Counter-culture

Culture precedes politics and economics. Imagine the water of a lake as culture. If the water is clean and flowing, all living organisms (people and institutions) in the lake (the country) will thrive. If, on the other hand, the water is polluted and stagnant, no living organism, except perhaps the hardiest, can grow much less thrive.

All members are the constructs of a society’s culture. They are all raised and mentored by parents and society’s civic, political and religious elders who were all born into the local culture and, hence, could only impart the beliefs, values and norms of that culture.

Because our culture constructed them, our political, economic and religious leaders will not change (and I don’t just mean stop having mistresses) unless we change ourselves first. We must all get together to continually refresh the lake’s water and keep it flowing to prevent harmful bacteria from breeding and deadly toxins from accumulating.

It is, however, extremely difficult for all sectors of society to act in concert to effect substantive change. Our culture has historically favored the rise to wealth, privilege and power of a relative few who will expectedly resist change that could mean the loss of their premium privileged-class status.

That is why ordinarily change does not come from the top. Yet it does not come easy from below either. Society’s marginalized members have been conditioned into accepting their place in society. A dominating culture has shorn them of all indignation at the misdoings of their leader- patrons who appease them with material dole-outs and promises of an after-life paradise. Unless desperate, they are fearful of acting in anger on the roguish ways of society’s leaders.

This is where the role of families, schools and churches becomes very critical in the promotion of social change. But if these continue to impart values, beliefs, and norms by a system of regurgitation (I-teach-you-the-answer-yougive-me-the-answer-back) and not by a system where student and mentor search jointly for new meanings, I am afraid no relevant change can be reasonably expected.

Fortunately for any society a few can always see through the veil of the established culture’s myths, half-truths, and lies and work for social change. In Marcos’s time, however, forces for the status-quo branded them all as communists so a “God-fearing” society would not feel sorry if the “godless” were persecuted.

I don’t know how change agents today are demonized. But I know pro status-quo forces are in battle array while two wellsprings of culture, education and religion, are sadly going with the flow and not leading the promotion of the critical and creative thinking of a counter-culture.