Ostracism

When we use the word ostracism, we think of snobbery. But to the Greeks whose political concepts survive to this day ostracism was a useful political tool which they used to avoid a foreseen political problem. It provided for the "temporary banishment of a citizen who may be dangerous to public welfare." The practice began in Athens where it was first used in 487-485 BC against Hipparchus, a relative of Hippias, the tyrant of Athens. The Athenian assembly decided every year who was to be ostracized by a show of hands. If the decision was yes, a date was set for a public vote. The word comes from the Greek ostracon a pot on which the voters wrote the name of the person they wished to be exiled. The person who got most of the required minimum of 6000 total ballots cast had to leave Athens within ten days and remain away for ten years. But it was not meant to inflict a permanent stigma on the person to be exiled since he did not lose property nor his civil rights. He could even be recalled by vote of the assembly. Hyperbolus, a minor Athenian demagogue, was the last person ostracized (417 BC).

Ostracism, as conceived by the Greeks then, is no longer practicable nor applicable in modern times. What is remarkable is the inventiveness of the Greeks then to use any means to create a well-run society. They did not wait for a catastrophe to happen that would hurt the body politic. They prevented it. The best word to describe that abililty of the Greeks is foresight and the will to avoid what is not in the interest of the public.

Karl Popper, the acknowledged guru of democracy in modern times, adopted a method which resonates with the same principle of Greek ostracism. The method may be useful to Filipinos at a loss on who to choose among the candidates in May 2004. Popper reasoned it was not possible to predict who would be a good leader, no matter how many platitudes or what programs they offered because these have not happened and are therefore beyond our ken. But we know who would be a bad leader. The Popperian method would commend us to focus on the bad rather than the good qualities of the candidates. That method of exclusion was to him a more accurate basis for choosing leaders. It is in the interest of the common weal to avoid the election of a candidate whom we know will not be good for the country. In modern daily parlance, we recognize this as the "principle of the lesser evil".

In a recent get-together of a group of well-informed and intelligent women, (although we tried hard not to talk about politics) we ended up talking on who was the best of the presidential candidates. From that perspective, all of us, were more or less agreed that it was a difficult choice because each had a fault that was incompatible with our ideal for President. In selecting our candidates from this perspective, we were in fact falling into the trap of personality-oriented politics. But when we used instead our own circumstances and the wider group of citizenry as our point of reference we had different standards. The personalities of the candidates are important but these would only be relevant in assessing how the qualities would be able to improve our lives and that of other Filipinos for the better. All other qualities have really little or no bearing. I do not wish to pre-empt other people’s choices so I will not say just who won the vote in the group.All I can say is that the choice was pruned down to two front-runners. But I would admonish others who may be at a loss on who to choose this May to consider the Popperian approach inspired by the ostracism of the Greeks.

My vote goes to the candidate who would shift the country to a parliamentary federal government as soon as possible. Both President GMA and FPJ, Jr. have said at one time or another they are for constitutional reform. But I am skeptical the winner would give up part of his or her term even if it is in the best interest of the country. Sen. Angara suggested a referendum to decide all terms end by 2007 so we can buckle down to consitutional change but he did not do anything about it. Still the job of this little corner is to restate the advantages of a parliamentary system: it is as close as we can get to collective leadership; it would prevent gridlock exemplified by the failure of our Congress to pass the 2004 budget; since the Prime Minister and Cabinet members are elected from constituencies (by real people who know them) and chosen by fellow members (again by real people who know them) therefore it would be impossible for someone without the background, experience and leadership necessary to be elected PM or a Cabinet member. As one colleague from the Coalition for Constitutional Change Now reminded me: "Presidential and national elections will be a thing of the past and no candidate has to spend billions to be elected president or use 3Gs (guns, goons and gold) to be elected at national level." Elections will be localized and therefore less expensive and troublesome, or more importantly, intelligent and realistic.

The origin of St. Valentine’s Day. Once in a while I peek into my husband’s Upsilonian e-mail and found this item from Edwin Pana ‘69 which quotes from Panatis’ Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things: "St. Valentines Day began in 5th century Rome and had nothing to do with love. . . . The Catholic Church’s attempt to paper over a popular pagan fertility rite with the clubbing to death and decapitation of one of its own martyrs is the origin of this lovers’ holiday. As early as the fourth century B.C., the Romans engaged in an annual young man’s rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The names of teenage women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men; thus, a man was assigned a woman companion, for their mutual entertainment and pleasure (often sexual), for the duration of a year, after which another lottery was staged. Determined to put an end to this eight-hundred-year-old practice, the early church fathers sought a "lovers’ saint to replace the deity Lupercus. They found a likely candidate in Valentine, a bishop who had been martyred some two hundred years earlier."

Valentine angered the mad emperor Claudius II who issued an edict forbidding marriage because married men made poor soldiers and he needed soldiers for his wars. But Valentine, a Christian bishop defied the order, invited couples and married them secretly. Claudius learned of this "friend of lovers." On February 24, 270, Valentine was clubbed, stoned, then beheaded. According to this story while Valentine was in prison awaiting execution, he fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer, Asterius. He miraculously restored her sight. He signed a farewell message to her "From Your Valentine", a phrase used to this day. So if you are celebrating Valentine’s Day today say a prayer for the real Valentine.

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