Of Freeedom and Idols
An old friend of mine posted an essay by Domingo Castro de Guzman in her blog. Check it out:
http://sarahbelle.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/2005/10/why_be_a_revolu.html
The essay, like a lot of the discourse on liberation and freedom these days, smacks of the postmodern tendency to take post-structuralist assumptions to their logical conclusion--a totalizing discourse that ironically started out to combat totalizing discourses.
I feel uneasy about the essay, suspicious that there might be verbal sleight-of-hand involved. First, it defines the revolution as negative liberation,...
Exploding the Nation
If we were to accept the version of Philippine history as an unfinished revolution, a revolution initiated by the "revolt of the masses" but was later hi-jacked by the bourgeoisie, then what we have is a divided nation. In fact, our nationhood is even suspect. Once upon a time, the masses dreamed of and fought for a nationhood of free citizens only to wake up in a nightmare of internal colonialism. The old Spanish masters have been replaced by local ones who in turn serve the interests of the old regime now transformed into the universal fellowship of capitalists, otherwise known as...
Patriarchy in the Garden
The Bible, and Christianity with it, has been condemned time and again as phallocentric. The fact is overlooked that the dominant discourse during the time of its inscription was phallocentric. The Bible, after all, is the word of God inspired in men and not the actual word of God. So why should contemporary feminists fault Biblical writers for not being feminists? And even if the Bible were hypotetically the actual word of God, like the Koran is believed to be so, why should God (who would be speaking to humanity in order to be understood) speak using a discourse that would be centuries...
Of Ironies and Sexual Repression
An old friend once told me how she broke up with a guy because they were going too far. She was the first person who introduced to me the meaning of the phrase "everything but the girl." I did not judge her for "going too far" and I did not judge her for moving away, running away to a different direction to find new friends of whom I was one. People set their own limits. The interplay of id and superego is personal business, and for Christians it's usually the superego that wins.
I guess this is all part of carrying your cross--relinquishing unauthorized happiness.
I've always...
