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High-res →
Pictures: (Left) Diliman Commune, 1971; (Right) Poster ng nalalapit na event ng JMA
Iba na talaga ang UP ngayon.
40 years ago, pinamunuan ng mga estudyante ng UP ang isang uprising laban sa pagdeklara ni Marcos ng batas militar. Isa ito sa mga pinakamalaki at mahalagang event noong dekada 70, kung saan nakita ang kapangyarihan ng militanteng kabataan at progresibong pagkilos. Marami talaga ang nakiisa. Di mo maiimagine.
40 years later, eto tayo. UP JMA (We Lead). Sila na nga ang mga bagong leader sa UP. Okay, so nililinaw ko na hindi naman ito isang panawagan ng pagboycott sa event ng JMA. (Sino ba naman ako para sundin ng tao? At malay ko ba, baka mapadaan din ako sa event na ito.) Naniniwala ako sa galing ng org at sa members nito. Lahat ng projects at events nila, dinudumog, malaki ang kita at maganda talaga.
Kamo, mas mabilis na silang makahatak ngayon ng members kumpara sa mga MO (Mass Orgs). Kung meron lang akong maipapakitang proven na datos ng comparison ng pagtaas ng myembro ng JMA sa pagbaba ng members ng Stand-UP o ng Anakbayan, mas maganda sana. Kaso lahat naman yun ay assumptions ko lang. Mere observations.
Tingnan mo noong huling 3-day Budget Cut Rally sa UP noong September, kung bibilangin ang nakiisa at umattend ng events noon, baka mas madami pang umattend na Isko sa AdHoc at sa kung ano pang parties na usong-uso ngayon sa kabataan.
Totoo naman na nagbago na ang timpla ng mga Iskolar ng Bayan. Mas marami ng burgis ngayon. At di na gaanong patok sa kabataan ang magrally at gumawa ng ingay sa kalsada. Mas uso na ang blogging o ang pagti-tweet o ang pag-like sa FB. Party, party na lang.
Bakit nga kaya? Dahil ba wala ng Marcos? Wala nang naibabalitang karahasan sa TV? Dahil ba yun sa pagdami ng burgis na kaya namang magbayad ng nagmamahal na tuition fee sa UP?
Marami naman daw kasing paraan para makatulong sa bayan.
Oh well, I pity you Iskolar ng Bayan. Eventually you’ll leave the country, make money for yourself, (magtravel nang magtravel kasi yun ang pangarap mo), enjoy life, maybe send some money home, and there.. forget you were once an Iskolar ng BAYAN.
PS: Attend tayo sa Release the High. Mukhang masaya dun! :))
Uso ba ngayon yung mga sweeping generalizations ng mga estudyanteng feeling mas-Iskolar ng Bayan sila dahil mas mayaman yung mga iba?
I understand the frustration about existing class differences, especially in UP, where the socio-economic demographic has shifted drastically. From being predominantly low-income, UP now has over 50% of its incoming students coming from private schools, mostly after the 3-fold tuition fee increase in 2007.
I also, and more deeply, understand the frustration that equally deserving students were segregated by they and their families’ financial ability to shoulder the new cost of studying in UP, and that money, not brains, became the biggest decider in who could enter UP.
HOWEVER. Singling out a student organization for its publicity and recruitment events is something I don’t understand. Especially when one of their parties, AD HOC, raises up to half a million pesos every single semester to send to educational foundations, something which other more vocal and more activist student organizations and mobilizations has been unable to do.
Sarcastically disparaging those perceived to be rich does not make the poor less poor, nor detract from the good that the rich can do. Instead, it makes the sincere intention for positive social change unpalatable to the majority who see the (im)maturity of those whose hearts are right, but whose words aren’t.
Anti-Marcos rallies did not define UP then. A single student organization’s recruitment week does not define UP now.
It is unfair to direct that frustration towards other students who have also entered UP by their own intellectual merit.
The issue of class is a complex one, but the issue of deserving to study in UP- once you get in- is definitely not.
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fierce kid from Emeli Sande’s Heaven music video
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I’ll just wait here on standby
~About You by Computer Magic -
“Demonyo? Demonyo? Demonyo? Akin na ang sungay mo.”
