#A DAMAGED CULTURE JAMES FALLOWS FULL#

As the saying goes, вЂњBato bato sa langit, ang tamaan wag sana magalit.вЂќ So he should have exercised delicadeza and asked permission from his Filipino readers that he was going to hurt their feelings, and whether that was all right.Д«ut as I said, he writes as an American. In the context of Philippine culture, if you really need to say something bad, nagpapaalam ka muna, magpasintabi ka muna. But if those were his understandings of the term, he should have applied them on himself, or at least apologized for his lack of kagandahang asal.

I think his etic equivalents, which include saving face or vague sense of guilt, do not totally capture вЂњdelicadezaвЂќ. For instance, FallowsвЂ™ understanding of the ethic of delicadeza seemed wanting from my emic perspective. But if the reader wants to know what Americans think about our culture, then s/he should read one such as this one written by Fallows. I believe those who want to know about our culture should read articles written by Filipinos. As I engage myself in discourse with his article, I note two points about him.ДЇirst, I note that Fallows writes as an American. In the Freedom Constitution of 1987, ratified shortly before Fallows wrote his article, opinions even of people such as those expressed by Fallows is guaranteed. As President, Marcos declared he was the only one who had the right to say what was good for the country and everyone had to agree on the pain of disappearance from the face of the earth. That is what makes democracy work, and that was the objective of our resistance to Marcos for a long long time during our youth. I think Fallows, and any other author, is entitled to his own opinion. People like Fallows, and his country America, who introduced their brand of culture, were very much a part of the whole process.

It is produced, and reproduced, in all of life, particularly in schools. Why blame Filipinos for their culture? Is culture a cause? Or an effect? My thesis is that it is both a cause and an effect, just like much of life. Fallows was like saying the problem with Filipinos was that they were brought up in the Philippines by Filipinos. By laying the blame on culture, it was like him saying the problem with people was they were human. Instead, he managed to infuriate Filipinos enough to be declared persona non grata. While his views seemed valid on the face of surface events he had written about, his article failed to help readers (particularly Filipinos) understand what was going on. Informed by formulations encountered in graduate courses in education, psychology, and anthropology over the past few years, I see that Fallows wrote from a perspective that viewed culture, power, history and education as discrete analytical categories. Today, 25 years later, I am glad I can read Fallows more soberly, having experienced a seesaw of feelings, from excitement to disappointment, within months after election of presidents who followed after Cory.

In fact, I had started a small school in Old Balara, an urban poor settlement across Tandang Sora behind the UP Campus, as an expression of our familyвЂ™s romantic notions about helping the poor.

#A DAMAGED CULTURE JAMES FALLOWS FULL#

How dare this Fallows guy kill my dream of a changed Philippines? Our family was away in the Netherlands during the People Power Revolution and we had come back full of enthusiasm to take part in rebuilding the nation. My husband had brought home a photocopy from his graduate class at UP, and I remember the outrage I felt within me. I remember reading this article one evening sometime in 1988 after I had put my two-year old boy to bed. In Partial Fulfillment Of Requirements For The Course On Anthro 282,

A damaged culture james fallows