Holding a Gun Backwards

Yet you still think you’re holding it the right way.

Finding your niche in society

When we progress through life, we tend to find people who think the way we do. When this happens, we sometimes band together, using the ideology that we all share to aim for a certain goal.

When I entered De La Salle University (DLSU) here in Manila, Philippines, I became in love with this particular group of people. These people were progressives. I said to myself “Finally! I found an organized group of people who think the same way as me!”. Soon, this organization became more like a way of life for me. I learned their ways of thinking and how they view and analyze the different things in our society, but little did I know that this teaching of theirs will lead to their own collapse.

These so called “Progressives” are now a group of people who are not what they think they are. For the first time, I encountered “Progressives” who were afraid of change. Internal problems became rampant and these led to factions inside the group. Factions of the “True Progressives” and the “False Progressives”.

I bet you’re thinking what the hell happened inside. I can imagine questions like “What made them false progressives?” or “What do you mean by ‘afraid of change’”? What exactly happened?

In order to understand what happened, you need to find out what they teach.

The basic ideologies and principles in a nutshell.

PLATFORM OVER PERSONALITY

This was something that was taught to me earlier on. The ideas and insights a person brings with him should be of heavier relevance over their image.

SUBSTANCE OVER STYLE

I learned from them that the content of an individual is much more important than the way they deliver it. What’s the point of having “golden shit” if it’s still shit?

PROGRESSIVISM

We were taught to always progress. We were taught that if current styles of work are not working, then we must adjust and cater to what our audiences want by still adhering to our ideologies. Only an idiot tries the same thing while expecting different results.

The given three teachings are the biggest things that made an impact on me, but what is currently happening today?

What’s really happening?

PERSONALITY OVER PLATFORM

There was an incident wherein they wanted the personality, image and aura of Person A. They also wanted the ideas, brains and insights of Person B. What did they want to do? They wanted to get Person A, then take Person B’s ideas, brains and insights and label them as Person A so that the general audience will see Person A as someone better. Bullshit right? Good thing that did not push through.

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE

Recently, my colleagues and I presented our platform that we planned for our audience. We weren’t really given the go signal yet so we were still quietly discussing in front while we wait for the room to settle down, and one of the executive board suddenly blurts out this shit:

“Is that how you plan to present? Standing around and talking to each other? Then you’ve already lost.”

What. The. Fuck.

Since when did the way we present or the way we were in front the main criteria if our platform will sell?

Conservatism

The past few years have been a big let down for this organization. We faced a massive loss in the last three elections and yet, we still did the same things over and over and over again. I myself, together with a few other colleagues and alumni were telling people that hey, we need to do things differently or else we’re just going to experience the same thing again.

Guess what.

They did not like that. They did not want to do things differently for the sake of being unsure how things will turn out.

So much for progressivisms right?

Albert Einstein did say this:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

Now what?

This year, I think I’ll give them one more chance. I’ll fight for their ideas but if things don’t change, then my colleagues and I have decided to get off the ship and build a new one. A new organization for real progressives. Not everyone can be a part of it. There’s a rigorous application process that only true progressives can get past.

Will it be successful? We’ll never know until we try.

Either way, the way things go now? It doesn’t really make us different from the centrist organization with conservative roots.