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Eight Points in Enlightening the ELITESA Supplementary Lecture
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Discussant: Ferdinand Dupaya Salagan,RPT, MA,MPA,PhD Cand.Associate Professor, Department of Social SciencesLecture Presented – First Sem. August 2012
Eight Points in Enlightening the ELITES
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MAIN QUESTION: “ Are the elites who control the Philippines, ENLIGHTENED, UNENLIGHTENED OR PSEUDO-ENLIGHTNED? “
Eight Points in Enlightening the ELITES
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Point No.1. There are no and there never will be perfectly egalitarian societies. All societies will always have Élites.
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Who are the ELITES?
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2. Élites will always be the source of widespread change in society, good or bad.
The masses instinctively take their cues from the Élite or members of the Élite. In fact, historically, the leaders of mass movements have often been members of the Élite themselves.
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3.A significant majority of the Élites of a given society must be enlightened and capable of critical reasoning for that Élite to espouse effective positive change in society.
If among the Élites, only a very small minority achieve a high level of enlightenment and ability to think things in a critically rational way, whilst the majority of the Élites are unenlightened or pseudo-enlightened, then the Élites will end up divided and will not be able to agree on proper policy.
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3.A significant majority of the Élites of a given society must be enlightened and capable of critical reasoning for that Élite to espouse effective positive change in society.
More importantly, the viewpoint of the truly enlightened Élites ends up muted (due to their limited numbers amidst a vast sea of ignorance) and their proposed course of action, neglected. Discussions, arguments, and debates on policy thus become a matter of sophistry (trying to “appear correct” through the use of rhetorical techniques) rather than genuinely weighing pros and cons and studying the feasibility of the stated options through logic and inquisitive reasoning.
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3.A significant majority of the Élites of a given society must be enlightened and capable of critical reasoning for that Élite to espouse effective positive change in society.
Point number 3 states that the difference between good change and bad change for society is determined by the presence or absence of enlightenment and rationalism among the majority of the Élites.
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3.A significant majority of the Élites of a given society must be enlightened and capable of critical reasoning for that Élite to espouse effective positive change in society.
Enlightenment, more importantly, is all about the continuous search for a high-level of knowledge, a high-degree of common-sense intelligence, and the continuous use of logic and reason in order to tie common-sense and vast amounts of knowledge together in order to come up with a fairly accurate understanding of various relevant phenomena and formulate suitable courses of action in order to solve problems that may be perceived.
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3.A significant majority of the Élites of a given society must be enlightened and capable of critical reasoning for that Élite to espouse effective positive change in society.
“ It is not considered enlightenment if after achieving a high-level of knowledge in one or more fields, a person decides that he/she has reached the end point of knowledge and thus refuses to learn anything new and no longer considers it necessary to update his/her knowledge in the fields in which he/she has achieved a degree of expertise.
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3.A significant majority of the Élites of a given society must be enlightened and capable of critical reasoning for that Élite to espouse effective positive change in society.
Enlightened people will always seek to provide well thought-out and highly informed opinions, rather than opinions that are purely based on sentiment, emotional attachment, or other flimsy or arbitrarily concocted reasons.
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4.Bigger potential dangers are likely to arise from the pseudo-enlightened or “half-enlightened” Élites.
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Who are the Pseudo-Enlightened?
1.They are often of the impression that they are “enlightened” often because they believe that society needs to be improved, as most enlightened thinkers in the past had often advocated improved social and economic conditions for society.
4.Bigger potential dangers are likely to arise from the pseudo-enlightened or “half-enlightened” Élites.
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Who are the Pseudo-Enlightened?
2. They are also likely to think of themselves as being “enlightened” if the point of view and/or course of action they advocate is unconventional, controversial, revolutionary, and not necessarily popular, due to the fact that historically, many important figures of the Enlightenment espoused unconventional, controversial, and unpopular views.
4.Bigger potential dangers are likely to arise from the pseudo-enlightened or “half-enlightened” Élites.
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Who are the Pseudo-Enlightened?
3. But because Élites of society who are pseudo-enlightened have effectively deluded themselves to think that they are “enlightened”, they will think that “they already have all the answers”, and will often oppose the aims, views, and actions of the truly enlightened members of society. If the truly enlightened are too few in number, they will effectively be overwhelmed by the more numerous pseudo-enlightened ones.
4.Bigger potential dangers are likely to arise from the pseudo-enlightened or “half-enlightened” Élites.
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Who are the Pseudo-Enlightened?
4. Most pseudo-enlightened intellectuals often require that their followers take their information from the same source, interpret it in the same way, and believe in the same things. There is an element of imposing a common subjectivity on the whole group, just so that the entire group can be united and unanimous. Strict adherence to the “orthodox view” is necessary, lest a purge be done to rid the group of deviant “heretics.”
4.Bigger potential dangers are likely to arise from the pseudo-enlightened or “half-enlightened” Élites.
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Who are the Pseudo-Enlightened?
