Consider: “What really sets human beings apart is not our individual mental capacity. The secret to our success is our ability to jointly pursue complex goals by dividing cognitive labor. Hunting, trade, agriculture, manufacturing — all of our world-altering innovations — were made possible by this ability. Chimpanzees can surpass young children on numerical and spatial reasoning tasks, but they cannot come close on tasks that require collaborating with another individual to achieve a goal. Each of us knows only a little bit, but together we can achieve remarkable feats. Knowledge isn’t in my head or in your head. It’s shared.” [Why We Believe Obvious Untruths, Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman, Gray Matter, The New York Times, 3rd Mar 2017; Fernbach is a cognitive scientist and professor of marketing at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business; Sloman is a professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University]
Should we be surprised that we lag our neighbors in trade, agriculture and manufacturing, among others? Recall collaboration and teamwork and the 21st century skill sets discussed in a recent posting. [To recap: 1) collaboration and teamwork, 2) creativity and imagination, 3) critical thinking, and 4) problem solving.]
If it isn’t obvious yet, the blog replays the elements that have defined us, our culture, if you will: parochial and insular, hierarchical and paternalistic, political patronage and dynasties, and oligarchic. And when all is said and done, a culture of impunity. Because we take them as inviolate, the blog’s premise is we must reinvent Juan de la Cruz.
And we must get a good handle on innovation and competitiveness – to excel in trade, agriculture and manufacturing – being crucial in a fast-changing and fast-paced world that is the 21st century.
“The key point here is not that people are irrational; it’s that this irrationality comes from a very rational place. People fail to distinguish what they know from what others know because it is often impossible to draw sharp boundaries between what knowledge resides in our heads and what resides elsewhere.
“This is especially true of divisive political issues. Your mind cannot master and retain sufficiently detailed knowledge about many of them. You must rely on your community. But if you are not aware that you are piggybacking on the knowledge of others, it can lead to hubris.” [Fernbach and Sloman, op. cit.]
In other words, the sense of community and the common good – and a sense of purpose – is not abstract. It is the starting point if we are to ever attain a state of collaboration and teamwork. But which will take some doing given our value of rank – and its privileges. And so, to see Du30 (or in the case of the US, Trump) pull rank is not a surprise but to be expected?
Let’s get back to Fernbach and Sloman. “Such collective delusions illustrate both the power and the deep flaw of human thinking. It is remarkable that large groups of people can coalesce around a common belief when few of them individually possess the requisite knowledge to support it. This is how we discovered the Higgs boson and increased the human life span by 30 years in the last century. But the same underlying forces explain why we can come to believe outrageous things, which can lead to equally consequential but disastrous outcomes.
“That individual ignorance is our natural state is a bitter pill to swallow. But if we take this medicine, it can be empowering. It can help us differentiate the questions that merit real investigation from those that invite a reactive and superficial analysis. It also can prompt us to demand expertise and nuanced analysis from our leaders, which is the only tried and true way to make effective policy. A better understanding of how little is actually inside our own heads would serve us well.”
And from one of our own, Francisco S. Tatad: “On my Sunday evening cable TV program . . . former President Fidel V. Ramos was pained to observe that the Philippines had slipped down to No. 115 (out of 190 states) in the latest UN Human Development Index, and risen to one of the top five state violators of human rights.
“Should a President be feared? Ramos replied on his own: ‘Better to be loved.’ DU30 may have shared the same response, except that at this stage he may be more feared than loved, and probably hated by some. He has done what no other President has done, and he must reap the consequences.
“Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan says: ‘This is not a war on drugs but a war on the poor. Often on the flimsiest evidence, people accused of using or selling drugs are being killed for cash in an economy of murder… The same streets Duterte vowed to rid of crime are now filled with bodies illegally killed by his own police.
‘I am committed to stop drugs before I go out,’ says DU30. ‘This means to say, Father, Monsignor, Bishop—marami pang patayan ito. Kasi lumalaban talaga iyan. (This means more killing, because they’re fighting us.) It will not end tomorrow.’
‘When you kill criminals, it is not a crime against humanity. The criminals have no humanity!…Human rights and due process cannot be used as an excuse to destroy the country.’
