POS 100

Section 1
19 June 1 July 2014

Politics: Should it
Mean Something?

Which of these statements

appeal best to you?
The

best should rule us.

The rulers are the best. Therefore, they
should rule us.
Our rulers are not the best. We need to
replace them with the best - to rule us.
We should not be ruled. We should rule
ourselves.
Those who best rule themselves become
wealthy. They should rule us.
Those who are poor, having experienced
everyones concerns, should rule.

But seriously
...

Who rules, really?

Why should it be a question of
ruling?
Who/what taught us that
business pertaining to
everyone is to be settled by a
matter of deciding who
rules us?
Why am I using these quotation
marks?
Nothing is true. Everything
is permitted.

Hence, the state.

FAULTY ASSUMPTIONS ALERT

What were Bourdieus key

points?
Capital

of Physical Force
Economic Capital
Informational Capital
Symbolic Capital
Juridical Capital
appointing & dismissing high officers of state

Minds

of State

structuring structures
rites of institution
state forms of classification
dispositions of the body

Monopolization

of Monopoly -> Universalization

Significantly

In short

Some Notes on Philippine

Public Affairs

Where Are We,

Supposedly?
Since

2010, the national

political situation (or at least
as reflected in the currency
and status national capital) is
one of seeming stability and
hope for potential change.
Benigno Noynoy Aquino
IIIs tenure was hoped to
have heralded the possibility
of recapturing in formal
governance the promise of
the 1986 EDSA Revolution.

A Laundry-List of Good
News
Government

experienced
highest satisfaction
ratings over the past 3
years due no less to its
relative competence in
key directions.
Perceived key public
good bills have been
passed or are now being
placed in the formal
legislative agenda (RH,
FOI, Sin Tax, etc.)

A Laundry-List of Good
News
Economic

development
seems to be on an
unprecedented high.
The visible overturn of
status-quo
arrangements
compared to previous
administrations seems
to have kindled hope in
multiple sectors.

What is Not Being

Asked?
1.

2.

3.
4.

How palatable and applicable is the real

quality of governance that the Aquino
administration is practicing?
What kinds of policies is this administration
pursuing? Why these policies? What are the
implications of such policies?
How effective are these policies and directions
in achieving their desires, more or less?
Why is the general socio-economic status of
many Filipinos still unimproved despite these
supposed gains?

Political Situation
The

multifaceted PDAF/Pork Barrel scandals

Beleaguered Peace Processes
Will Bangsamoro succeed?
Sabah, Zamboanga, MILF-MNLF: Spectres of the 1990s
Continuing insurgencies/civil conflicts

Contradictions

in Government Policies
The slow-but-sure brewing of dissatisfaction between
political, economic and social forces/groupings
An unbridled, unchallenged Executive

Economic Situation
Jobless

growth
Economic Rights Violations Cases
Contractualization and Absence of Decent Work
Dismantling of Informal Settler Communities

Land

Appropriation

Enclave development
Transformations of the urban landscape

Continued

vulnerabilities to financial shocks

Equitable wealth distribution still a fantasy.

Social and Cultural

Situation
Gender

continues to be a contentious, sociallydivisive factor.

Public discourse remains a monopoly of
institutions, personalities, personalized
institutions and institutionalized personalities;
the market of ideas is pretty much in dearth of
new developments.
Public life today is basically being seen buying,
eating or watching something in a mall.
The result: the absence of public interest or
simple-minded, pseudo-intellectualized
arrogance masquerading as such.

Our Position in Asia and the

World
Integration

into the ASEAN

Economic Community by
2015: Gain or Loss?
Decline of U.S., Rise of
China? Are we Playing
Right into Others War(s)?
Observation: Our position
in the regional,
international and global
bargaining table is
actually very dire.

The Public is Confused!

Personally were all

clueless.

What Do People Seek?

Which is more
disturbing?

Politics and Human Agency

(Arendt)
Politics organizes those who are absolutely different with
a view to their relative equality and in contradistinction to
their relative differences (96)
Politics as a global dominion in which people appear
primarily as active agents who lend human affairs a
permanence they otherwise do not have (97)
Prejudices are real, have origins, and are pretty much
understandable: it is the task of politics to shed light upon
and dispel prejudices, which is not to say that its task is to
train people to be unprejudiced (99)
Any response that places man in the center of our current
worries and suggests he must be changed before any relief
is profoundly unpolitical. For at the center of politics lies
concern for the world, not for man (106)

Democracy as Politics-inMotion (Ranciere)

Existing

misgivings about our ideas of

democracy
Contradictions regarding the necessity
of making democracy worldwide
Ranciere: the very ground for the
power of ruling is that there is no
ground at all.
The contradictions of arkhe (authority)
in the democratic situation

Democracy as Politics-inMotion (Ranciere)

Citizen

vs. Man: Who deserves rights?

The example of French women
revolutionaries: since they could enact
those rights, they actually possessed
them (57).
We have somewhat structured societies
and public spaces/relations so much that
what we are actually claiming to be
politics prevents people from
participating in the first place.

That is to say
Peoples

tendencies to equate politics with

the right way of doing things does not
exactly help in acknowledging that this very
concept of what is right is always subject to
contestation.
However, to rely too much on
acknowledging peoples capacity for taking
the road less travelled (and their self-martyr
complex in doing so) can also damage our
appreciation of our capacity to do politics.
We need common points of understanding.