The doubt of the benefits
ACCORDING to psychotherapist and author David Richo, trust, which he calls “a reliance on reliability,” lies at the heart of all relationships, be it personal, professional or otherwise.
This, however, is undermined when someone deceives us, cheats us, lies to us, disappoints us, or doesn’t come through for us. As one meme puts it, the smallest lie can break the biggest trust.
Yet, because we have been brought up on the dictum that to err is human and to forgive is divine, we give the offending party what we call the benefit of the doubt. I, for one, am a softie at heart, pusong mamon as we say. I am inclined to give a person a second chance, going along with his assertions of goodness and sincerity until he proves otherwise. In a cynical way, it is also my way of giving him enough rope to hang himself.
However, when it comes to politicians who seek my vote, I reverse gear. My instinct is to give them the doubt of the benefit. I recoil, I become reflexively skeptical. I initially regard them as guilty before proving themselves to be otherwise.
Guilty of what? Guilty of conning the voters with their bright promises, which colloquially we call budolbudol. Since only a handful of their promises are proven to be true, the prudent thing to do is to doubt their ability to deliver. Your mantra should be don’t me.
Young voters, don’t waste this opportunity. Now is your chance to clean up the mess that my generation of baby boomers has brought upon this blighted nation. We’ve had our turn, now it’s your turn. Make your votes count by ushering the right kind of leaders this time.
As a voter for the past 50 years, here are my red flags.
Does the candidate have a familiar name, one that he or she now brandishes and exploits to the hilt, even to the point of dropping the unfamiliar surname of a spouse?
Does he or she come from a politi
cal family that has dominated the political landscape in your place for the longest time? In short, a family that has made politics a livelihood, a continuous source of income and power?
Many candidates are new generation wanna be’s, out to take the reins from their oldies. Don’t me. They may be young and fresh, appearing to be idealistic, but bear in mind that the milk they imbibed while growing to full adulthood comes from the same polluted source.
Does he have a track record to speak of, not as a politician, but as a leader, organizer, or a public servant? What has he demonstrated in terms of helping those who have less in society? What are his statements and his actions that reflect his beliefs? Or is he like the blower fish, who puffs up himself with air to seem grander than he is but is really toxic? Don’t me. He’s most probably just another ampaw, as we say in our lingo.
Lately, a growing number of candidates has been dropping bible excerpts at every opportunity. That to me is a big don’t me. The old book is often mis-used and abused to cover a multitude of sins. Frequent bible quoting is, to me, a symptom of a malignant hypocrisy from within, a veneer that is designed to hide something beneath. I also find it unnecessary or distasteful to
mix religious beliefs with one’s politics. For a true Christian walks the talk or rather walks more than he talks.
If we are dismayed by the choices we’ve made in the past, that’s probably because many voters don’t really think seriously about their choices. They are easily swayed by what their family, friends, peers say and what they read and hear. How many times have people ask me whom to vote because they have no real opinions about the candidates? Worse, they tend to dismiss the value of elections with utterances like “they’re all the same after all.”
It’s time to own your vote. Refuse to blindly follow the popular choices of the day. Take your own path in deciding what to believe. Be an independent spirit.
How? By cultivating a sense of healthy skepticism. Not doubting just for the sake of doubting but questioning things to discover a truth that will help you arrive at an honest decision.
In this age of so-called posttruth, fake news, manufactured information, the more you doubt, the better. Learn more about your candidates from many sources. Go outside your social-media circle.
Remember the time you received that e-mail indicating that a friend has lost all his money somewhere and needs your financial assistance? Or you just
won a cash prize in a contest and you need to give some details so you can get it from a designated bank? You may have doubts when a viral ad that claims to be the “wonder cure” for that recent malady that you think you have. You most likely have suspicions when someone knocks on your door at 3:00 in the afternoon on the weekend and claims to be delivering a package for you? In all of these instances, you’re employing a questioning attitude that casts doubt on information or claims presented.
Experts in anthropology and human psychology say that we carry very sophisticated communication equipment in our skulls. We are wired to be skeptical. Our brain is skilled at detecting sources of pollution and poison in our environment. We experience strong feelings of disgust at the smell of rotting things such as when someone is bullshitting us.
If this is so, then sharpen that built-in ability to detect deception and rottenness. Harness that powerful intuition to help you in challenging anyone’s claim of truth. Don’t accept everything at face value. Look beyond powerful emotional appeals. Always question campaign materials that present the candidates in the best possible light. Sometimes what is left unsaid about him is more
important.
Use a doubting, probing mind as tool to unmask the real person behind a candidate. For in the end, doubting can prove to be of benefit to the electorate.
But where should this questioning mind be anchored on? As Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman warns us: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
You need to root your decision on a deeper level. As Shakespeare puts it: To thine own self be true. Interrogate your inner self and re-encounter your core values, the things you stand for, values that will ground your heart, and reinvigorate your hopes.
What change would you like to see in the future for your family, community, and our country? Who among the candidates, flawed as they may be, can best deliver the change you want to see?
Once you know what you sincerely want, then no one can take away your choice, not money, not the arguments of other people, not the false promises of the candidates.
By taking the don’t me attitude of giving the doubt of the benefit, we take ownership of our vote. The benefit is all ours. Even if our choices might not win in the final count, you can honestly say: