Re-Writing Filipino Self and Identity in Late Modernity PDF

All that Is Self Melts into Air: Re-writing Filipino Self and Identity in Late Modernity1 Gerry Lanuza Introduction It is my primary contention that a re-examination of Filipino sociological discourse on the self a...

All that Is Self Melts into Air: Re-writing Filipino Self and Identity in Late Modernity1 Gerry Lanuza Introduction It is my primary contention that a re-examination of Filipino sociological discourse on the self and identity is in order in the light of the post-modern rethinking of the notion of self in social psychology. This rethinking is grounded in the contemporary crisis social theory occasioned by post-modern assault on social scientific discourse. This chapter is a preliminary attempt to address this issue. The first part discusses the tumultuous crisis created by post-modernist critique of Western rationality. Then I will discuss some of the repercussions of this crisis to the traditional notion of self in social psychology. Finally I would try to discuss the implications of these new historical and theoretical developments to Filipino sociology of the self within the spaces vacated by colonial discourse. I hope that my preliminary insinuations at the end of this essay will be taken as a modest contribution in the search for Filipino identity. The Post-modern Crisis in Sociology The intellectual crisis has been a perennial part of social theory, and of sociology in particular. In the modern period Max Weber can be singled out as a great prophet of the crisis of European social theory and civilization. He diagnosed the malaise of sociology in the light of Nietzsche’s critique of modern nihilism (Weber, 1958; Turner, 2000). In contemporary period Alvin Gouldner’s The Coming Crisis in Sociology (1970) provides an analysis of the crisis of Western sociology. It simultaneously suggests the establishment of a reflexive sociology as the antidote to value-free sociology. Later Peter Manning (1973) in a short article in the Sociological Quarterly also provided a diagnosis that summarized the complaints of existential sociology –or subjectivist sociology—against the dominant objectivist-positivist sociological paradigm. 1  Today sociology is wrestling with another crisis. This time the jolts are coming from the unlikely provenance –the post-modern condition (Seidman, 1994; 1997; Denzin, 1995). For lack of space I will just summarize –which ironically is very unpost-modern— the main tenets of post-modernism that challenge the foundations of established sociology. First, post-modernists attack foundationalism (Seidman, 1994; Bernstein, 1987). The latter is an epistemological claim, in which knowledge, to be accredited as true should be based on something incorrigible and self-evident (candidates for such foundation abound: Plato’s Form, Descarte’s clear and distinct ideas, Kant’s a priori, Hegel’s Absolute Spirit, Augustine’s sub species aeternitatis, Thomas Aquinas’ natural law, Locke’s sensations, Russell’s molecular facts, etc. etc.). Second, it repudiates the claim that science has a privileged access to external reality (Rorty, 1991; Putnam, 1990). The definition of truth as correspondence with external reality (or mirroring of the language of nature) is strongly set aside (Putnam, 1983). Truth and objectivity are seen as contextual (Rorty, 1979:338). Truth is redefined as rhetorical device which persuades rather than a mirror that faithfully reflects on the facts. (Weimer, 1977; Brown, 1977, 1983). Finally the claim that human knowledge is culturally universal is challenged as disguised particularistic culture of white, middle class European male (Giroux, 1993; Said, 1986). Finally there is a growing skepticism towards the modernist assumption that human knowledge and culture are advancing towards the Final Convergence Point, i.e., the final truth about things (Rorty, 1985). Belief in progress is now put in abeyance. The “Post-modernization”2 of Sociology Now these post-modernist objections are directed against the corpus of modernist sociology. This development has several implications for sociology. Here I can only explore some of the more germane consequences. That sociology is a value-neutral discipline is now seen as something primitive and indefensible (Seidman, 1989). Sociology spews values in all direction. This has been the rallying cry of feminist scholars (Nielsen, 1989). That sociology is a privileged enterprise that mirrors social reality is now taken to be a myth of realist metaphysics (Brown, 1977). That sociology should model itself to the “hard” 2 sciences is now considered as misguided (Seidman, 1989; Rorty, 1986). That sociological concepts (e.g., class, society, social change, nation-state, race and ethnicity, etc. etc.) are all tainted with modernist hang ups, and are therefore, anachronistic (Smart, 1993). Amidst these ruptures there are rancorous talks about what would be the successor discipline for a decrepit modernist sociology (Bauman, 1992). The Odyssey of the Self in Social Psychology and the Post-modern Challenge Social psychology as a discipline in sociology is of course not immune to this crisis (Gergens, 1994). To situate the crisis in social psychology it will be helpful here to have a cursory look at the historical development of the discipline. I will do this in the following discussion by framing it within the problematic of the self. Sociological social psychology