The Indolence of the Filipino

The very limited training in the home, the tyrannical and sterile
education of the rare centers of learning, that blind subordination of
the youth to one of greater age, influence the mind so that a man may
not aspire to excel those who preceded him but must merely be content
to go along with or march behind them. Stagnation forcibly results
from this, and as he who devotes himself merely to copying divests
himself of other qualities suited to his own nature, he naturally
becomes sterile; hence decadence. Indolence is a corollary derived
from the lack of stimulus and of vitality.

That modesty infused into the convictions of every one, or, to
speak more clearly, that insinuated inferiority, a sort of daily and
constant depreciation of the mind so that, it may not be raised to
the regions of light, deadens the energies, paralyzes all tendency
toward advancement, and at the least struggle a man gives up without
fighting. If by one of those rare accidents, some wild spirit, that
is, some active one, excels, instead of his example stimulating, it
only causes others to persist in their inaction. ‘There’s one who will
work for us: let’s sleep on!’ say his relatives and friends. True it
is that the spirit of rivalry is sometimes awakened, only that then
it awakens with bad humor in the guise of envy, and instead of being
a lever for helping, it is an obstacle that produces discouragement.

Nurtured by the example of anchorites of a contemplative and lazy
life, the natives spend theirs in giving their gold to the Church
in the hope of miracles and other wonderful things. Their will is
hypnotized: from childhood they learn to act mechanically, without
knowledge of the object, thanks to the exercises imposed upon them
from the tenderest years of praying for whole hours in an unknown
tongue, of venerating things that they do not understand, of accepting
beliefs that are not explained to them to having absurdities imposed
upon them, while the protests of reason are repressed. Is it any
wonder that with this vicious dressage of intelligence and will the
native, of old logical and consistent–as the analysis of his
past and of his language demonstrates–should now be a mass of
dismal contradictions? That continual struggle between reason and
duty, between his organism and his new ideals, that civil war which
disturbs the peace of his conscience all his life, has the result, of
paralyzing all his energies, and aided by the severity of the climate,
makes of that eternal vacillation, of the doubts in his brain, the
origin of his indolent disposition.

“You can’t know more than this or that old man!” “Don’t aspire to
be greater than the curate!” “You belong to an inferior race!” “You
haven’t any energy!” This is what they tell the child, and as they
repeat it so often, it has perforce to become engraved on his mind
and thence mould and pervade all his actions. The child or youth
who tries to be anything else is blamed with vanity and presumption;
the curate ridicules him with cruel sarcasm, his relatives look upon
him with fear, strangers regard him with great compassion. No forward
movement! Get back in the ranks and keep in line!

With his spirit thus moulded the native falls into the most pernicious
of all routines: routine not planned, but imposed and forced. Note
that the native himself is not, naturally inclined to routine, but
his mind is disposed to accept all truths, just as his house is open
to all strangers. The good and the beautiful attract him, seduce and
captivate him, although, like the Japanese, he often exchanges the good
for the evil, if it appears to him garnished and gilded. What he lacks
is in the first place liberty to allow expansion to his adventuresome
spirit, and good examples, beautiful prospects for the future. It is
necessary that his spirit, although it may be dismayed and cowed by
the elements and the fearful manifestation of their mighty forces,
store up energy, seek high purposes, in order to struggle against
obstacles in the midst of unfavorable natural conditions. In order
that he may progress it is necessary that a revolutionary spirit,
so to speak, should boil in his veins, since progress necessarily
requires change; it implies the overthrow of the past, there deified,
by the present; the victory of new ideas over the ancient and accepted
ones. It will not be sufficient to speak to his fancy, to talk nicely
to him, nor that the light illuminate him like the ignis fatuus that
leads travelers astray at night; all the flattering promises of the
fairest hopes will not suffice, so long as his spirit is not free,
his intelligence not respected.

The reasons that originate in the lack of national sentiment are
still more lamentable and more transcendental.