as well. The dancer, Ms Ruby Rubacouri (Ruby the Heart-stealer) was said to be only 17 years old when she was hired by Mr. Berluscuni, 76, to enliven one of his parties. Reports based on wiretaps also mentioned that Ruby started attending one of Mr. Berlusconi’s parties since she was 16, and that she is only one among the many young ladies invited to the parties. While some of the Italian public may not be alarmed by Mr. Berlusconi’s lascivious engagements with very young  ladies, the attention that this issues has attracted in the media will add more burden to his already decreasing popularity because of his lackadaisical and tainted administration.

In another case, the recent mass protest which ousted Tunisia’s long running leader also shows a shade of Machiavelli’s idea of leaders problem with women. It involves the wife of deposed Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Leila Trabelsi. The excesses of Mrs. Trabelsi and her side of the family was one of the major clamors of Tunisians suffering from massive unemployment. Mrs. Trabelsi has reportedly used her status as the first lady of Tunisia to amass wealth for her family in gangster type deals, getting commissions in major government deals and making sure that they hold a state in any major investment in the country.

Catherine Graciet, an author who wrote about the imeldific lifestyle of the Mrs Trabelsi has aptly rendered a Machiavellian diagnosis to the problem-

“we can’t put all the blame on the Trabelsis, because it was Ben Ali (the deposed president) himself who allowed them to act that way.”

Side Stories No. 9

Brian C. Ventura

Maigao, Iloilo

The Herbivorous Man: source for Philosophical guide to the Japanese Society (Part II)

In my earlier post (Part I) about trying to find some philosophical concepts in understanding the Japanese society, I wrote about Masahiro Morioka’s concept of a post religious society. Here I am focusing on another of the philosopher’s thoughts on some of the most noticeable aspect of the Japanese society, at least for new comers or tourists.

This interesting work from Morioka is his analysis of the new generation of Japanese male. Why are Japanese male so timid, fashion conscious, unassertive and some what feminine or, to a point, almost androgynous but are still male (or what they generally refer to as herbivore men) and how would they navigate about in a society? Morioka’s take is written in his book  Lessons in Love for Herbivore Boys (2008). How should female  deal with them? He also has a say in this question in another book Herbivore Boys will Bring Your Last Love (2008).

For tourist and people new to Japanese society, like myself in 2006, this may appear like a cultural curiosity. It tempted me and a friend to sit down with a cup of coffee in a busy street in Tokyo and play the spot the male and female game. For academics and policy makers, however, this is a major challenge. Those who are into gender studies worry that the conventional definition of masculinity cannot anymore  describe this phenomenon and a new concept has to be invented if this new generation of male are to be clearly understood. For policy makers, a less aggressive and less macho male may mean that their virility may have been affected. A decreasing desire for success, work, and sex is not what a Japan with two decades of economic stagnation and declining population growth needs. For marketers a new social group with a new taste needs to be discovered so that retailers can take full advantage of their spending capacity.

While this phenomenon may appear culturally specific, it is not. The herbivorous male of Japan did  not just choose to live their lives the way they live it now. It was the disillusionment with a flat economic growth that resulted to increased unemployment, rise of temporary jobs and loss of a  a future with good social services that causes the erosion of their appetite for success. Realizing that working hard does not provide a solid guarantee for permanent employment and secure social services makes this lost decade generation of males loss their sense of control towards how they can chart their future.

As a reaction, they tend to consume less because they earn less. They tend to focus more on how to improve their physical self, rather than working hard to rise in the corporate ladder. This is perhaps because they are sensing that their is really no assurance that their hard work can prevent the decline of the company and loss of their job in the near future. In the long  years when everything seems to be out of control, they gravitated to one aspect of themselves that are still left to them with certain level of autonomy, their body or how they express their new sexuality, that they consider their body not anymore as a tool or corporate workhorse but only as a venue for expression, by making it less attuned to the economic  needs of the society but more connected to how they would like to project themselves, as not succeeding but surviving and expressive entities.

It might then be possible that, if this long, almost flat economic growth is repeated in another society, another breed of herbivorous will also emerge.

 

Side Stories No. 8

Brian C. Ventura

Miagao, Iloilo

 

 

 

Zeitgeist: What is the idea of 2010?

In a few hours, the year 2010 is ending, it will cease to become numbers in the calendar and start to become an idea, a zeitgeist. The term zeitgeist was introduced by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to mean the spirit of the time. If we reduce the closing year into an idea or an essence what is it then?