is indebted to George Herbert Mead for the first systematic attempt at clarifying the enigmatic concept of the self. The tradition bequeathed by Mead provided a behavioristic and linguistic model for the study of the self. After the death of the master the tradition itself bifurcated into two traditions. Manford Kuhn established the less known school, the empirically oriented sect of symbolic interactionism, known as the Iowa School. Herbert Blumer, championing “sensitizing concepts” in the study of the self, founded the more popular humanistic sect of symbolic interactionism (Meltzer, Petras, and Reynolds, 1986). The sibling rivalry between the two heirs of Median social psychology of the self centers mainly on the methodological issues (Hammersley, 1996). This is the first moment of crisis in social psychology of the self. Is the self empirically quantifiable and amenable to scientific manipulation? Should the self be studied in humanistic manner (Blumer) or in positivistic mode (Kuhn)? This is the methodological crisis of the concept of self. Another development stirred the tradition when Goffman started a heretical movement called dramaturgical sociology. Goffman provides a redescription of the Median self in terms dramaturgical vocabulary. But the early Goffman maintains an unsullied faith in the presence of “authentic self” through his concepts of the “back stage” and the self behind the mask. This can also be found in Mead’s concept of the “me”. The late Goffman, after peeling off all the layers of the self, arrived at the conclusion that there is 3 no core self after the mask is removed (Fontana, 1980). Here the second crisis point occurs with Gofffmanesque turn. Is there an authentic self, an unsocialized part of the self beyond social and historical contingencies? In this crisis the Freudians and sociobiologists joined forces with nature partisans in the nature-versus-nurture debate. This is the humanist crisis in the concept of the self. At the same time that Goffman was developing his strategic analysis, phenomenological and existential sociology also begun to take its hold among sociologists and symbolic interactionists. Here another shift occurred. The focus of the study of self was redirected away from experimental-Skinnerian approach to the analysis of meaning and consciousness. Existential and phenomenological approaches appealed to sociologists who were quite dismayed about the simplistic model of human action in Parsonsian structural functionalism (Gouldner, 1970). With the turn to consciousness and existence promoted by phenomenological and existential rebellion in sociology, another crisis occurs to social psychological discourse of the self: Is the self a pure consciousness (Husserl’s phenomenological reduction) or an embodied subjectivity (Merleau-Ponty and existentialists). This is the cognitive crisis in the concept of the self. Escape Attempts from the Crises: Linguistic Turn in Social Psychology I separate the discussion of Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology here, albeit it developed almost concomitantly with phenomenology and dramaturgy, because it provides a very different approach. Harold Garfinkel invented the term “ethnomethodology” to describe a special method of studying the self as constructed in rules and accountings (Garfinkel, 1978). This time the self is defined not merely as a rule following agent (just like role theory in functionalism). The self is characterized as reflective and active. Such approach puts to rest the passive view of subjects (Heritage, 1984). However, rather than dissolving the crises of the self in its successive treatment in various paradigms, ethnomethodology raised a new crisis: Is the self merely an indexical expression in language and rules? This signals the linguistic turn or crisis in social psychology (May, 1997).3 4  Another source of this linguistic turn can be grounded on hermeneutic tradition elaborated by Gadamer (1967) and Paul Ricouer. Paul Ricouer (1979) has dealt directly with the problem of modeling the meaning of human action to a text. More recently, there are growing number of social psychologists who are rediscovering Lev Vygotsky’s linguistic contribution to developmental social psychology (Wertsch, 1994). Others are exploiting the model of narrative to explore the new re-definition of the self (Gergens, 1989; Burr, 1998; Brunner, 1985). With this linguistic turn social psychology enters another crisis: should meaning of human actions be framed in terms of language or in cognition or consciousness? Discursive Turn in Social Psychology When the crisis in behavioral social psychology is being fueled by the concerted attacks of phenomenology, ethnomethodology, hermeneutic, and symbolic interactionism on the dominant notion of the self in positivism and functionalism, a new intellectual movement is sweeping France. Structuralism is on the rise. Structuralism heralded the “death of man” (sic) (Foucault, 1970). Structures displaced the self from the center of analysis. Structures are rules that constitute a language–like system or text. In this Soussarian model the self is dissolved in the play of signifiers within a system of signs. The self is no longer the supreme giver of meanings but is in fact constituted in a given discourse. The origin becomes the effect. Here the crisis of the self appears to vanish. For the question of whether there is an authentic self does not make