Rizal Reflective Essay
Although Rizal’s message to the young women of Malolos was more than centuries old already, many of the themes in the letter are still pertinent to today’s social and political climate. Therefore, today’s youth can still deliberately find the letter’s contents insightful. Throughout my life, I have learned the importance of considering other people’s opinions when making decisions. Conversely, I realized that I should refrain from blindly obeying and not exercising my faculty to reason and discern what is right and wrong. Thereupon, it is preferable to die with honor than live with disgrace. If the past Filipinos pusillanimously treated tyranny with negligence and complacency, we undoubtedly would not have enjoyed our right to practice our freedoms. Accordingly, Rizal discouraged the tolerance of cowardice and lack of dignity. Apart from these moral principles, he also stressed the significance of succoring others in need so that they will support you too when you need help.
From Rizal’s perspective, several Filipino mothers blindly submit their children to the servitude of the friars. He argued that this was due to ignorance on their behalf and suggested that they open their eyes to the constant manipulation of the friars. Despite being religious leaders, they are not idols that can directly communicate the thoughts of God. Hence, we should not put their judgements above ours. Furthermore, we should not raise the younger generation to perpetuate this behavior. For this reason, Rizal would label irresponsible mothers as unconscious traitors of their nation. Although I would not necessarily agree with Rizal, I can understand his frustration. To clarify, a study by Nobes and Martin (2021) shows that many individuals believe that agents of an unintended negative outcome deserve high levels of punishment. However, while I think that the levels of punishment are arbitrarily decided, I agree that parents have a degree of accountability when it comes to raising their children with ignorance. Thus, we should not only learn to be independent and critical thinkers but also teach people younger than us not to follow the words of others mindlessly. In today’s society, Rizal’s discussion about the importance of utilizing one’s capacity to reason and prevent ignorance is highly relevant. For instance, Babii (2020) claims that we must equip our critical thinking abilities to combat the rampant misinformation propagating through the different forms of media that we consume. In addition, social media tends to influence the establishment of echo chambers among different groups of people because many individuals are likely to prefer looking for information that agrees with their worldviews (Cinelli et al., 2021). As a result, Rizal’s ideas about our responsibility to enlighten ourselves and use our intellect is worth noting even today.
One key point in Rizal’s letter was his stance on honor and sacrifice. He was insistent on telling people to protect their dignity and honor. Consequently, he rebuked the idea of living in shame and ignominy. Moreover, he admired the women of Sparta because of their mindset regarding these issues. Spartan mothers expect their sons to return in victory or to die in battle but not to return in defeat. From my understanding, Rizal wanted to cultivate this attitude among his compatriots because he believed this could give the Filipinos the upper hand when standing up to tyranny and slavery. This mentality inspired me always to prepare myself to sacrifice my selfish interests for my moral integrity. Therefore, I learned to abstain from being enslaved by my laziness. Despite possibly extrapolating his message, I wholeheartedly believe that it contributed to my desire to improve my work ethic. Concerning contemporary challenges, We can apply Rizal’s argument to the EDSA revolution. As former president Corazon Aquino stated, one of the reasons why the revolution was bloodless and successful in the Philippines was because the military refused to engage violently with the citizens and because the military finally stood against the dictator (Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 1987).
Rizal articulated his viewpoints on human cooperation in the letter by arguing why it is valuable to aid others. He mentioned that a group is much stronger than an isolated individual. Hence, it is crucial not only to fight for your rights but the rights of others as well. A study by Jagau and Van Veelen (2017) indirectly supports this argument by revealing that natural selection and evolution favor cooperation among various species. Therefore, it is safe to say that helping others is also biologically beneficial to us humans. I believe this also ties into our happiness and satisfaction in life. As humans, I think that we cannot find fulfillment in life if we continue to be isolated from others. Hence, we need to synergize with other people because not only will it benefit them, but it also benefits us. Furthermore, I believe the profit gained from helping others is greater than the effort invested in assisting them. One example of the benefits of working together and helping others is the technologies we developed to provide us with entertainment, food, transportation systems, and other luxuries. None of these would have been possible if humans worked completely alone without assistance from other humans. Thus, we should help each other because it is advantageous to us as individuals and also advantageous to us as a whole.
We can learn plenty of lessons from Rizal’s letter to the young women of Malolos. Even though the letter is over a century old, some of its points are still valid today. For instance, with the rampant spread of fake news and the emergence of echo chambers in social media, critical and independent thinking is a valuable skill to have. Additionally, the ability to defend your honor is also significant. If people’s courage to fight for their dignity was uncommon in the past, we might still live under a more unfair and abusive government. Similarly, it is essential for us to help our fellowmen because it is impossible to thrive as a person without aid from others. Since many of these ideas are still relevant today, it is worth considering them when addressing some of our modern and contemporary issues.
References
- Babii, A.-N. (2020). The Use of Critical Thinking against Fake News. In Education Resources Information Center (No. ED616249). NORDSCI. Retrieved February 26, 2023, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED616249.pdf
- Cinelli, M., De Francisci Morales, G., Galeazzi, A., Quattrociocchi, W., & Starnini, M. (2021). The echo chamber effect on social media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(9). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023301118
- Jagau, S., & Van Veelen, M. (2017). A general evolutionary framework for the role of intuition and deliberation in cooperation. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(8). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0152
- Nobes, G., & Martin, J. W. (2021). They should have known better: The roles of negligence and outcome in moral judgements of accidental actions. British Journal of Psychology, 113(2), 370–395. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12536
- Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. (1987, February 25). Speech of President Corazon Aquino on the EDSA Flag Raising. Retrieved February 26, 2023, from https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1987/02/25/speech-of-president-corazon-aquino-on-the-edsa-flag-raising-february-25-1987/