The Leviathan

While the rest of the country's youth are busy studying to become nurses, I have been studying political philosophy. Whoopee. Anyway, Its Sunday and its time some "philosophical" rambling.

In our class, we were discussing the book, "Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes, as you may have heard of him, is one of the greatest thinkers in political science. The book is named after an all-powerful sea monster from the bible that lived in the Mediterranean that was so awesome, it could swallow the waters of Jordan and make water boil from it's mouth. Also, the book talks about government. Okay, so in the beginning, there was a state of nature where man lives without civil society in the jungle probably. Life sucked balls for man as he not only had to struggle for himself, but he had to fight off the other assholes who tried to kill him and take his stuff. Basically, in the state of nature, man is completely free. Man is so free in fact, that he can kill you , steal your house/cave and rape your wife. Life is every man for himself and property is what you can hold onto with your bare hands.

Since life is so damned miserable, man decides to come together to form society. Man gives up his awesome freedom to form a contract and a "Leviathan", a person or entity with absolute power whom man obeys in exchange that the Leviathan impose order in society and stop people from killing and raping each other while they sleep. Think of the Leviathan as the big brother who's got your back. Justice exists when people obey the Leviathan and I mean total obedience. We are not talking about some gay constitutional monarchy here or something but absolute freaking power which means the Leviathan has the power to kill anyone opposing him or making trouble. (For the benefit of the rest of course) Whether or not the Leviathan is good or evil is irrelevant. Hobbes was not exactly living in fun times and the need for order was so great. So man surrenders his freedom to form a Leviathan, who in exchange makes sure there is order and people don't get killed.

So why write about the Leviathan? Well, let's just say that in this country, we have a little peace and order problem. Recently in my home city of Cebu, someone was shot dead twice in the chest probably with hollow-point rounds by masked men on motorcycles. What made this stand out from the hundred similar cases was that this was someone who the media deemed "important" enough to deserve the front page and our small attention spans. Shit, what about the other guys who got deep-sixed that we didn't hear about? I remember months ago, some lawyer in a high profile case was offed in pretty much the same way. Yes, it seems that if you step on the wrong toes in this place, you will be killed by motorcycle riding marksmen with bullets that explode into little pieces inside your body that gleefully embed themselves in your vital organs. And the police? What police? Totally useless. Do we ever hear about these hit men being caught? Not really, everyone will forget in a week until another one comes along. All this pretty decorations and slogans about how good society is getting under the leadership of politician [Brand Name] is a bullshit facade to hide the rot underneath this country. The truth is anyone can pay to have anyone killed and the perpetrators probably won't get caught. Its only a matter of time before things fall apart. If a crime wave were to hit the city, I doubt the police has the resources to stop them all. Truth is that we are not safe. I am not safe. If someone stole your cellphone or bicycle, tough shit. Someone kill your wife? Cry me a river.

How about that Leviathan? In a recent poll, It was discovered that Asians are typically willing to tolerate an unsavory leader as long as he "gets the job done" *wink**wink*. How far are we willing to go? Can we really agree to give a leader so much power? "Never again!" We might say as we remember good ole' Marcos. But remember, that bastard Marcos imposed his power on the people and frankly, we can't really give consent when being dragged away to a cold prison but if things get worse and society becomes as lawless as Mindanao's ass region, Leviathan would make a cool name for a government position.

Guilt Tripping

Studying in private schools for most of my life has taught me all about the noble art of guilt tripping. To get even a "good enough" education in this country, you have to go to private schools and most private schools are run by religious groups. Naturally, the only people who can afford to send their kids to private schools are the middle and upper class, a fact that the priests who run the private schools never shut up about.

In the catholic school I was in, I was taught that there were many dirt-poor children in the country who were starving and could barely afford to eat a square meal and It was all my goddamned fault for being born to a well-to-do family. I was repeatedly told that I was one of the fortunate ones who were lucky enough to come out of the right vagina. I was told that I could have been born to a poor family and that I should be grateful for my fortune and while I'm at it, put more money in the donation box. There were many outreach programs I had to join wherein I was thrust straight in the middle a poor community or something just so the priests could enjoy seeing me squirm and feel out of place for being the only person in the area who didn't smell like sour milk . "Now YOU know how THEY feeeeeeel." they would say from their air-conditioned van. I felt terrible in the middle of such squalor. It was a bad feeling. It was guilt. This is the art of guilt tripping.

To those who do not know or have never experienced being guilt tripped (which means you are probably poor or an atheist), guilt tripping, simply put, is when people prey on your insecurities to make you feel guilty enough to do what they want. "Can't you donate some coins? Have a heart." Guilt tripping is what the church, with it's obsession with morals, does best. The church is always whining about how people today are ungrateful bastards who don't do enough for the poor or how the mere crumbs from our table are enough to feed a family of six. It's not just the priests who are good at this, pretty much any authority figure, hell, anyone can play the guilt tripping game if they are good at it. Parents can tell their kids, "You little shit! We work and work hard for you but you just keep whining and whining about actually wanting a party on your birthday. Now get out, mommy and I need to talk in private, upstairs, in the bedroom." Guilt tripping makes you feel morally superior too. "Let's go out to a fancy restaurant." "How can you want to go out to a fancy restaurant while there are children being eaten alive by vultures in Africa." Speaking of Africa, people guilt trip entire nations too. This isn't unique to the Philippines as hardly anything is. I bet Americans are always told how lucky they are to live in the first world and that they should do more to help starving Ethiopians or something. Poor bastards, I can relate being told to give stuff to complete strangers who will most likely become dependent instead of self-sufficient. Whatever.

Now that I'm older and gone through enough guilt tripping and become wise to it, my body has pretty much built an almost perfect resistance to guilt tripping. Eventually you will realize that not everything is your fault and it's pretty much impossible to solve all societies problems by simply throwing your extra money at it. So whenever people tell me that I should feel bad about eating a cheeseburger while the poor eat dirtburgers well, you know what? Fuck the poor. Not my fault they have so many children.

First Entry

The world is rotten.

Welcome all to my blog. I am That Guy and I've been meaning to start my own blog for a while but didn't have the energy to get off my ass and do it. Well times are pretty "interesting" here and around the world so it's a good time to start writing about how crappy it is. This blog is just my two cents. I don't write for anyone and I write whatever the hell I feel like.

About me, I live in Cebu. Cebu is a tiny and insignificant island in the middle of a larger group of tiny, insignificant islands collectively known as the Philippines, you know, that country in East Asia that's NOT China, Korea or Japan. You may have missed it. Anyway, I'm in college and studying Political Science but don't expect any smart-ass anal-ysis of Philippine politics here. Instead, expect hatred and sarcasm because frankly, Philippine politics is horse shit, and I write that with a straight face. Don't get me wrong, I dont want to be another Filipino bitching about how shitty my government is or how the President is scum or something like that because shit, we have too much of that floating around already. I just write what I observe and if you saw the things I see here in the Philippines, well, It's stupid! It's hilarious! It's stupid! It's cruel! It's stupid! It's comedy gold!

I plan to update on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Maybe. Whatever. If I get around to it, I'll do it. Since science has proven that Monday is THE worst fucking day in the entire week, I'll probably rant about something that pisses me of. On Wednesdays maybe I'll write about daily life to help you fall asleep. On Fridays, maybe I'll write about movies, video games and other fun garbage that I use to distract me from my meaningless life. On Sundays maybe some religious or "philosophical" bullcrap. I'm not religious or much of a philosopher so expect the third.

That all.