(“Demon? Demon? Demon? Give me your horn.”)*from Silip: Daughters of Eve (1985) by Elwood Perez
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(Source: ocn, via youmightfindyourself)
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SalaoCoboi, 2010
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But I’ll never, never ______ for another boy
(insert what is applicable to you) -
I Have Mastered Forgetting: A 2011 Playlist
Year 2011 was such a roller coster for me as I graduate from university and join the labor force. It definitely had so many highs but the lows were definitely low. And so I thank 2011 for making me a better, stronger person. In reference to the playlist’s title, I say let’s all be masters of forgetting the stuff we need to forget and be good recallers of the stuff that will keep us moving forward. As with my 2010 playlist, some of the songs in this list may not necessarily have been released in 2011 and may not necessarily mean something profound to me, but I’ve definitely discovered, re-discovered and listened to each of these songs almost non-stop for quite a while the past year. I drew everything in the cover art because I definitely needed some time looking at stuff other than numbers and graphs. I apologize for being lazy to not put the songs’s mp3s up on a file sharing site, I’m linking some youtube vids for the songs instead. The Extra songs are songs I would have loved to put in the list as well but I tried not to put more than one song from the same artist. So these Extra songs would be B-sides to their same-artist-song counterparts on the official list if that sort of makes sense to you. Again, Happy New Year and may we all have a blessed year ahead!
Au Revoir Simone - Take Me As I Am
Listen
Do you know when you were already born
You were already you and I already me?
So take me as I am
Note: This is determinism (read: literary determinism) written in a song. How painful.Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard
Listen
All your life, now I understand
So many hours and no company
Note: I’ve searched the internet for perhaps an interview with Ra Ra Riot about this song, what it means, the story behind it or something like that, but to no avail. Everytime I listen to it, I keep on imagining a short story or a music video about two lovers, one is the daughter of the owner of the orchard in the song (“All your life/you were important/and your father too”) and an orchard laborer who sneak out at night to spend time together in the orchard. The story supposedly ends when the father discovers (and obviously disapproves of) their affair and catches them together one night and beats the guy to near-death in front of his daughter (“Oh this blood in my mouth/makes me hate/how we both end up”).
Cults - Never Saw the Point
Listen
What I wouldn’t give
For the chance to see you smile?
I did what I could
To be yours just for a while
Best Coast - Our Deal
Listen
I wish you would tell me
How you really feel
But you’ll never tell me
‘Cause that’s not our deal
Note: I wish Drew Barrymore kept the video to just this song. The parts for each Best Coast song in the real whole video ended abruptly and was sort of irritating. The edited version for this just thing was still heart-wrenching.
Tennis - Marathon
Listen
We didn’t realize
The forecast had been revised
Coeur de Pirate - Comme des Enfants
Listen
But he loves me still
And I love you a little more
Note: Yes. Sometimes I’m French. Coeur de Pirate is French Canadian though.
The No Twist - Consequence
Listen
Fail with consequence, lose with eloquence
And smile
Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
Listen
Save up all the days
A routine malaise
Just like yesterday
I told you I would stay
Note: Whenever I watch the music video to this song, I keep on convincing myself that the video is about this group of organic robots (like Kathy, Ruth and Tommy in Never Let Me Go except that they’re clones) spending their last moments praying in a chapel and then finally taking their last breaths of air and exploding.
Owen Pallett - Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
Listen
But for me, I am a vector
I am muscle, I am boneOh Land - White Nights
Listen
These dreams under my pillow
In the twilight of these white nights
Gotye ft. Kimbra - Somebody That I Used To Know
Listen
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
Note: I had to stop myself from pasting the lyrics to the whole chorus (or perhaps to the whole song). Singing this song is such a release even if you have not recently gone through a break up. My friend Kara labeled me an angel (or maybe a fallen angel) after linking this to her one night. I was scared to ask her why.
Lana del Rey - Video Games
Listen
I heard that you like the bad girls
Honey, is that true?
Note: This girl is making quite a controversy for her fake lips and apparently being a failed mainstream artist repackaged into a a lofi indie songstress. But who can deny? Video games really is catchy.
Bird and the Bee - Heard It On the Radio
Listen
Oh, I can still remember when I heard it on the radio
Oh, but now we are SeptemberDavid Byrne & Fatboy Slim ft. Florence Welch - Here Lies Love
Listen
Is it a sin to love too much?
Is it a sin to care?
I do it all for you
How can it be unfair?
Note: The album is an attestation to Imelda’s interesting character. Oh how I’d like to have singers like Tori Amos, Florence Welch and Sia sing a song about me too?
Cat Power - Sea of Love
Listen
I want to tell you
How much I love you
Note: That high note at “Iiii want to tell you” just makes me want to sing my heart out.