“The perversion of reason in defense of the killings does not stop with DU30. It is so contagious that even ranking legislators with otherwise distinguished bar exam records have managed to sound completely idiotic in their defense of the indefensible.” [The biggest crook of them all, Francisco S. Tatad, The Manila Times, 6th Mar 2017]
Are we digging ourselves an even deeper hole? “Money laundering is a serious concern due to the Philippines’ international narcotics trade, high degree of corruption among government officials, trafficking in persons and the high volume of remittances from Filipinos living abroad.
“Sophisticated transnational organized crime and drug trafficking organizations use the Philippines as a drug transit country.
“Criminal groups use the Philippine banking system, commercial enterprises, and particularly casinos, to transfer drug and other illicit proceeds from the Philippines to offshore accounts.” [US tags PHL as ‘major’ dirty money site, Melissa Luz T. Lopez, BusinessWorld, 6th Mar 2017]
A culture of impunity or a failed state? “Brazen theft,” Editorial, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6th Mar 2017. “The magnitude of the losses from tax evasion is nowhere more glaring than in the cigarette industry where the use of fake tax stamps alone has deprived the government of as much as P10 billion in foregone revenues a year.”
What else is new? “Malampaya scam: Ex-gov, 41 others charged,” Vince F. Nonato, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6th Mar 2017.
“Former Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes and 41 others have been charged in the Sandiganbayan in connection with anomalies involving 209 contracts funded by P1.53 billion in royalties from the Malampaya gas field off the province in 2008 and 2009.
“These projects from across the province—which include roadworks, schools, day care centers and even an airport development project in San Vicente town—were unfinished at the time when these were certified as completed in 2008 and 2009.
“The exposé on these irregularities supposedly led to the January 2011 slay of environmentalist broadcaster Gerry Ortega, for whose murder Reyes is currently jailed pending trial.
How do we situate the following supposed good news given all the foregoing? “Government eyeing to double export receipts by 2022,” Cai Ordinario, BusinessMirror, 5th Mar 2017.
“The Duterte administration said it will roll out various measures to increase revenues from merchandise and services exports by 2022 . . . The national government plans to double receipts from merchandise and service exports by 2022, according to the new economic blueprint of the Duterte administration, dubbed as the Philippine Development Plan (PDP).
“Under the PDP 2017-2022 the government is targeting to increase merchandise exports to as much as $62 billion and service exports to $68.6 billion, from $32.8 billion and $24 billion, respectively.”
The Aquino administration set even higher targets that these – while prior administrations had similar efforts. What gives? How do we overcome the regional-laggard curse? “The key point here is not that people are irrational; it’s that this irrationality comes from a very rational place. People fail to distinguish what they know from what others know because it is often impossible to draw sharp boundaries between what knowledge resides in our heads and what resides elsewhere.
“This is especially true of divisive political issues. Your mind cannot master and retain sufficiently detailed knowledge about many of them. You must rely on your community. But if you are not aware that you are piggybacking on the knowledge of others, it can lead to hubris.” [Fernbach and Sloman, op. cit.]
“Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” [We are ruled by Rizal’s ‘tyrants of tomorrow,’ Editorial, The Manila Times, 29th Dec 2015]
“As a major component for the education and reorientation of our people, mainstream media – their reporters, writers, photographers, columnists and editors – have an obligation to this country . . .” [Era of documented irrelevance: Mainstream media, critics and protesters, Homobono A. Adaza, The Manila Times, 25th Nov 2015]
“National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value, as classical economics insists . . . A nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.” [The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review, March–April 1990]
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” [William Pollard, 1911-1989, physicist-priest, Manhattan Project]
“Development [is informed by a people’s] worldview, cognitive capacity, values, moral development, self-identity, spirituality, and leadership . . .” [Frederic Laloux, Reinventing organizations, Nelson Parker, 2014]
I think what we need is indeed a major reorientation of our values. But I don't believe it will happen for a few years. What we need is a sincere heart to change and it can take effect by starting at our schools and homes. The poor remains poor if inside the home there is no culture of industry, creativity, collaboration, and healthy communication. Similar situation goes at our schools. Student-centered style of learning nowadays benefits no one but few. Majority of students are given freedom inside the classroom but they hate the responsibility that comes with it because they are NOT taught to be responsible even at their home. To say so our society is a failure.
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