any sense in structuralist paradigm. The self is an effect of system of signs, and not the other way around (Hollinger, 1997). But no sooner than structuralism had superseded phenomenology and existentialism that post- structuralism had taken over structuralism. Dissolution of the self is now re-baptized as a form of “anti- humanism” and “de-centering of the subject”. Humanism, as advocated by phenomenologists, existentialists, and symbolic interactionists, simply means that the subject is the sovereign legislator of the meanings of her actions (West, 1996). Man (read: “male”) is center of and originator of language. Post- structuralism demolishes this humanistic discourse by showing that the self is implicated in the seamless 5 web and play of signs and signifiers (Rosenau, 1992). The self is a position taken by the subject in a given discourse. The self is now seen in Nietzschean light as a fiction. Jacques Lacan, in particular, challenged strongly the neo-Freudian notion of a unified ego. The self is now defined through positioning in language (the Symbolic). The “I” is an illusion created by the Imaginary. The Imaginary is the mirror of the self which the self deludes itself into thinking that it is the authentic unified self (Bowie, 1991). The project of a stable, unified self, championed by humanistic social psychologists, is now seen as reactionary and conservative. It reproduces the economy of bourgeois conformity insofar as it produces normalized individuals with pre- defined essences. Michel Foucault’s brand of post-structuralism carried the de-centering of the subject a little further by insisting on the indissoluble link between discourse and power (Foucault, 1980). Power and discourse are linked together through the regime of truth. The regime of truth creates the self. The self is a relational concept caught in the webs of discourse that defines its power and capacities for resistance. And Foucault is at pains to show that the self is not trapped unhappily and helplessly in the regime of truth. For power breeds resistance (Foucault, 1980, 1990). The subject is created by discourse but resistance allows the subject to reconstitute the field of power circulating in a given discursive formation. But Giddens (1987) sees in this concession of poststructuralists a failure to develop a defensible theory of agency. Hence another crisis of the concept of self emerged: does defining the self as a position in discourse lead inevitably to the dissolution of agency? The feminists are the hardest hit by this crisis. En-Gendering the Discursive Turn Within the developments of post-structuralism, the shift from subject-oriented approach to discourse analysis invited very strong reactions from feminists. The crisis itself divided the house of feminists. Feminists argued among themselves whether the dissolution of the subject is still compatible with feminist struggle for identity formation and recognition (Curthoys, 1997; Cornell, Fraser, Benhabib, and Butler, 1994). Feminists contest not only the logocentric character of the self (the self as beyond the 6 contingency of language and history), but also its phallocentric nature (i.e., the universalization of male- centered definition of the self). Another hotly debated terrain is essentialism and feminism (Weir, 1996). For some feminists like Chodorow (1978) to be a woman is to have a definite identity separate form the male. This gives some feminists the hope that there can be an identity of woman that can be retrieved once the trappings of patriarchal language are peeled off. Nevertheless some (post-)feminist writers within Nietzschean tradition, are very vocal in resisting what they perceive as the new “subtle essentialism” in the new discourse about woman (Butler, 1990). The crisis now spills over among feminists: Is there a way of navigating around essentialism? Is anti-essentialist discourse on the self produce political paralysis? The more acute question is: Is the constitution of the gendered subject through discourse not another version of “subtle essentialism,” linguistic logocentrism? Grounding the Crisis in the Non-discursive What I have discussed so far is the mapping out of the crisis of the concept of the self in social psychology based on a particular reading of the history of the discipline. The picture that might have emerged might contain many oversights and overgeneralizations. Nevertheless what I intend to accomplish is merely to provide a sweeping perusal of the crisis of the self in social psychology. And I deliberately posed each moment of crisis in interrogative form to highlight the dilemmas being faced by social psychologists today who have to grapple with the transformation of self in late modern age (Giddens, 1989). Of course it is not my intention here to solve these crises. Now what I intend to do in the remaining sections of this essay is to map out some of the sources of the crisis outside the discipline itself. For social psychology of the self, and any other discipline, scientific or otherwise, is embedded in spatio-temporal coordinates of society and history. By doing so, I hope I can point to some clarifications of these impasses. What I will attempt is to connect the discursive with the extra-discursive. That is, to locate these crises 7 within the new social condition called post-modernity or late modernity. However I can only deal here with sketchy and not exhaustive inventory of the elements