5. Pseudo-enlightened intellectuals and their followers can be somewhat described as subscribing to a form of Messianism, where they believe that the author of an ideology is a kind of Messiah and his ideology and writings, his “Holy Scriptures.” Far from merely taking the author’s “advice” with a grain of salt, pseudo-enlightened intellectuals and their followers unquestioningly swallow the author’s entire work as “Gospel Truth” and often refuse to acknowledge overwhelming real-world evidence that refutes the basic tenets of their ‘religion.’
5. History is full of Elite Leadership in Social Change.
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5. There are, in fact, much more people among the Élite who are unenlightened and half-enlightened. The unenlightened ones are busy fitting spoilers on their daddies’ cars, going to bars/discos, partying, while the pseudo-enlightened ones chant repetitive mantras in street rallies, get indoctrinated in extremist cadres, and some even join armed movements. These are all members of the Élite, yet they are not enlightened. (Yes, even student leaders in leftist groups are members of the Élite. They are relatively better off than the rest of the masses. Labor & Union leaders are Élites because of the influence they wield.)
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5. History is full of Elite Leadership in Social Change
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Until the vast majority of the Philippine Élite are capable of discussing issues rationally in a calm, cold, detached, critically objective, and scientific manner, as opposed to discussions based on fervently-held fanatical beliefs and religio-ideological convictions, the Élite will be considered far from being enlightened. If the majority of the Élite is far from being enlightened, then the future of the society it heads cannot be said to be headed in a positive direction.
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6 Whereas it is next to impossible, given the enormity of the task, to effectively enlighten the masses, it should at least be possible to Enlighten the Élites..
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Resources are scarce, not over-abundant. While it would be ideal to educate and enlighten the masses, we know that given the dearth of resources and the fact that extremely good (enlightened & rationalist) teachers are not easy to come by, the first step should be to first concentrate the effort of enlightenment and teaching the values of Rationalism on the relatively small Élite sector of society that has the power and influence to fan out this enlightenment to the rest of society.
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6 Whereas it is next to impossible, given the enormity of the task, to effectively enlighten the masses, it should at least be possible to Enlighten the Élites..
GroupMeetings
One-to-One Meetings
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Enlighten the Élites first, then once a majority of the Élites are enlightened, the policies these enlightened Élites will pursue within society will likewise be enlightened. When the policies the Élites pursue are “enlightened”, they will naturally seek to enlighten the Masses and seek to uplift them. Put another way, if you enlighten all the Élites then these Élites, being enlightened, will seek to enlighten the masses. From there, we must realize that not all of the masses will be enlightened…
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7. The Enlightenment of the Élites must be thorough and not half-baked.
This is a corollary to point number 4, since as mentioned, the worst enemies of the enlightened Élite are not the unenlightened Élite nor even the unenlightened masses, but rather, the pseudo-enlightened (or half-enlightened) sector of the Élite. Being Élites, they too will have some measure of power and influence.
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7. The Enlightenment of the Élites must be thorough and not half-baked.
Being partially-enlightened, they’ll think they know the answers on what needs to be done.
Being partially-unenlightened, they’ll pursue the wrong aims, use the wrong means, and cause more damage instead of fixing things.
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7. The Enlightenment of the Élites must be thorough and not half-baked.
When the level of enlightenment among the Élites is uneven, and a huge sector is only partially enlightened, you end up with a divided Élite.
Partial enlightenment often leads people to seek answers from ideologies rather than through critical rationalism. When this happens, those who flirt with ideologies will end up becoming pseudo-enlightened.
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7. The Enlightenment of the Élites must be thorough and not half-baked.
To reiterate what was mentioned in point number 3, having a divided Élite where the enlightened Élites form a small minority and the rest of the unenlightened and pseudo-enlightened Élite is factionalized into so many splinter-groups that are antagonistic to one another presents more problems than having a “rich-poor” or “Élite-masses” divide.
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7. The Enlightenment of the Élites must be thorough and not half-baked.
A divided and highly factionalized Élite will constantly squabble amongst themselves and will, in the long run, spell out a directionless society that is in a constant state of “virtual civil war.” This was partly the situation in former President Corazon Aquino’s “rainbow coalition” in which various mutually-antagonistic pseudo-enlightened factions of the Élite (yes, even the leaders of the Left are part of the Élite) were all brought together into one government. The result was the lack of direction, stagnation, and hence, the lack of progress.coloniallife.com
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. 8.Entry to the Élite must not be closed to aspirants.
Upward mobility and accepting qualified entrants into the Élite is of utmost importance. In many developed societies, many members of the “Élite” did not necessarily descend from members of a hereditary Élite. Many had humble parental origins. The key, in improving society, is in allowing the Élite group to expand and continually grow.
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. 8.Entry to the Élite must not be closed to aspirants.
The development of society, particularly the history of the First World, is founded on allowing the Élite group to grow and expand by creating opportunities for members of the masses to improve themselves and become new members of the Élite. The expansion and creation of a strong and large middle class is precisely what this is all about. Without this, the ideals of true representative Democracy will never come into fruition in the Philippines.coloniallife.com
