Voids in logic and substance simply plugged by the 'magic' of 'People Power'

Use of symbols as well as encapsulation of ideas into short narratives – parables, fables, sonnets, anthems, poems, etc. – since time immemorial have proven to be a very effective tool for “democraticising” ideas and acquiring a mass audience for them. Entire thought frameworks – ideologies, philosophies, and belief systems – have been reduced into terse slogans and visually appealing symbols for mass consumption. For Nazism it was the swastika, for Christianity it was the cross, for Zionism it was the six-pointed star, for Satanism, the pentagram, for Communism, the hammer-and-sickle, for corporations, the “logo”, etcetera, etcetera. Each one had its portfolio of taglines that were disseminated by propaganda machinery of one sort or another usually euphemised into terms like “religion”, “nationalism”, and “brand”.

Today, modern Media consumers have become accustomed to receiving their information in even smaller packets – text messages, “tweets”, sound bytes, “status updates”, etc. Users have unprecedented access to computing power too. They manipulate audio-visually represented data on their computer thanks to the user interface revolution that started with the point-and-click graphic screens commercialised by Apple and Microsoft back in the mid 80’s. These “desktop icons” increase usability but insulate users from their logical underpinnings.

What does this trend towards increasingly abstracted and simplified representation of ideas, information, and data mean? Hold that thought while we consider the example of something more tangible – the transport and distribution of physical goods in an economy – that we can use to illustrate the point I plan to make.

In the old days when people used to produce what they consume, an “end-product” was not regarded in quite the same way a Twenty First Century tween would see her mug of Starbucks hot chocolate. A subsistence economy consumer would most likely be aware of most of the value of the tangible economic input into, say, the wild pig thigh he is munching into – the hunt, the kill, and the butchering of the beast. The value has substance and is derived from real assets and capital – the hunter’s skill and weapons and the planning that went into the hunt, for example. In contrast, the only palpable source of the value in the Starbucks drink a modern-day city slicker would discern is the brand experience – the stoking on the ego of walking in and out of a trendy establishment, the pride in being seen holding in one’s hand a tall paper tumbler that conspicuously sports the green circular logo. The coffee beans that give the beverage its rich flavour may have come from South America or Africa, the milk accounting for its texture from Australia or New Zealand. None of it matters. Indeed, there is no way the average Starbucks customer could be aware of such details.

We can see in the above example how what drives the coming together of the underlying substance of the products we consume involves the hard disciplines: production, transport, and logistics. But what gets the product its sustained hold on its market is emotional and sensual appeal.

As such, retailing is not capital-intensive at the low-end, and at its high end, capital is applied almost entirely to the splashing of image and gloss. Indeed, the value of retailed goods is accounted for overwhelmingly by brand and packaging. In wholesale and bulk materials handling, most capital is tangible engineering and civil-works related (ports, warehouses, shipping and hauling, freight and materials handling, etc).

Now let’s take a logical leap into the realm of information products – stuff brokered by the Media industries. The same principles apply.

Pulp science fiction like Star Wars and Star Trek are immensely successful Media franchises built upon the visual appeal of the contrived imagery depicting a technologically advanced future. Spacecraft zoom around using propulsion devices that on a superficial level are consistent to basic propulsion principles; i.e., energy is shot out a vehicle’s rear end highlighted by a luminescent plume, and the vehicle moves forward. Ignoring the question of what sort of fuel could possibly generate the kind of power over the sustained periods exhibited in the scene, and where in the craft it is stored, the science looks right and the consumer is happy.

Same thing could be said of the technological jargon of Star Wars and Star Trek. Hyperspace or warped space are actual legitimate theoretical constructs that are bandied around in these tales. But they are used in non-sensical conjunction with other concepts in those movies, e.g. “fire up the hyperdrives for the jump into hyperspace” in Star Wars and “accelerate to Warp Factor 5” in Star Trek. Not considering that hyperspace is not a place that one can “jump” into nor a speed that one can “accelerate” to, again, the science sounds right and the consumer is happy.

Televangelists, motivational speakers, “life coaches”, and, yes, politicians are to ideas what retail is to tangible products and pulp sci-fi is to scientific theory. People that are involved in these trades have the gift of the gab -- a people skill they turn into successful business enterprises. Their originality comes in the way they package sound conceptual frameworks that deeper minds spent years (or entire lifetimes) refining. You will see successful politicians and entertainers mix and match legitimate terms derived from large bodies of internally consistent and logically sound thought systems into clever but meaningless slogans and platitudes.

All good fun in all of the above illustrative cases – that is, if they don’t cause serious chronic delusion or life-threatening lapses in judgment for those that consume these end-products. So now take the case of how “people power” (an arguably legitimate 1986 phenomenon) was turned into a monstrous lie and propagated over the two and a half decades subsequent to the original one. One of the terms that can be likened to those nonsensical combination of otherwise legitimate terms (like the “accelerate to Warp Factor 5” thing I cited previously) is “institutionalized People Power” – a favourite pseudo-philosophical construct of Filipino politicians. In his Inquirer.net article “Yes, he might”, Conrado de Quiros provides us with an excellent example of its perverted use (my boldface applied):

Noynoy, like his mother, has the power to tap into People Power. That is the one huge ally he would need to fight corruption. That is the one huge ally that will be there to fight corruption.

Cory formally institutionalized People Power – it’s a provision in the Constitution – but never really used it in the course of her term. The provision was left for the politicians to pervert, not least Arroyo who used it to oust Grace Padaca and Ed Panlilio and to try to change the Constitution. Noynoy holds the key to it. If he discovers it, he will raise, like Aragorn who conscripted the dead kings and their legions in “Lord of the Rings,” an army mightier than any of his enemies can muster.

Indeed de Quiros is spot on in his allusion to the mysticism of a fantasy tale such as The Lord of the Rings. An invocation of “people power” is indeed comparable to the “conscription” of airy-fairy “dead kings and their legions” that a fantasy piece such as this entertains us with. In fiction of the fantasy genre, anything can be explained away or resolved with arbitrary introduction of magical concepts that do not require logical explanation. Our heroes besieged by a fierce dragon with scales impervious to the sharpest blades and arrow heads? Easy. Introduce into the storyline a rare metal from which a special sword needs to be forged to be wielded by only the bravest warrior in the army. Then the story becomes all about a quest to reach the mines at the other end of the realm which is – surprise, surprise – the only place where the fabled metal ore could be found.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because the mythology of the Yellow Army makes generous taps into the magical power of “People Power” to plug logical holes in its ideology and gaping voids in the substance of its politicians. Indeed, people like Conrado de Quiros have become virtuoso at wielding the magic of “People Power”. A brand such as “People Power” derives its power from its appeal to the simple and the progressively disembodied abstraction it has become in now being so far removed from logically-sound thinking. Trouble is there is real damage being sustained by our society in this instance. To even suggest that corruption can be “fought” simply by “tapping” into “People Power” is downright irresponsible. What exactly is the nature of the fight to be “fought”? How exactly does one “tap” into “People Power”? Where will this “People Power” come from exactly? Please explain, in precise terms Mr. de Quiros.