on the maintenance of an illusion

Bob’s eye view

On the maintenance of an illusion
1st of two parts


        Illusions do, like to the most sophisticated of scientific theory, philosophy, or religion; secures hope. It is vital for a civilization to maintain certain degree of illusions, tolerable to all parties, about itself and those that sustain it. The continuance of such illusions ensures success; and disillusionment is futile.
        The ancient Romans have proven its truth. When St. Augustine defended the veracity of the Christian religion in his book “The City of Gods” and argued that roman deities favor immorality and self-indulgence, and that they deviate from the teachings of true religion, it shook the very foundations of their faith (an illusion, later on). And it was believed to be the major cause of their decline. In contemporary times, the Germans thought that theirs is the superior race, and the Americans that theirs is the culminations. Both people knew this to be an illusion but they tried every means to maintain it, unconsciously, in literature, arts, political manifestos, and even in everyday conversations. This is what sociologist termed, ironically, their national consciousness.
        Whatever illusions we Filipinos share, are important to our survival, and therefore we too must maintain them. Illusions are basis of behavior, and like to natural selections, they too evolve. Society mold and remold them continuously, which would be fitting and which is no longer useful. In everyday settings, these illusions are manifested very subtly. Consider a mother fondling her child; her baby does not have the desired feature of a Caucasian boy as shown in the milk commercials, but there’s a peculiar calm in the way her child looks at things, or that he talks “Da-da” way ahead of his age. There is one field wherein her child too would excel, in politics or in sciences perhaps. This “one-person, one-role” illusion would be the focal point of the child’s intellectual and psychosocial development, for those who will raise him, and for the child himself later on.
        These illusions, however, are vulnerable; like a pleasant dream just before the waking. But they serve us nonetheless. And the only way to make these illusions endure is through education. Because illusions live on the prospect that education realizes them.  If personal and environmental conditions adhere to the acquisition of such education, the society will experience stability, control; but if education proves inaccessible to the majority, the society itself will make the adjustments—to keep pace to the demands of time, to the point of embracing mediocrity.
        Illusions work on the unconscious; the surrendering of it is tantamount to condition more pathetic than madness.



Illusions [n. an erroneous beliefs or ideas]



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Bob’s eye view

On the maintenance of an illusion
2nd of two parts



        Illusions, as to temporary refuge, are conceived only to put the bearer in comfortable stance. It is the society that dictates reality. And the individual is tasked to take hold of it in the soonest possible time, without compromising much his ideals.
        Since education is both the illusion’s aim and vessel, that is, recognizing its potentiality and working with it; illusions now are not only to be maintained but also to be proven true in the end.
        There come the educational institutions. Primary, secondary, tertiary, and postgraduate institutions are all designed, suitably, to accommodate the illusions that inflict every individual. While continues modifications of the curriculum would cater and anticipate those whose afflictions prove grander than the rest. Not to the usual language, mathematics, or science programs but those that dealt with the creative mind, such inline with inventions (engineering) and the arts. Because these illusions manifest early and persist throughout the course of a person’s life, the demand for channel, recognition, is inevitable; whether one is willing to consider its consequences or not. Therefore they need immediate attention and guidance. Curriculum planners and public school administrators have recognized its immediacy early on but are helpless because of lack of machinery and financing. So instead of exerting more effort for its realization, they treat the crisis with selfish passivity, while some, feign ignorance.
        So the burden now lies to the individual. Because not everyone can afford the more competitive educational institutions, the only feasible solution is to compromise, which, though not in itself evil, delays the attainment of an illusion considerably. Potential artists, writers, scientist and other revolutionary thinkers, whose illusions divert from the ordinary but are unable to keep up financially, go into great lengths of adjustment and modification of their recognized abilities and their suspected talents. While some succeed to realize them, the others get confused, seize the tangible, and let go of their illusions indefinitely.
        The collective effort of the individuals to confront directly, to modify, or to give in, become the society’s; and is set to be the standard for the succeeding generations, until a certain illusion is realized. For when an illusion is proven true, only then that it dies; and society aims for another, higher.       
        Illusions are to be maintained only with the resolute effort of realizing them. If its continuance is just to fuel passive idealizations, both individual and society dwell in a pleasurably satisfying intellectual limbo.