CONTRADICTIONS power change processes in society. Dialectic analyses contradictions as unity of opposites whose opposition to each other can lead to the dominance of one in a new state under certain conditions.
The opposition between good and evil is the all-encompassing moral contradiction that sums up human civilization. Man’s politics in modern times have rationalized the blurred dividing line between good and evil to the point of justifying the convenient overlap.
This is done by focusing on other contradictions that are suggested to be more salient for practical purposes.
I call them contradictions of convenience and they further distort people’s sense of right and wrong even in the more specific ethical ways.
An example of contradiction of convenience in the local scenario is the contradiction that embodies the “yellow/dilawan” tag.
Its existence and essence lie in its opposition to whatever Ferdinand Marcos did and stood for.
This contradiction of convenience has energized local politics for more than three decades with its unresolved lifespan surviving up to the time of Duterte and now breathing longer life with the death of another Aquino.
On the other hand, believers of Duterte have simplified the contradiction that characterizes Philippine society into one placing the oligarchy in opposition to the rest of the people.
The more militant among them even advocate a revolutionary government to resolve the contradiction.
Marxist Joma Sison has long held on to his analysis of Philippine society as semi-colonial and semi-feudal that places the opposition between the people and the ruling elite of imperialists, feudal lords, and bureaucrat capitalists as a primary contradiction.
This is the main basis of the strategy and tactics of the CPP-led revolution employing armed struggle to resolve the same whose ideological perspective condemns all those disagreeing as reactionaries no matter how they were considered allies at certain periods of time.
In all of the above cases, every side claims to be on the side of good and doing what is right. People are divided while every side of the contradiction claims to foster goodness for all.
In the fight for supremacy, value ethics become untenable and even life itself loses value. This is reflected in the language used and in the actions taken.
And when the matter of “good versus evil” is frantically put forward religious hypocrites vie for attention with political opportunists.
That leaves the people without any other recourse but to imagine their own version of the primary contradiction that matters to them – peace of mind in opposition to the troubled world.
In resolving this contradiction to the side of peace something proves indispensable – faith in something over the capacity of man but within human understanding.
