WE need to give due attention to this
aspect of our life.
Our life in public is an integral and unavoidable part of us.
In the first place, to be born we need to have parents and
a family, then a community, a school, a market, a church, etc. We can
never be alone. Our life is at once private, individually ours, and
public, always with others, if not physically then at least
intentionally.
Thus we need to know the purpose of our life in public,
what it involves, what it requires, what duties we have toward it,
what benefits it can give us and what dangers it can pose.
I think that as we develop fast because of our
technologies, we have to know how to pull the many levers at hand to
reach our proper goal.
For example, how do we handle the many inter-generational
and inter-cultural demands of our times? Our public and social life
now has certain complexities unknown before. It now is much more
diverse. And we need to master them, and not be their slaves or pawns.
It’s a pity to see many people, especially the young,
getting lost in the dizzying swirl of our life in public. Many of us
are left badly equipped to tackle the intricacies involved. There’s
the pressure of the peers and “barkada,” the pull of the mob, the lure
of the entertainment world, the tricks and ambitions of business and
politics, etc.
We often get stuck in the externals and appearances
without getting into the essence of things. Our reactions are mainly
knee-jerk and Pavlovian. We hardly think, we barely reflect and study
things.
We generate a lifestyle based mainly on feelings and
impressions, often fleeting and unstable, rather than on one that has
a solid foundation, able to guide us consistently through the
different phases and situations of our lives.
As a result, we enter into a spiral of a worldly way of
life with barely any soul in it. We begin to treat each other merely
as facades or masks, quite plastic. Pretensions and hypocrisy become
salient features of our society, begetting the other forms of deceit
and conceit.
Instead of being persons, we become simply as actors,
performers or robots. Our heart is slowly turned from flesh to stone.
We become users, manipulators and exploiters of others. The others
become mere objects, products, statistics.
Subjectivity, where respect for everyone’s spiritual
character and personhood should be enhanced, ebbs away. Instead,
objectification of persons takes place, drying us up to make us things
instead of persons.
The dynamics created by this set-up allows people to swing
from self-absorption to self-assertion, from self-seeking to
self-promotion. Thus, the truly human ways to link us into communion
with others start to disappear. It’s all about the ego. The “we/us”
vanishes.
The field gets littered with the remains of envy, greed,
lust, sloth and other capital sins. And, sad to say, there are many
exploiters and predators in this field who take advantage of the
situation and the vulnerability of the weak and the gullible. We need
to expose them and their tactics.
We have to put a stop to this vicious cycle, and reverse
it to become a virtuous cycle. This will depend on whether we first
establish and strengthen our personal relationship with God.
We have to be most wary of the rise of secularism and
relativism in society. They come as a result precisely of setting God
aside from our life in public.
And so, we can see in many countries today delicate moral
issues that need to be resolved very clearly: abortion, confusion
about sexual identity and human nature, divorce, disconnection of
science and technology from morality, lack of respect for freedom of
conscience, questionable educational thrusts in schools, etc.
These issues are slowly invading our shores, and we just
have to strengthen our faith, especially that of our leaders, for this
eventuality.
Faith and religion are always involved in these issues.
While these issues have to be considered under many aspects, we have
to understand that the considerations of faith and religion, being so
basic in us, should be given priority.
It’s in our faith and religion that the fundamental and
ultimate meaning of the issues are given. It’s where our ultimate
common good is determined. The practical, the legal, the social,
cultural and historical aspects have to somehow defer to them.
Contrary to some views, being consistent to one’s faith
and religion in public office does not make him a fanatic, a
fundamentalist or detached from reality. Quite the opposite is true.
Our life in public is an integral and unavoidable part of us.
In the first place, to be born we need to have parents and
a family, then a community, a school, a market, a church, etc. We can
never be alone. Our life is at once private, individually ours, and
public, always with others, if not physically then at least
intentionally.
Thus we need to know the purpose of our life in public,
what it involves, what it requires, what duties we have toward it,
what benefits it can give us and what dangers it can pose.
I think that as we develop fast because of our
technologies, we have to know how to pull the many levers at hand to
reach our proper goal.
For example, how do we handle the many inter-generational
and inter-cultural demands of our times? Our public and social life
now has certain complexities unknown before. It now is much more
diverse. And we need to master them, and not be their slaves or pawns.
It’s a pity to see many people, especially the young,
getting lost in the dizzying swirl of our life in public. Many of us
are left badly equipped to tackle the intricacies involved. There’s
the pressure of the peers and “barkada,” the pull of the mob, the lure
of the entertainment world, the tricks and ambitions of business and
politics, etc.
We often get stuck in the externals and appearances
without getting into the essence of things. Our reactions are mainly
knee-jerk and Pavlovian. We hardly think, we barely reflect and study
things.
We generate a lifestyle based mainly on feelings and
impressions, often fleeting and unstable, rather than on one that has
a solid foundation, able to guide us consistently through the
different phases and situations of our lives.
As a result, we enter into a spiral of a worldly way of
life with barely any soul in it. We begin to treat each other merely
as facades or masks, quite plastic. Pretensions and hypocrisy become
salient features of our society, begetting the other forms of deceit
and conceit.
Instead of being persons, we become simply as actors,
performers or robots. Our heart is slowly turned from flesh to stone.
We become users, manipulators and exploiters of others. The others
become mere objects, products, statistics.
Subjectivity, where respect for everyone’s spiritual
character and personhood should be enhanced, ebbs away. Instead,
objectification of persons takes place, drying us up to make us things
instead of persons.
The dynamics created by this set-up allows people to swing
from self-absorption to self-assertion, from self-seeking to
self-promotion. Thus, the truly human ways to link us into communion
with others start to disappear. It’s all about the ego. The “we/us”
vanishes.
The field gets littered with the remains of envy, greed,
lust, sloth and other capital sins. And, sad to say, there are many
exploiters and predators in this field who take advantage of the
situation and the vulnerability of the weak and the gullible. We need
to expose them and their tactics.
We have to put a stop to this vicious cycle, and reverse
it to become a virtuous cycle. This will depend on whether we first
establish and strengthen our personal relationship with God.
We have to be most wary of the rise of secularism and
relativism in society. They come as a result precisely of setting God
aside from our life in public.
And so, we can see in many countries today delicate moral
issues that need to be resolved very clearly: abortion, confusion
about sexual identity and human nature, divorce, disconnection of
science and technology from morality, lack of respect for freedom of
conscience, questionable educational thrusts in schools, etc.
These issues are slowly invading our shores, and we just
have to strengthen our faith, especially that of our leaders, for this
eventuality.
Faith and religion are always involved in these issues.
While these issues have to be considered under many aspects, we have
to understand that the considerations of faith and religion, being so
basic in us, should be given priority.
It’s in our faith and religion that the fundamental and
ultimate meaning of the issues are given. It’s where our ultimate
common good is determined. The practical, the legal, the social,
cultural and historical aspects have to somehow defer to them.
Contrary to some views, being consistent to one’s faith
and religion in public office does not make him a fanatic, a
fundamentalist or detached from reality. Quite the opposite is true.
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