Philippine Democracy Online

By Christopher Ryan Maboloc, PhD  Jonathan Haidt explains that our political leanings are not rooted in reason but in gut feeling. The word "righteous," Haidt writes, is associated with the Norse word "rettviss," which means "upright" or "virtuous." The word later meant being obedient to God's will and thus, to God's judgment. Being judgmental in this sense is linked to righteousness. It then connects to being "self-righteous," which Haidt says is the normal human condition.  Haidt argues that men and women evolved from group attachments in the same way as primates. There is no flaw to this design as we all are rooted in a moralistic strife given the primordial reality of conflict between groups. In which case, differences and disagreement are normal. Since we use logical reasoning in judging human character, we easily see others as fools or idiotic, thus the labels we attribute to adversaries. In reality, it has nothing to do w...

By Christopher Ryan Maboloc, PhD  Liberal hegemony is the idea that we can make the countries in the world liberal democracies, John Mearsheimer explains in his book, The Great Delusion. He refers to the first instance of the same as the Bush doctrine. The United States as a crusader state invades a country, throws out a dictator, and begins a nation building process by imposing liberal principles of democracy. Mearsheimer says that liberal democracy actually defeated Fascism in the first half of the last century and after the Cold War ended, communism, as countries aligned themselves with the American brand of democracy, aided by capitalism and international liberal institutions. But history suggests that the crusader state approach of the US is wrong, he argues. Mearsheimer explains that as soon as the US began the process of nation building, nationalism in countries the US has occupied soon kicked in, for instance in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. The US has not made its position...

By Christopher Ryan Maboloc, PhD  Radical politics, in the works of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), is rooted in contestation. Agonism is about the acknowledgement that conflict is a reality in society. The embrace of difference, in this way, is at the heart of the meaning of radical democracy. Radicalism means the movement away from the center where the possibility of consensus or agreement is often controlled by a definite majority who often silences every dissenting opinion and authentic political engagement. The majority is actually the elite hiding under the guise of rules and a consensus that they define for the people, thus making politics conformist instead of being reform oriented. There is a need to distinguish the political from politics. Politics is institutional while the political is concerned with relations of power. Politics is what governs the status quo where the meaning of freedom is founded on the basis of norms and laws set forth by liberal ideals. The radical means ...