that really does depend on what you mean by “beating yourself up”. in solving problems one cannot hope to concoct a proper solution without properly diagnosing the problem.

benign0′s point really is quite simple. we have a lot of problems and a lot of them INNATE in our culture. the way forward is to recognize these flaws and change.

bencard, may tawag diyan: delusional. the irony is, in constantly harping the nation as a loser, he ends up sounding the REAL loser. getreal, loser.

my whole point is that we cannot hope to “extricate” ourselves from our sorry state by constantly beating ourselves up, and convincing those who are not yet convinced that we, as a group, cannot do anything right.

It kinda goes back to the whole point behind being a nation in the first place. Why are we such high achievers elsewhere and so impotent collectively when together?

And no, I don’t think it is really about outdoing anyone in terms of self criticism. The self criticism of American, for example, is of a different nature. Their challenge is more around sustaining their greatness by critically examining aspects of their society that they perceive to be going off the rails.

Our challenge is a bit more pathetic, namely extricating ourselves from the hole we continue digging ourselves into.

The efforts of successful societies build on existing positives whilst in our case, the efforts are focused on trying to get out of the red. So the comparison is not apples-to-apples.

As to this whole thing about trying to be “more American than the Americans”, Japan did the same thing. The difference is that they approached it by trying to understand the substance behind Western success (the ways of doing things and the disciplines involved), whereas in our case, we only tried to imitate the superficial trappings of Western culture (watching the show but failing to see the backstage where all the work is done).

and guess who is one-blog media is?

like as if these dyfunctions are inherent only to pinoys. get real, d.

And yes, it IS in fact bad enough that we lack any form of COLLECTIVE achievement to speak of.

It is, to put it mildly, uncomfortable, to have to come to terms that each of us individual Filipinos are IMPRISONED within the box of our “maligned and ridiculed society”. No matter where we go, no matter what citizenship papers we sign, we will always be the little brown Pinoy who eats off mounds of garbage and dances the ocho-ocho during elections while his compatriots wade across yet another putrid street flood in Malabon while wearing a silly smile in his face.

Now take a step back and regard for a moment what I just said in the second half of the paragraph above and ask yourself this: How much of what i described above CAN BE CHANGED?

Here’s the answer: ALL OF THEM.

And this is just a small sample of the dirty laundry that I air out for the world to see. There is nothing, NOTHING about the Pinoy that I write in http://www.getrealphilippines.com that cannot be changed. But before we can understand what and how to change, we first have to take stock of what needs to be changed.

We are constantly patting ourselves on the back for having one of the “free-est” presses in the world, presumably because incidents of monumental impropriety are exposed TO THE PUBLIC. In fact, half the stuff discussed in blogs like these are about exchanging amusing factoids about the “exposed” stupidities of our moron politicians. And we are appalled when — despite this exposure — said politicians don’t even express an iota of hiya despite said exposure.

See my point? Even now, our beholdenness to our “free” press is underpinned by our sub-conscious recognition that Pinoys are motivated by hiya. Which implies that we find hope in hiya as the key driver for change.

And yet here we are, discussing how “improper” it is to be EXPOSING the dysfunction of our society to the world.

Isn’t it ironic?

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manuelbuencamino, happy that your case is well-rested then.