When Free Speech Becomes Overrated

A critique is never perfect. It takes another critique to make it better. Thus, it is an infinite exchange of ideas. It has no glass ceiling for as long as there is a progress in human knowledge, a critique can never be good enough.

To critique the work of a fellow critic is like re-examining a certain literary piece by using a different pair of eyeglasses. It is stripping an idea into smaller pieces and re-interpreting it from your own point of view by using the same guiding principles which the writer had in mind when s/he critiqued a piece. This does not necessarily mean that you copy her/his way of thinking, instead you just align your thoughts with hers/his in order for you to know what triggered her/him to write such. By knowing this, you are able to stand on a firmer ground to appreciate or criticize her/his arguments.

“The Racial Affronting Apparatus of “In the Land of the Head-hunters”: A Postcolonial-ish Analysis” is a strong discourse on the derogatory and insulting travelogue of a British writer. The said critique aims to defend the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines especially the city of Baguio from the discrimination brought about by the idea of the Orient which is a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the orient into western learning, western consciousness, and western empire. Being a postcolonial analysis, it is a specifically post modern intellectual discourse that holds together a set of theories found among the texts and subtexts of philosophy, film, political science, and literature which are reactions to the cultural legacy of colonialism. It is a literary critique to texts that carry racist or colonial undertone. It is evident that the writer’s main purpose of writing the critique is to resist the western concept of the Orient being the inferior, weak, third world, etc.

S/he critiqued the travelogue per paragraph and stripped it further into sentences bringing out its main idea. S/he interpreted each idea literally and metaphorically and also extended her/his argument by analyzing its impact to not only the Indigenous Peoples of Baguio but also to the Philippines and entire third world countries. This style of literary criticism is effective because it allows its readers to see the naked truth or message an article is trying to convey by eliminating misleading ideas. His/her critique for me revolves around the invincible but derogatory perceptions of the west to which we are chained to. Standing on the ground of postcolonial theory, s/he built her/his arguments around the concept of otherness as the linchpin of our inferiority with the western people.

As a part of his goal which is to resist the force of being discriminated, he clearly explained the reason why s/he chose to write in english rather than in English. This mirrors the concept of hibridity which refers to the integration (or mingling) of cultural signs and practices from the colonizing and the colonized cultures. However, this becomes a problem when you want your article to be taken seriously especially by the western people whom in this case is the target reader. This style of writing is predominant in the blog culture especially among the so-called third world countries. It is true that this critique as a blog enables us to prove that we can also discourse in this language in a Filipino way by integrating our concepts but we must know that in considering the far more casual medium of a blog entry, we have no right to expect the same level of careful analysis as in a paid print article. While the format and the unique possibility of combining quality critical writing with an open and genuinely useful discussion, the lack of any sort of editorial guidelines that marks the blog as the most democratic vehicle of expression also makes it far too easy for even the most restrained critic to toss of ill-considered and virtually useless commentary.

I also find the critique as a revenge-spirited essay because of the writer’s way of attacking her/his arguments. When I read it, I had a feeling that s/he was angry and irritated when s/he wrote the article. Though I know that her/his irritation to the culture insensitivity of the travelogue was the thing that might have triggered her/his eagerness to write her/his critique, what I mean is that s/he wrote it a bit too heavy. We must understand that when we write, our ideas are always patterned with a set of ideologies which we might have acquired through our everyday contact with our environment without even knowing it. Thus, we can argue that person is always an autonomous creature because everything s/he does is a product or manifestation of the things that have power over him-be it religion, politics, culture, etc. Having this in mind, the writer cannot put all the blame to a person who was just being honest to himself because maybe he really fond the IPs in Baguio as queer. We can only make assumptions but can really never conclude that he was in fact discriminating us.

However we (in class) are advised not to use this term in criticism, this is the best time to use it to refer to this kind of a writing which extremely sucks.

This line in the second paragraph brings me to one of the values of a good writer which is open-mindedness. To label an article with the word “sucks” is like concluding that the whole of it is worthless and non sense or worse it’s like saying “burn that o hell” ( although I’m not directly saying that this is what the writer wants to convey). It must be noted that all literary works, just like opinions, even how bad they may be have relevance in one way or another to our social growth. If say that the British writer is ignorant, what makes another writer who used the word “sucks” any different now?

Writing a critique is not just simply bursting out your emotions. No matter how free speech is free, there are still rules we have to follow. This is not to constrain us from expressing what we truly desire but only guide and lead us to effective writing. I’m not defending the British writer for s/he has truly hurt the feelings of many Filipinos no matter how innocent his purpose of writing might be. What I’m trying to emphasize is that we write back to these people in the right way and without repeating the same mistakes they had committed. We write back in a more intelligent way so that they will be able to see that we are no inferior people for we are aware of our rights and know how to fight for them in a diplomatic way.

Why then do we write in such a way? Simple, because we are Filipinos and like them we are educated.

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References:

www.faculty.pittstate.edu/-knichols/colonial2.html

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/postcolonialism

www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/orientalism.html

www.news.ca/studiosavant/2008/12/meta-criticism-vue-weekly-style.html

www.magkadi.blogspot.com