Extras:
Au Revoir Simone - Anywhere You Looked
Listen
If we could all say we’re sorry
Give up all awkward tomorrows
Finding nothing more to argue
I was right
Cults - Make Time
Listen
Give yourself a chance to take a moment
Best Coast - I Want To
Listen
I want to go back to
The first time, the first place
The No Twist - Off The Rail
Listen
We are trains ourselves
Grizzly Bear - Knife
Listen
I want you to know
When I look into your eyes
With every blow
Comes another lie
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The Dark Side Of Creativity
Creativity is great. In the words of the philosopher Elliot Samuel Paul, “Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality. The vehicle of self-expression. The engine of progress in every human endeavor.” Still, this doesn’t mean creativity is always ethical. Creativity comes from humans, and humans are complex. Creative people are the most complex of them all. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that creativity has a dark side. You don’t have to look any further than Wall Street to see this!
In a recent study, an all-star cast of creativity researchers — Paul Silvia, James Kaufman, Roni Reiter-Palmon, and Benjamin Wigert — looked at the relationship between creativity and personality. A large sample of adult participants reported their creative achievements and creative activities, as well as their personality. Consistent with prior studies, “Openness to Experience and Extraversion” were significantly related to creativity. But… there was also a dark side. While “Agreeableness” (i.e., hostility) had no effect on creativity, those with lower levels of honesty and humility (i.e., higher levels of arrogance and pretentiousness) reported more creative accomplishments and also reported engaging in more creative activities. This effect was stronger than the relationship between extraversion and creativity, leading the researchers to call for more research on the link between creativity and dishonesty.
<—insert a battery of boring tests—>
In sum: creativity was a better predictor of dishonesty than intelligence. These results are consistent with the study mentioned above by Silvia and colleagues, but go further by showing that not only is there a relationship between creativity and a dishonest personality, but that there is also a relationship between having a creative personality and actually behaving dishonestly in the context of a psychological experiment.
OK, but is anyone, regardless of their personality, likely to be dishonest if their creative mindset is activated? The correlation between personality and dishonesty is only a correlation. A creative personality could cause dishonesty, but dishonesty could also cause someone to be more creative. Or some sort of different relationship could exist. So the researchers put this to the test in their third and fourth studies. Again, they had participants complete the “visual perception task”. But there were now a few conditions. In one condition, participants constructed grammatically correct sentences (e.g., the sky is blue) from a set of words (e.g., sky, is, the, why, blue). 12 of the 20 sentences included words relating to creativity (e.g., creative, innovative, imagination). The researchers did this so that the concept of creativity would be subconsciously “primed.” They also had a control condition in which none of the sentences includes creativity-related words. Participants also took a widely-administered test of divergent thinking, which required participants to identify common associations between seemingly unrelated words.
The result? Those who were subconsciously primed with creativity-related words were more likely to be dishonest (chose “right” in ambiguous trials more frequently). What’s more, people who entered a creative mindset were more motivated to think outside the box on the divergent thinking test, and it was precisely this motivation that led to the increased levels of dishonesty! It gets worse. In their fourth study, they found that those primed with creativity-related words were again more likely to think outside the box and behave more dishonestly, but they were also more likely to justify their cheating. Not only did the creative mindset increase a justification for cheating, but it was this justification for cheating that led to increased levels of dishonesty. It appears as though activating the creative mindset can be a double-edged sword.
The researchers weren’t done. Apparently, they have some sort of vendetta against creativity! In their fifth and final study, they went into the “real world” and administered surveys online to employees across 17 different departments. The employees read two scenarios which described a person given an opportunity to behave dishonestly, and they reported how likely they would be to behave unethically if they were the person in the scenario. The employees also indicated their department within the company and how much creativity was required on their job. The result? Those in the departments and jobs requiring higher levels of creativity were more likely to report that they’d act unethically in the two scenarios.
Yikes! This all sounds pretty damning for creativity (and for corporations that involve creativity). The researchers propose that creativity
“[H]elps individuals develop original ways to bypass moral rules while allowing them to reinterpret available information in a self-serving way as they attempt to justify their immoral actions. The ability to be creative, combined with the motivation to think outside the box, explains the proposed relationship between creative thinking and dishonesty.”
So what are we to make of these findings? Should we call it quits on creativity, and stop promoting it in education, business, and society? Gosh no. Keep in mind these effects are statistically significant, but not completely predictive. These are just trends. There are plenty of extraordinarily creative people who are incredibly honest and engage in ethical behavior. While these results suggest that in the highest positions involving creativity there may be more Bernie Madoff types than Bill Gates types, let’s not forget that Bill Gates types do exist. Since creativity is so important for the progress of our civilization, we must still nurture it. But at the same time, let’s beware of its dark side. Power does influence creativity, so let’s encourage those in positions of power to use the creative force for good.
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Helmut Lang Pre-Fall 2012