involved. First is the contribution of the feminist movements and gay and lesbian movements. Queer theory led to the profound questioning of the essentialist construction of heterosexual self (Seidman, 1994; Martin, 1996). These movements problematized the biological foundations of the self. It also questioned the Platonic-Cartesian definition of the self that has dominated Western philosophy of the self. Feminist movements in particular insinuated the return of the body in social theory. It affected the reconciliation of the body with the self (Schilling, 1996). These new social movements gave birth to the politics of identity. Now, political struggle has to deal not only with addressing economic injustice, but more importantly with the injustice arising from intolerance to other forms of life and culture (Fraser, 1998; Honneth, 1997). Second is the process of globalization. Globalization of sociological gaze enables the sociologists to acknowledge the presence of the “others” (non-Western peoples). This put a big question mark on the assumption that there is a common core of traits that is common to all people by virtue of being members of Homo sapiens (Clifford and Marcus, 1986). Western humanism is seen as male-centered and rooted in middle class individualism. The presence of these “Others” sent chills in the spine of Western sociologists and anthropologists who claim to represent the authentic voice of the natives (Denzin, 1994). Soon difference is praised while the search for common humanity is held suspect. Postcolonial writers even challenge the project of recovering the authentic voice of the native silenced by colonial discourse (Spivak, 1989; Joseph, 1996; Venn, 1999). Such recovery is shown to be implicated in the desire of Western theorists to contain and capture the “true nature” of the natives. Third is the rapid development of information technology. The advent of new information technology coupled with the increasing speed in travel and communication resulted to the compression and virtual annihilation of spaces that separated distinct geographical cultures. These processes facilitated the acknowledgement of the existence of “others.” The self, deracinated from spatial fixity, is now caught in the 8 webs of crisscrossing cultural hybridity. And the Internet proves to be the most powerful medium of this globalizing trend. As Simon Biggs (1996) enthusiastically remarks, The Internet has similar and some quite different character tics. Like CD-ROM it is a very cheap means o access to data…the material costs of publication are very low; and it is very portable. In fact, the Internet is so portable that the notion of place is lost altogether, since what is being “ported” is not the data but the user. When “surfing on the Net” it is quite common to move from city to city, country to country, continent to continent, in second. “Net surfers” are hardly aware of ”where” they are. Most likely they don’t even bother to keep track of their “virtual” geographic whereabouts. Notions of space as we have understood them collapse (p. 320). In this light, a writer suggests a shift form the classic mode of production analysis to mode of information analysis (Poster, 1989). The self now becomes a simulacrum, a hyper-reality without any original source or double (Baudrillard, 1989). With the advent of e-mail, the net, virtual reality, and other time-space compressing or space-annihilating technologies the self as a stable entity with fixed boundaries and identity is more and more difficult to accept (Turkle, 1995; Lyon, 1997). Cyber self is gradually effacing the space of self (Waskul and Douglass, 1997). One observer notes, On the Net now grow new kinds of social spaces –chat rooms, MUDs (multi-user dungeons), virtual realities, and subject spaces. Physically these spaces and places exist in silicon-based servers, enabled by algorithmic synapses. But in the evolving human matrix, they are the locus of a new social reality. These new spaces literally create new ways of being. From them are emerging styles of reality which accept, evoke, and embrace being fictive as natural part of being real. They precipitate the use of multiple personas as means of expanding experience, being and understanding” (Renan, 1996: 62). On line chat in the net dissolves the vestiges of the embodied self. Databases digitalize identity (Poster, 1996). As Randy David (2002) aptly puts it, Every little piece of information that you post on the internet –the messages you write, the websites you visit, the files you download, the e-mail addresses you contact, the books, tapes, CDs, and airplane tickets you order on the Internet, and the credit card numbers you give –all these become the aw data from which someone out there can piece together an identity, a virtual version of who you are (p. 196). 