Nihilism and Emancipation

Gianni Vatimo's Nihilism and Emancipation is a work that surprisingly resonates with my own thoughts. A postmodern work that rejects foundations, it does not degenerate into a crass moral relativism nor does it resort to a leap of faith to satisfy the sense of grief after realizing there is no Being. Nihilism is simply the recognition that there is no metaphysics, no essential structure on which to found morality. There is only interpretation.

But I share Vatimo's attitude with Dewey in that they do not despair over the recognition that there is no ground beneath our feet. Paradoxically, he sees nihilism as a path to emancipation, which is the reduction of violence. Emancipation is achieved because most constraints to freedom are based on foundationalist claims of a prior Being, a natural law or a deity, used to silence dissent. But Vatimo argues that the alternative to the oblivion of Being is not necessarily a reversion to the state of nature. Rather, rules that respect and recognize history and context evolve through dialogue.

Thus, one arrives at a world where there is more room for love and kindness, and a recognition that we are all human, all too human, rather than one of rules and codes derived from a discovery of Being.

The Continuing Past

Renato Constantino's The Continuing Past is the sequel to his nationalist and revisionist history A Past Revisited. The book covers the end of the Commonwealth period, the Japanese Occupation, and the Third Republic up to the Macapagal Presidency. It is explicit in its nationalist orientation as a critique against standard texts taking a Western perspective. It is devastating and illuminating in its critique of the megalomania of McArthur and the intervention of the CIA to catapult Magsaysay to the presidency. It is not, however, blindly anti-American for while it criticizes American policy, it is even more unforgiving of what Recto labeled as our mendicant foreign policy. It is understandable that America protects its national interest; it is lunacy for Filipinos to think that our interests coincide with America's.

I disagree with Constantino's advocacy for industrialization and criticism of agriculture. Perhaps his views were viable forty years ago, but in today's globalizing world, it would be suicidal to compete against Chinese manufacturing, and Brazil's successful development of agriculture for export is probably worth emulating.

We continued to act like a lapdog when we supported the US invasion of Iraq and we looked even more foolish when we withdrew our contingent of noncombat troops when a Filipino was held hostage by Iraqi fighters. We obviously did not learn our lessons from the extraterritoriality of American bases when we agreed to a VFA that allowed a serviceman accused of rape to be detained in the US embassy. The removal of US bases did not end the special relationship with the US. In foreign policy, at least, the past truly is continuing.

God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy's novel is breathtakingly beautiful. It is poetry masquerading as prose. Its evocation of the hot and brooding atmosphere of Ayemenem overlaid with the complex cultural and political conflicts of the time rivals the Heart of Darkness to which the book refers several times. The innocent worldviews of the twin children are simply devastating when viewed against the backdrop of an inevitably tragic destiny. Inevitable because love is not always enough to overcome centuries of prejudice.

This magnificent work of art is also an expression of Indian culture and language. One is able to peer into the best and the worst of millennia of Indian history. The language is so full of sound, rhythm, and imagery that one can almost hear it in Mayalayam. Roy is truly a gifted writer. I hope I can read a Filipino novel that similarly impresses on so many levels.