Philosophy on Human Person

7/29/2019 Philosophy on Human Person

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Marry Megalith Suan

AB-Political Science, 3rd year

The Interdependency of the Socius and the Neighbor

The interplay of the socius and the neighbor in the world can be imagined withthe interplay of the sun and the moon in the sky. Both are needed in order to attain

balance and equilibrium. Both are interdependent from each other. Without the sun, the

moon would be naught. Without the socius, the neighbor would be nothing too. Theinteraction between these two things, which are related but are also opposing each other,

is vital for their environment to survive. For the socius and the neighbor, its the world.

For the sun and the moon, its the sky. There are times when the sun needs to rise up,

giving way for the day. But inevitably, the moon has to take the throne and give way forthe night. Just like in the context of the neighbor and the socius, the socius also needs to

rise above but the neighbor has to surface too. This is the interplay between the socius

and the neighbor, between the sun and the moon, and this interplay is crucial for the

world, for the sky, to maintain its proportion and equilibrium. This paper seeks to addressthe importance of the socius and the neighbor by distinguishing their strengths and

weaknesses, and the significance of the parable and the prophecy, and the modern worldand institutions. This paper will also answer where I find the first, second, and third

dialectics in my life. And lastly, this paper will answer how I see the world after learning

about the socius and the neighbor and how the interplay of the socius and the neighborwill bring me my full and true humanity.

The parable tells us of a story of a stranger, without a social responsibility and

without an occupation, who helped a wounded man after being disregarded by two men,both belonging to a social category and both with roles in the society. The first two men

who passed by the wounded man were defined by their social categories; being a Priestand a Levite, both needed to assume their social function and to stay pure because theirfunctions required purity. This tells us that the parable is an answer to the question: who

is my neighbor? It tells us that the neighbor is someone who is always making oneself

available. This means that one must make it a habit to become available to make himselfor herself ready for surprise encounters. Moreover, the parable commands us to go and

do likewise just as the Samaritan the stranger, the unoccupied, the role-less did in

order for us to experience a direct man-to-man relationship. The prophecy, on the other

hand, narrates to us of what is yet to come, which is the Judgment day, when the Kingwill be placing us in either his right as sheep or in his left as goats. It locates the least

and these least people will be who Christ will call as his representatives. They will be

rewarded by their histories. Neither the just nor the unjust will know which side they willbelong or whether they will be rewarded or punished. These goats will be the great men

of today, who will only be praised today. These sheep will be the least, who will be

exalted and rewarded when the prophecy comes. The parable astonishes us, and theprophecy will soon astonish us. The parable relates to us an encounter in the present, and

the prophecy relates to us an event at the end of history, which will open to us the

meaning of all our encounters in history. As defined earlier, being a neighbor dwells in

the practice of making oneself available. It is a behavior and not a social object. One of


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the strengths of the neighbor is that it reaches out to a wide distance. It also doesnt

categorize people as friends or enemies; as long as a person needs help, the neighbor

attends to that person without being biased with his feelings towards the helpless. Lastly,the neighbor is not encumbered by any social function. The neighbor is always available,

and thus he or she can always attend to someone immediately, and even to surprise

meetings. However, the neighbor also has weaknesses. Because he or she doesnt have acertain territory, it will be difficult for the neighbor to attend to everyone who needs help

in different places. Also, the neighbor will even find it difficult helping a lot of people in

one place because he or she will get overwhelmed with the crowd of people who needsaid. On a different note, opposite the neighbor is the socius. The socius is evident in the

institutions formed after having entered into the civil state and into the modern world.

In the modern world, human relationships get complex, and abstract. The institution, on

the other hand, is all the organized social forms present in the society where the sociusdwells. In the institution, there is division of labor, job specialization, jurisdictions, and

even sadness and boredom. However, in the institution lies an inherent evil. Men tend to

enter into the institution to develop their passions for power, and domination. The

institution is materialistic, and it does not necessarily help out of service. The modernworld is filled with malevolence, and thus the institutions become filled with such

atrocities. The division of labor limits a person to only one or two jobs, causing his or herlife to become monotonous and therefore, making it a story of sadness and boredom.

There is the tendency to tyrannize the public, and to make justice abstract in the

bureaucracy. However, the institution renders services to the people and it does so withthe help of the socius. The socius is defined by the functions or roles it represents in the

world. These roles are what connect the socius to fellowmen. It is what we become when

we are being attached to a social function, and this social function is what limits us or

separates us from each other. We are differentiated from one another by our social groupsand associations. Just like the neighbor, the socius also has its strengths. For one, the

socius has a certain jurisdiction where it can effectively help the people who need its

services. Also, because of the division of labor imposed upon the socius, it canconcentrate on the task at hand while others concentrate on other tasks. However in the

socius, one cannot find the warmth and intimacy that is present in the neighbor. There

can be no direct relationship in the socius because what it has is mediate relations. Also,the socius is already being burdened by its attributed social roles, which makes it difficult

for the socius to help or get ready for surprise encounters.