In the popular media, yearend review of what happened in politics, business, and sports in 2010 are parts of the daily programming this time of the year.  Yahoo! Philippines listed ten events and personalities that marked the year 2010. The list included the automated election, the return of the Marcoses, barangay elections and others.

In the international news this is a common theme as well. In an article in The New York Times,  lexicographer Grant Barret reviewed how events and personalities in 2010 contributed to the public’s vocabulary (or at least the American public) by introducing new words or giving meaning to already existing words. Among the interesting words in the list are Palin’s Mama Grizzly, porno scanner, halfalogue, coffice and sofalize.

Even the firecracker manufacturers in Bulacan have also been attempting,  for a couple of years now, to capture the spirit of each passing year. They give the firecrackers they manufacture and sell names that show their own survey of the explosive events and personalities of the closing year.  ”Pinoy Big Brother,” “Goodbye Gloria,”  ”Trillanes,” and “Bin Laden” are among the most colorful.

This activity, to try to capture what the closing year is, in words, in lists and other representation, is similar, albeit in a much micro or shorter and less idealist version, to Hegel’s idea that each epoch or period in history represents an idea. While the lists and reviews cited above try to identify events or personalities, Hegel believe that progress of history is a march of idea, personalities and events are only realization or representation of these ideas. What the popular media is doing, therefore, is incomplete because they only present the representation, not the essence, of what it is that really transpired in 2010. What is only presented is the representation, not what is really the idea behind it.

If we to take a Hegelian standpoint,  what then is the essence of 2010? Is it renewal? Is it liberty? Is it democracy?   Is it the realisation that promises are to give way to more of the same?

Side Stories No. 7

Brian C. Ventura

Leon, Iloilo

Post Religious Age: source for Philosophical guide to the Japanese Society (Part I)

I have always been looking for conceptual tools to help understand some fascinating aspect of the Japanese society. For some reasons, what popular media provides does not really scratch beyond the surface, and I need to go deeper than that. Religious and cultural explanations are also interesting, but following these line of explanation risks falling into some sort of relativism that may not be sufficient still.

Fortunately, I found this website about life studies. It focuses on a field of study founded by a Japanese philosopher Masahiro Morioka from Osaka University who wanted to explain what is happening in his society using concepts beyond what the obvious cultural relativist understanding can offer.

My personal favorite, from among many of his works, with some excerpts posted in the cite, is How to live in a Post-religious Age (1996). In this work, published as his personal reaction to Aum Shinrikyo cult’s 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system, Morioka outlined how both religion and science provide no sufficient answer to how we should live our lives. He proposed that the meaning of life and death should be pursued without using religious languages, that we need to philosophize in order to understand why we live the way we live and what can we do about it. This proposal is also the guiding principle of his focus on life studies.

Question of religiosity and post-religiousity occupy a special place in Japanese society. The western concept of religion do not really capture the principles of Zen Buddhism because it is a way of life. Japan’s defeat in World War II and the public spectacle that the surrender of the Emperor has created exposed the mortality of an entity that Shintoism consider to be divine. Perhaps Morioka’s post-religious focus, strictly speaking, is not really post religious in a sense that there is really no “religious” age in the Japanese society that is parallel to the experiences of other societies.

Morioka’s concern about how the purported enlightenment purveyed by religion, which may really make us stagnate than move forward in a society is not unique to the Japanese society. In fact, all societies should be encouraged to engage in a discourse, a sort of scenario building, about  the need for a post religious age and how we all have a role to play in that stage. I see it as somewhat Nietzsche-an. Now that region is gone, that God is dead how are we to shape the way we live our life. Contrary to an apocalyptic scenario, this is an opportunity for mankind to establish new rules to propel society, to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the dead.

Side Stories No. 6

Brian C. Ventura

Leon, Iloilo

 

Death as a public spectacle and cadaver as a public property.

I woke up to the loud sound of the radio. The radioman is talking about an alleged suicide and he is ruminating about the possible foul play because, he speculated, there is a lack of evidence to support the claim of family members that a suicide was indeed committed. Then the radioman proceeded to discuss about the shattered head of the victim, the age, company before the incident happened. He then ended the report by arguing that, even if the family members would like to maintain the incident private, the police have to do their job, they have to investigate to find a conclusive proof that the incident was indeed a suicide.

Death, Dying and Yesterday and Today’s Culture.

This is a daily life event in the media, on TV, print and broadcast, both in the news and in different type of fictional shows. I am reminded of the Dr. House TV show, where the gory details of the human body is translated into sophisticated video graphics and death, or its coming, is nothing but medical challenge to be solved. I am also reminded of CSI, and its various versions, where death or crimes leading to it are problems for experts and the bureaucracy to solve.

