Mediocritization (Part I)

Mediocrity need not be bad. In a society where people are driven to excel, where they try to outdo each other in doing what is good for society as a whole, where efficiency, discipline, lawfulness and intelligent compassion may be popular virtues, mediocrity – a condition characteristic of at least half of the citizenry, their median state – is praiseworthy. In this context, those who look down on the average or mediocre citizen may even be faulted for being unduly demanding. Clamoring insistently for further excellence, greater efficiency and more discipline, such driven individuals – at times, among society’s most inventive and productive members – would be regarded by the citizenry often with respect and, more frequently, with at least tolerant humor.

However, there is a more common sense of mediocrity that properly deserves opprobrium. When a people turn minimalist in their legitimate aspirations and exert little effort in addressing urgent concerns, when they settle for much less than their natural abilities mark as doable, when they – instead of energetically working and achieving a lot that is good – insist on non-productive criticism and laid-back praying and consequently sink into even deeper and more demeaning regression – mediocrity and mediocritization must be suspected and denounced.

The Philippines clearly has chosen to be mediocre in the self-aborting sense. Consider how the country’s primary institutions have failed in their decades-long promise of democratic governance, with their functional effectiveness and public accountability clearly eroding rather than building up over time. No institution of governance has been able to avoid the crisis of dissipated public trust. The legislature is overstocked with members who may be suspected of extended puberty or premature second childhood. The executive is tenanted by playful authorities who – in these critical times – insist on having their fun, mostly at public expense. The judiciary may dispense scriptural homilies but could neglect the law and the even more problematic cause of justice.

Philippine society’s other institutions have also downgraded. Nationwide, the family has suffered a crisis of effective parenting – a genuine sacrifice that many conscientious parents working abroad have been forced to make in trying to keep the body and soul of their family members together. (Surely, the political authorities must be joking when they speak of having a strong republic in the midst of emasculated families.) The school system generally provides substandard education, with glorified teachers receiving inglorious pays and mostly everyone tasked with public education being meshed into a network of corruption that controls schoolbuilding-construction, textbook production and school supplies procurement.

Media agencies too have mediocritized – perhaps the more accurate term is really "idiotized" – the public. With few exceptions, they have neglected their responsibility to help develop a stronger sense of civic consciousness among the citizenry. Furthermore, they have pandered to the public’s slapstick and puerile interests instead of offering them intelligent and mature forms of entertainment. TV stations in particular compete in airing programs that show a lot of young and scantily-clad bodies; unfortunately, most of these full-bodied "talents" appear to suffer from mindlessness. (One of them, affecting a New York accent yet, spoke of how much she had changed since she started living and working in the Philippines: "You can’t imagine how much I have changed – a full 360 degrees, definitely!")

As for print media, mediocrity is writ large in the nation’s leading newspapers where one finds it difficult to distinguish the front page from the opinion page. News reporters write like some of the more zealous and often understandably partisan columnists and so the public is often stampeded into making emotional conclusions – at times, even regrettable public actions — that in a republic of laws undermine the spirit of democratic discourse and intelligent governance.

Religious institutions have not been spared the curse of mediocritization. When their highest authorities – guardians of the faith and morals of their spiritual flock – are not properly mortified by flesh-and-blood politics and, instead, appear to be most drawn to it, their stature as moral guardians suffer. It is a sign of the times that the most visible religious personality in this country is trusted by no more than a third of his fellow Filipinos. (This is the same level of trust that the citizenry also awards a deposed president as well as his feisty successor. The first is accused of plundering a nation while the second, having many political promises to keep between now and 2004, may eventually decide that breaking one of them – as encouraged by an eminent spiritual adviser – is not really a cardinal sin. )

The world of the flesh does much to bring down the spiritual authorities. Beyond the body politic, is the warm body. People are inclined to believe that when someone becomes a religious somebody, that person should disembody. Beyond the erring little priests are the towering figures of a faith’s spiritual patriarchs. Two well-known Catholic bishops are confronted in rapid successsion with scandalous cases of a sexual nature.

Confronted by all these specters of mediocrity and downgrading ordinariness, one must not wonder much if one out of every five Filipinos would migrate if they were given a chance to do so. Most of these people are probably among the most decent, competitive and productive Filipinos in our midst. They are probably among the most patriotic too. It is a sad fact of life that precisely the best people of any country will not suffer mediocrity and mediocritization indefintely.

At 20 percent of the national population, as many as 16.4 million may then still leave this country for kindlier and less mediocre climes. Too many good Filipinos have already left, what can be done to keep others from following suit? How does one stop mediocritization – a major cause of despair among our best people?

A follow-up column will address this issue.