9  In this case surveillance is no longer forcibly enforced on docile subjects. Subjects willingly submit their forms to be encoded in databases, the superpanoticon (Poster, ibid.). Identities and cultures are archived (Lash, 2000). Finally, one cannot underestimate the revolution happening in biotechnology. Two phenomena are worth mentioning at this point. I am referring to organ transplantation and cloning. On the one hand, the former assails the traditional social psychological definition of the boundaries of the self (Fox and Swazey, 1996). On the other hand, cloning problematizes the continuity of the narrative of self-identity. What I have discussed are just some of the new realities that confront social psychology of the self. The list of course is not exhaustive. Nevertheless it gives us as at least a preview of what a future social psychology of the self would have to contend with. Well, others might argue that a conventional sociology of the self might not be workable in the near future. That is why some social theorists are already talking about the successor discipline. Others are sanguine even about looking for a successor discipline. There are those who insist that social psychological study of the self can still be circumscribed within the conventional discourse of sociology (Lyons, 1997). These sociologists would want to have sociology of post-modernity/nism rather than a post-modern sociology. The former insists on the continuity between modernity and post-modernity. This is very evident in Giddens’ (1990) alternative characterization of post- modernity as “radicalized modernity” or “high modernity.” Whether one opts to do a post-modern sociology of the self or sociology of self in post-modernity the discipline of social psychology can no longer remain unshaken by post-modern onslaughts. I, however, personally subscribe to sociology of self in post-modern condition. But this is not simple “nostalgic return” (Turner, 1987; cf. Robertson, 1990) to the classical concepts of social psychology. Such study must be sensitive to current developments in a post-modern society, while careful not to celebrate prematurely the demise of these concepts. Some of these concepts and tools may still be handy. After all we are still looking for a new toolbox to fix the chaos of the new social order. To unconditionally throw 10 away our old habits would be against the spirit of post-modern gaming itself: no language game ought to be eliminated from the conversation (Lyotard, 1979; Rorty, 1979). Moreover I am in the opinion that post- modernity is a not a totally new social condition but is continuous with modernity itself (Delanty, 2000; McGuigan, 1999). Re-writing Filipino Identity in Late Modernity What would these developments entail for Filipino sociology of the self? Here I can only give some preliminary remarks. Social scientists working on the Filipino concept of self and identity may develop and explore these themes further.4 First, it must be acknowledged that the concept of self is of modern origin. The notions of self and individualism are peculiar to modern western societies (Geertz, 1974). It was a product of the emancipation of individuals from the collective weight and constraints of tradition (Simmel, 1995). Later, with the massifying effect of industrial society humanists banked on the concept of “human nature” in order to recover the dignity of human beings amidst alienation and reification. The search for human nature was either grounded in sociobiology (Wilson) or in humanist tradition (Sartre and Fromm). And the modernist problem of finding the essence and core of the self is inherited by modern sociology. It is therefore imperative for Philippine sociologists to decipher the impact of modernization on Filipino sense of individualism in relation to the formation of autonomous self. However with the collapse of essentialist definition of the self in late modernity sociologists must turn their attention towards the cultural construction of self and identity. Sociologists should look at the transformation of Filipino identity in the era of late modernity. This involves the circuitous analysis of the different narratives and sources that are currently shaping Filipino identity. Such analysis however should not lose sight of the intricate ways Filipino selves resist, oppose, and negotiate and construct their own self-narratives within the interstices of local and global power structures. As I pointed out elsewhere, “Postmodern selves are ‘protean selves’ that assume multiple and continuously shifting identities. Thus, the postmodern self can be aptly described as a ‘saturated self’ 11 (Gergen, 1991), or a ‘pluralized self’ (Rappoport, Baumgardner, and Boone, 1001)” (Lanuza, 2002:196). This entails linking the process of identity formation of Filipinos to the globalizing processes such as international migration, hybridization, diaspora, time-space compression, post-Fordist capitalist accumulation, multiculturalism, and the eruptions of neo-tribalistic sentiments like ethnic conflicts, resurgence of nationalism, and the growth of religious fundamentalism (Lanuza, 2002). For instance, one can understand the resurgence of both Christian and Islamic fundamentalism in the Philippines in the light of Manuel Castell’s (1995) discussion of identity formation in the era of information society. The self is always embedded in a given cultural community. Therefore these movements are attempts of local communities to assert their identity in the face of the homogenizing currents of globalization. Fundamentalism is an attempt of some communities to resist the onslaught of Western and modern cultural imperialism. In so doing, these religious communities also universalize their particular identity by linking with diasporic communities around the globe who share their own worldview (Robertson and Chirico, 1989; Beyer, 1995). Ironically, these communities also have to use the new information technology to connect with other communities (Caplan, 1989).5 In the process, globalization does two things