Nor is this phenomenon exclusive to the popular media of today. During the 17th Century, Dutch Master painter Rembrandt van Rijn‘s picture  of a group of physicians doing an arm dissection in The Anatomy Lesson (1632)  is an elaborate example of man’s somewhat illicit love affair with the macabre. This is repeated by the painter in another work, though this time depicting the body of an animal,  The Slaughtered   Ox (1655).  Juan Luna’s rendition of death in the Roman arena in Spoliarium is also an example suggesting a long running love affair between the artists, or perhaps the public in general, with the somewhat graphic depiction of the human anatomy.

An Affair between the Public and the Dead

So there is really nothing new about this relationship after all. Perhaps the only difference between how dying and cadaver is depicted today is-more bodies or cadavers are involved for viewing of a much much wider audience. The death of a popular personality tells us about how we as a society treat the dead or the dying. The death of a common person, just like in the radio newscast I mentioned above, tells us about our very body, our anatomy, by publicly detailing the wounds, the possible cause of death.

Ironically, the death of an unknown person kills the very anonymity of his or her body and exposes it for the public to build a relationship with, mediated by autopsy experts, commentators, and etc. Maybe the public’s relationship with the Viscondes fall under this category, a relationship with the massacred, with the dead body, with their wounds and their very anatomy, not with them as living persons.

In the end, I think this whole phenomenon of a collective relationship between the living public and the act of dying or the cadaver can show us two points. One is that dying is a spectacle, something that is for all the public to participate in. Another is that that the cadaver is a public property that the living needs to use for them to know themselves much better.

Death as a Spectacle

As a spectacle, dying is something that, with the use of technology, is relived over and over again so that the public is either educated or entertained. What a radio or TV program reports about a crime, the focus almost always in not in the humanity or the character of the person who died when he or she was still alive. The focus is on how death happened, how many wounds, how many gunshots and so on. The act of killing the dead body is replay in a slow motion so that the listeners, the audience, who never even know the victim, can visualise and to a certain extent participate in the process of dying. For what end? for the very end of seeing the process of dying.

After all we are already a supposedly advance civilization who would not anymore repeat the spectacles that the Romans enjoyed, as depicted in the Spoliarium of Juan Luna. So if our ethical standard does not anymore allow us to see killing as it happens for its own end, we the public can still satiate that need for spectacle by making crime investigation more available in various media for more people to see.

The Public Cadaver

In an essay in the science magasine Nature, Horst-Werner Korf  and Helmut Wicht noted the function of cadaver as an instrument for medicine to know more about the human body. So to die is to leave a specimen for the betterment of those who are still living, and those who are living should always use the dead as an opportunity to know more about their body. The two authors also noted that the display of the body alone is no longer sufficient for the public to learn, it must be dissection to be useful. In fact, those who are living also have to power to decide on what is to be done to their dead bodies in the future. On can now sign a document authorising the donation of body parts in time of death.

There appears to be no escape from the public’s claim of the cadaver. Long before the cadaver can return to the soil, science must first use it as an instrument for learning. And it may not even return to the soil whole, parts that can still be used by the living public can remain alive and be separated from the cadaver.

To Conclude

This short essay does not include how various cultures deal with the concept of life after death, a very important part of the culture in most societies. It may however be fair to say that in the process of dying, the body undergoes a journey, from being part of the non-material public culture, as performer in a spectacle, to becoming part of the material culture, as an object that can be a an instrument for learning or a source of useful parts for the living.

Side Stories No. 5

Brian C. Ventura

Leon, Iloilo

Nominate your favorite political scientist for a major award

or at least wait excitedly if he or she will win.

The Johan Skytte Prize In Political Science is calling  for nomination for the 2011 award. This is a very prestigious award given to scholars who have contributed significantly to the advancement of study and practice in the science of politics. Among the previous winners are Elinor Ostrom (1999), who also won the Nobel in Economics in 2009, working on collective action theory and  Robert Putnam (2006), working on social capital. These two political scientists are among my personal favorites because I used many of their works in my previous researches in social capital and collective governance in the environment.

Check the list of all the past winners here to assess your political science scholars’ aptitude.  If you are not even familiar with half of them you are not a student of political science enough, even if you can get a BA diploma, or already have a BA diploma for that matter.

So would you like to nominate someone? You can list your nominees in the comment below and provide a short explanation for your nomination.

Side Stories No.   4

Brian C. Ventura

Miagao, Iloilo