Tuesday 28 January 2014

“Nothing is true, everything is permissible”




I have been bitten by the AC bug. My brother Vic bought home an XBOX360 a few years ago and AC2 came with it. My wife had to pry the controllers from my fingers and turn the TV off.

I have finished all but the last one. My little boy, Izzy actually watches the gameplay, puts on his hoodie and skulks around calling himself "Connor".

What has caught my attention to the gameplay is the philosophy of these fictitious sect of protectors.
This type of thinking must not just be summarised as "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted" as you lose the personal responsibility of what you chose to do.

Postmodern thinking allows one to challenge everyone’s viewpoint. Relativism seems to be a popular ideology nowadays. This is not one of my apologetics essays where I point out the flaws of Post-Modern thinking, nor its illogical framework. (C’mon…. nothing is real, everything is relative… really?? Is this true for you only or for everything? If this is true for everything then it must be reality! But you said that there is no such thing as reality, therefore your claim is false! If it is only applicable for you, then why are you trying to convince me that this is applicable to me? Dude even my 5 year old knows not to reason with me like this.) (Okay maybe I may go into a little detail about it.)

The purpose of my bringing up this ideal is that as abhorrent as it is for me to follow, there are some bits of it I find useful. Postmodernism is supposed to teach you how to challenge the status quo, not be used to justify your lifestyle, morality or misunderstanding! (Okay, my bad.. I went into it again)

Maybe I will be more effective if I just do this without the “fluff”….

My point: Why do you have to have a university degree? Do businesses only need to employ people with a university degree? Is it plausible to employ quality people with no tertiary education, save their trade apprenticeships? Is the way business is being conducted presently in the Philippines irrevocable? Are standards actually followed? What if all trades were, under their own accord, following a higher standard than that was required? Is it possible that going to university does not guarantee employment? Have these questions been asked before, and if they have, what has the response been?

I know there are middle class families who are living payday to payday. I also know that a lot of my cousins who have attended university and finished all of them have obtained gainful employment.

I almost feel hypocritical in naming the School after lolo Amante. After all, he went to Wharton Business School and all of his kids went to university, some even pursued a post graduate specialization. Why do I want to have an “encouraged focus” on the trades?

I have no concrete source, but with decades of university focus for the middle class, the trades have been often looked down as a “blue collar” thus less paying profession. Imagine an entire population of engineering graduates, accountants, hospitality majors, art and literature specialists?

I remember the story Lyn's uncle Al once said, "My pizza gets delivered to me by a qualified engineering graduate! My Jollibee is served to me by someone who has better grasp of literature than I will ever have!"

I met a plumber once, just as I was finishing up Yr 9. He fixed our rented home's hot water system. He asked if I wanted to be his apprentice. This guy now owns two other plumbing trucks other than his and boy, does he rake it in. How my life would have been different if I actually pushed the issue with my parents and ended up being a tradie. Interestingly, some plumbers are actually earning more than their medical counterparts.

Maybe it is time to change the stereotype and be counter cultural for a change. Insanity is often described as repeating the same action yet expecting a different result. How many decades have we thrown kids into universities / colleges and mismanaged the resource that has eventuated?

A challenge, therefore, is given. Either manage the academics better by supplying the international business scene with world class Filipino graduates, or start measuring up as a tradie. Even better? Be a business builder.


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