to the self. First, the self in incorporated in to the seamless web of global multiculturalism. Second, the self simultaneously retreats into the folds of the local community. Nationalism replaces, or may even fuse with, solidarity based on religion and ethnicity. Perchance the most revolutionary source for rethinking Filipino identity is the advent of cyberspace. The unprecedented developments brought about by cyberspace will insuperably impact on the future formation of Filipino self and identity. Through the procession of information technology, Filipinos today can have a glimpse and share the culture of the different peoples from different geographical regions of the world (Miller, 2000; Bennet, 2000). The Internet is making communication faster and faster. Data transfer is a matter of minutes, even seconds. One can chat with another person at the other side of the globe via the modem. The Angus Reid study shows that there are more than 300 million Internet users worldwide 12 (cited in Gargarita, 2001:49). An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Filipinos are using the Internet. Three out ten households have access to Internet (Buenaventura, 2001:133). Others estimate the number between 750,000 to 1 million Filipinos.6 In Metro Manila alone, ten percent of the population is Internet users. It provides encyclopedic resources for Filipinos in all areas of life –from sexual information to intimate relations, from educational information to anime icons, from state-of-the-art products to business information. Indeed cyberspace has become a preferred alternative venue for establishing potential intimate relationships for some Filipinos (Bustos, 1998) There are also indications that an increasing number of young Filipinos are using the Internet for sexual exploration, especially among gay internet users (Lorenzana, 2003; Lanuza, 1998). This is very likely to increase because cybersex provides safer and faster access to pornographic materials (Rheingold, 1996). Another significant technological innovation that is fast re-shaping the identity of Filipinos is mobile phones. Philippines is considered as the texting capital of the world.7 TXTPower consumer advocacy group claims that there are 10 million mobile phone users today in the country. There are 150 million texts sent each day or an average of 20 messages per person (Sotto-Resontoc, 2002). With this technology, spaces separating bodies and their cultures are breached. New interconnectivities are established while the old ones are either drastically changed or enhanced (Bustos, 1998). Cyberspace is annihilating the traditional barriers that keep the traditional elements of culture intact. More and more the local cultures are networked into the global flow of information (Cheng, 2001). Taking these trends into consideration, sociologists must pay serious attention to the ways in which cyberspace redefines Filipino identity in relation to spatiality and community. Such study must also look at the complex ways traditional definitions of self and identity are negotiated within these new grids of power and knowledge regime. Analysis must be geared towards mapping out the multiple intersections and nodes that create and shape Filipino identity within the global flow of knowledge and information and capital. Such 13 mapping out of the topography of the self will be very effective in plotting out the constraints and new opportunities for the re-invention of Filipino self and identity. Another area worth looking at is the formation of Filipino identity in relation to the family in the light of massive migration of Filipinos abroad to work. The self is nourished primarily in the family more than in the secondary institutions. Now with a sizeable number of Filipinos (mostly parents) going abroad, this unprecedented movement is already changing the landscape of Filipino identity (Asis, 1994; Go, 1986). Migration may create “large international family, an extended family spanning several countries, yet characterize by intense interaction, strong emotional ties, and a binding sense of mutual obligation” (Appelbaum and Chambliss, 1995:357). How far this global phenomenon will restructure Filipino identity is a very interesting topic to study. Prof. Randy David (2002) has already provided some significant insights into this issue in the light of modernity. For David overseas Filipino workers are the bearers of modernity (p. 349). Away from their families and traditional reference groups, the overseas Filipino workers are freer to choose their own identity. Consequently this entails a radical rethinking of nationalism: “In a world in which more and more people no longer feel bound to live and die in the country of their birth, in which cultures have become mobile and one’s identity is no longer rooted in geography, there will be no room for nationalist fundamentalism” (p. 51). Rethinking Filipino identity along post-nationalist lines must now be interspersed with the notion of cosmopolitanism. Third, the crisis of social theory occasioned by post-modernist attack on Orientalist representation invites for the recovery of spaces left by colonial definition of Filipino identity. A post-colonial clearing of the Filipino psyche is much needed at this point. It must do away with the need for foundations or guarantee that we are getting nearer to the truth about Filipino identity (Venn, 2000). This recovery should not be seen as metaphysical