The Childrens Hour is an organization that aims to help marginalized Filipinochildren to get access to quality education, health services, and nutrition. Its mission is to

educate children, to reduce the rate of malnutrition and hunger, and to fight against cases

of child abuse, child trafficking, and sexual exploitation. It also aims to prioritize thepoorest and vulnerable families and the excluded groups of children through their

different action programs. It delivers justice, specifically justice in equality, by giving the

marginalized children adequate access to industries for health, education, nutrition, andother social services. Also, it helps children who were previously abused, sexually

exploited, and terrorized by fighting for these cases, and ensuring that justice will be

served. As for charity, Childrens Hour is an organization which seeks to promote the

public good for the children all over the country. It has different donors that aid them in


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their mission, especially that it is a nonprofit and fundraising organization. Childrens

Hour does these things by asking individuals or volunteers to donate a minimum of one

hours worth of salaries for at least once a year, or to donate at least an hour of helpingteach and feed children. The delivery of justice and charity to unfortunate children is

definitely long-lasting because once lives are touched with even a single hour of help,

those lives will be changed. Children with cleft lip and palate deformities were providedsurgery to correct their cleft malformations and to even heal the associated emotional and

psychological injuries caused by the deformities. Also, children with congenital heart

diseases were provided free surgeries. Another thing is the scholarship program given tochildren that seeks to help them get better and quality education, and to later on help

them join the workforce. These simple gestures toward giving a better life to less

fortunate children change the lives of many, even the volunteers who helped in the

programs. During the College Fiesta, I helped as a volunteer for the Childrens Hourprogram held in the Thibault Ground floor of the university. It was a program in

cooperation with the City Social Services and Development Office, which also seeks to

provide social welfare programs to disadvantaged persons and communities. Children

from different locations were brought together in the university, and volunteers were tochaperone one or two of them during the entire period. For almost three hours, I

together with a partner, Stephanie accompanied one child named Shane. We helped herwin a game, fed her, and played with her. Although it wasnt much of a service, I know

we did help her. She obviously enjoyed the program and the food. However if I were to

work alone, without the help of the institution, I dont think I will be able to deliver aneffective and a long-lasting service to a crowd of underprivileged or helpless people

because I would get overwhelmed with their number and I wouldnt be able to focus on

their problems, especially that they perhaps might have different kinds of issues to

address. However if I were to help a single person at a time, it would be more likely tobecome an effective service because then, I would be able to help efficiently without

minding other peoples problems.

My family has a business, and this is where I can find the second dialectic in my

life. In the business industry, no matter how related you are with a person or whoever that

person is, as long as he or she is your customer, you should treat him or her as one. Thereis no such thing as friends in a business although you may ask your friends to buy what

you sell, etc. But you dont really give them privileges over others who are not your so-

called friends. That is the way business works, and that is how my parents operate our

business. Business purely and strictly means business but outside the business industry,my family and our family friends remain friends and we actually have personal

relationships with them. However, although I need to look outside the context of the

socius to find warmth and intimacy, I still need the socius in order to establish my ownpersonal relationships. A good example of this would be the government and Article XV

of the 1987 Constitution. Article XV talks about the family, and recognizes it as the

foundation of the nation. Specifically, Section 3 paragraph 2 of the said article says:The State shall defend the right of children to assistance, including proper care and

nutrition, and special protection from all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation,

and other conditions prejudicial to their development. Because of this law, I am being

well taken cared of by my family and even other people in the society. My personal life is


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protected by this law that the socius has promulgated. On the other hand, people who rise

up against the evil doings of other people from the institution is when I can find the third

dialectic. They do so because the institution tends to become abusive with their power,and authoritative with the way they dominate. A specific example is the recent

impeachment trial of the previous Chief Justice Corona. People questioned his integrity

and honesty to the public and because of some evidences they found out, they wantedCorona impeached. The neighbor has risen up against the socius. The neighbor wanted to

protect the state, and even the government from officials who are not transparent enough

to gain its trust. There were people who rallied for the impeachment of the then ChiefJustice, and those rallies were representations of how the neighbor rebels against the

socius. Sometimes, it is really necessary for the neighbor to rebel against the socius.

These times are when the socius is being too evil, too inhumane, and too obstinate. This

is because the socius tends to develop its passions for power, and makes the institution asa means to dominate. The socius tends to turn to another road, which is not in service to

the people. The neighbor sees and feels this, and it tends to act on it. It voices out what it

thinks is right, and rebels against the wrongdoings of the socius. This is necessary in

order to help the socius realize what it is actually doing, and for it to go back to the rightpath. This is, moreover, necessary in order to maintain the equilibrium in the society.

Before I hadnt given much thought about the socius and the neighbor,

considering that I hadnt learned of them yet. I thought of the neighbor as someone who

is in close proximity to me, and will be willing to help me but is not always willing to doso. However after learning about the context of the neighbor in class, I realized that the

neighbor isnt what I thought it was. It is more than that; the neighbor is someone who

makes it a lifestyle to help, without necessarily being a friend of yours. Also, I wasnt

introduced to the term socius before but after understanding it, I discovered the beautyand ills of being a part of the socius. This lesson affected the way I see the world because

I can now finally distinguish between the two. I learned that in the socius, there will be

no warmth and intimacy to be had. I also learned that being a neighbor is being alwaysready for surprise encounters. Moreover, I learned that we all need the socius and the

neighbor for us to grow into a full human person. We need to be a neighbor and a socius

in order for this to happen. For me to become truly, fully human, I have to live theinterplay of the socius and the neighbor in my life. In order to become a true and full

human being, I need to be a neighbor to others. I need to practice the habit of helping

other people and prepare myself for sudden, unexpected events that will need my service.

Outside the context of the socius is where I can find true warmth and intimacy, whichwill develop my personal relationships with other people. However, being a neighbor is

not enough. I also need the socius. I need to pass through the institution. The socius has a

certain jurisdiction, and it will help me effectively deliver my services. It also hasspecializations and divisions of labor, which also helps in effectively rendering help. This

interplay tells me that I need to interact, and that I must reciprocate the actions of other

people with reactions in order to grow. There must be an interaction between the sociusand the neighbor because that is when we realize the importance of the two. One cannot

survive without the other. The neighbor and the socius are equally important, and to

become a full human person, I must live them both.

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Philosophy on Human Person