attempt to construct an essentialist language of Filipino identity. To do so is to fall into the same trap of colonial essentialism that plagues the Orientalist representation of the Other. Scholars 14 may of course follow the apt suggestion Gayatri Spivak (1988), that the subaltern can assert their identity via “strategic essentialism.” We can use this process of recovery to reassert our Filipino identity in opposition to the colonial representation. A recent suggestion of a Filipino Marxist scholar is worth considering here. San Juan (1996) suggests …replacing ‘postcolonial’ foundationalism with a hypothesis of situated ‘national-popular’ cultures that in their concrete dynamics of engagement with global capitalism in specific sites express the varied forms of responses by people of color (aborigines, women, peasants and workers, ethnic communities, etc.) to commodification. Such responses also illustrate their models of inventing autochthonous traditions that post-modernist skepticism of irony and offer ‘sources of hope’ not found in the classic European Enlightenment and its mirror-opposite, postcolonial relativism and pragmatic nominalism” (p. 88). Now whether such Marxist approach fares better than postcolonial paradigm is yet to be seen. The articulation of Filipino identity should not be phrased in rigid models, Marxist or otherwise. To fail to consider this caveat is to revert back once again to foundationalism. I would like to suggest that such process of postcolonial retrieval should be distinguished from the state-inspired indigenization. As Raul Pertierra (1996) has recently noted, indigenization can become another instrument of the state in its bid to better govern and discipline its citizens. Filipino sociology of the self can easily deteriorate into a conduit of the postcolonial state to legitimize its political agenda. This is all the more true considering the fact that the rise of nationalism goes hand-in-hand with the project of the state to create its own “imagined past” (Rowlands, 1994). Unfortunately the state under colonialism has never been successful in achieving its autonomy from colonial power (San Juan, 1996:66). In effect, the illusive search for Filipino identity, of collective memory, must be unmasked for its pretentious character to represent unifying voice of the Filipino. Such homogenizing project has to be deconstructed to show how it silences the plurivocality of Filipino identity. This does not of course mean that the search for Filipino identity is a will-o’-the-wisp. It only means that such recovery, if that is possible, can only be tentative and open-ended. It must always be recreated, reinvented as new struggles for recognition arise. In this light, a relevant rethinking of Filipino identity must contend with the emerging “politics of identity” in late modernity 15 (Giddens, 1990). Forging Filipino identity must take into consideration the basic struggle for cultural recognition of different ethnic communities and gendered commitments. It must go beyond the traditional class rhetoric of the left and the state-sponsored nationalism. The search for Filipino identity must take into consideration the fractured and fragmented character of the concept “Filipino” in an age where “everything solid melts into air”. Finally, social scientists must be very circumspect of the “political unconscious” (Seidman, 1996) of their discipline. They must be aware of the indissoluble link between their social scientific discipline and the regimes of power that prevail in current Philippine society. It is the task of a Filipino sociologist analyzing the epochal transformation of Filipino self operating in a postcolonial landscape, to expose the dispositif -- the regimes of power and knowledge— that constitutes the Filipino psyche. This genealogy of the self should strive to recover the silenced voices, marginalized groups, and subjugated traditions within the colonial narrative of the self.8 Notes 1 This is a revised version of my article, “All that Is Self Melts into Air: The Crisis in Social Psychology and Its Implications for Filipino Sociology of the Self,” that appeared in Philippine Social Sciences Review, 55 (1- 4), January to December, 1998, 73-91. 2 From Seidman (1995). 3 Of course this linguistic turn can be traced earlier to Peter Winch’s (1958) classic attack on Comte’s positivist approach to sociology. The only difference is that Winch draws resources from Wittgenstein’s arsenals, while Garfinkel had Schutz and Parsons at his disposals. 4 I will based my discussion here mainly on the wealth of sociological insights already developed by Randy David and my Introduction to the Part on Self in Nation, Self, and Citizenship. 5 See also my essay on Christian fundamentalism in this book. 6 The Philippines was connected to the Internet only in March 30, 1994. 7 Globe Telecom claims that it has 500,000 subscribers nationwide, 70% of which or 350,000 transmit 18 to 20 million text messages a day. This is twice the volume of text messages of entire Europe (David, 1999). 8 Readers who are familiar with the works of the late Prof. Virgilio Enriquez may find the arguments of the present essay insufficient because it ignores Enriquez’s pioneering efforts to develop “sikolohiyang Filipino.” I of course acknowledge such valid criticism. But I am not in the position now to address this very important issue. I address this tangentially in Chapter 5 of this book. 16