Pleasing personality

“We just say something as if it really makes sense. Like ‘legally drunk,’ leave the guy alone officer, he’s legally drunk.” – George Carlin, Jamming in New York

LET us discuss the recent ordinance our city council unanimously voted on which has sent lawyers reeling in laughter for its vagueness and subjectivity.

Yes, I’m referring to City Ordinance 2018-18 authored by Councilor Edna Dahino.

For those who have been hiding under a rock, it is an ordinance that authorizes social workers and police to accost adults who are with a minor or minors if these adults exude a “reasonable genuine suspicion” that they are trafficking the children they’re accompanying.

Dahino’s “reasonable genuine suspicion” reminds me of other phrases we have been using but haven’t exactly realized that these sound ludicrous, vague, and does not really define anything.

Worse, we haven’t really examined these phrases at all. We just use them to mean something when it does not.

When you define an act, you determine the essential quality, determine the nature of, or show the form or outline of the act.

It’s like when the police recently announced that this Holy Week they will be on “triple alert.” To me, it sounded ludicrous. Alert is a condition of heightened watchfulness and prepared for any eventuality. There are no levels of alertness. If you are not alert, you are lethargic. You cannot be twice as an alert — why will the officers give their personnel five cups of coffee every hour or a dose of amphetamine for them to be “triple alert?”

Then there’s the cliché “with pleasing personality.” You see it every time there is a job opening at any mall, store, private offices. It is usually one of the requirements when you apply for a job. The sexist part of it is that it seems to be applicable only to the female applicants. It makes you think, to whom should they exude this “pleasing personality,” the employers?

If this ridiculous job requirement is to be believed, then how come I barely see any salesgirl with a “pleasing personality.” We shop at Gaisano Mall, and my ex-girlfriend and I only see scowling sales representatives all the time — if they are not scowling, they are sporting that nonchalant-slightly bored-slightly annoyed look.

Going back to Dahino’s ordinance, like, did you know that this ordinance was shelved at least twice? When this ordinance came to my attention, I did not know why the councilors voted to defer it back to the drawing board twice. At least, now we know why.

A little birdie told me that Dahino was on a verge of throwing a fit if her pet ordinance would be deferred for the third time. Well, methinks that should not be the primary reason to approve an ordinance.

Even the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office is in a conundrum on how to implement it, exactly. For the sake of argument, what would they do to the person they hold for exuding a “reasonable genuine suspicion” of being a child trafficker? Will they institute “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which is legalese for torture?

I have observed that people use extra words in phrases to sound important when it is not.

It is not bad to be passionate about fighting criminality, especially this despicable crime of trafficking children. However, when you are crafting laws, you should be precise, logical or at least sensible.

I remember during my Task Force Macajalar days, lawyer Manuel Ravanera gave us, paralegals, a crash course on laws. He said in crafting a law, it should be objective so it will not be open to a deluge of interpretations, and it should be logical and sensible, like, you do not need to craft a law governing gravity because with or without that written law, gravity will still exist.

Why am I so up in arms about this ordinance, you ask?

Well, I’m bald and I sport a full beard. I hit the genetic jackpot of being a “suspicious-looking character.” I worry about stereotyping.

I hope this vague ordinance gets vetoed or at the least sent back to the drawing board again.

Don’t worry, councilor, third or fourth time is a charm.

Of opinion and judgment

“Salvation is offered, redemption indeed is promised at a low price of the surrender of your critical faculties.” -Christopher Hitchens to Tony Blair, Munk Debate 2011

AS you may have caught on from reading My Wit’s End, I will keep on coming back to the theme of organized religion and belief systems. It is not so much that I hate religion, it is more in the fact that it keeps people from evolving to their potentials. It is a self-limiting crutch.

A fortnight ago, I had a weird philosophical night of discussion and merlot with fellow columnist Rhona Canoy. Among the many things we talked about was the subject of truths, specifically on the subjectivity of truths.

Of course, Rhona and I were on the opposite sides of the fence on this one. Well, truth be told, I held on my definition of truth until she gave her Yoda-ish logic on the subject matter.

I told her right away that there shouldn’t be versions of any truth. I pointed out to gravity or gravitation as an example of a truth. You cannot possibly argue your way around that truth. It’s not like you can debate away gravity’s attraction to you from all other objects, from atoms to photons, from planets and stars.

She debunked my argument by simply saying that gravity is a scientific law. Laws of physics are hardly debatable after all. Unless, of course, you’re from another plane of the multiverse that we’re all in.

For the purpose of our debate that night, she added, truths are based on the perspective of the observer. Perspective, meaning, it depends on the upbringing and all the biases formed during the formative years. This includes how we are taught how or what to think.

I realized that I inadvertently confused truths to facts. My bad. So, I chose to shut up and listen to what Rhona had to say on “social” truths.

She gave a simple exercise to point this out. She held out her glass of merlot and asked me if we are in agreement that she is, in fact, holding out a glass of merlot. The answer is yes, I agreed. However, I couldn’t be positively sure that what she was looking at from where she was sitting was the same exact thing I was looking at from where I was sitting. Ergo, the void for interpretations of the truth that she was holding a glass of merlot.

The truth that we were talking now is actually malleable.

So, after I picked up my jaw from the floor, I likened this understanding to the difference between opinions and judgments.

All netizens on social media platforms also confuse the two, all the time. We treat opinions and judgments as one and the same. It is not.

On one hand, opinions actually reserve a room for doubt. That is because the observers spew out opinions on any given subject based on the facts they have gathered. So given the limitations of an observer’s access to facts, the observers tend to be open for corrections or realignment to their observations which they present as opinions.

Opinions, although based on facts, are malleable because no can really gather all the facts. Opinions, however, open avenues for discussion because the recipient might have some facts that the observer has left out or was not privy to.

On the other hand, judgments are rigid. Although judgments are also based on facts, there is another variable at play in formulating these. How they were raised to nurture age-old biases also comes into play. In this way, judgments are like the belief systems people have. It may not be supported by hard facts but you grew with it anyway.

Judgment is an opinion hardened by hubris.

I, too, am guilty of this. As I’ve told Rhona that night, I have always kept an open mind and reserve judgment, and so I form opinions. However, it is that hubris that sometimes makes me think of rebuttals while other persons are still presenting their opinions. That is a behavioral tic that I consciously want to wean out from.

After two bottles of merlot, we came to an agreement that critical thinking is key to evolving from our biases and rigid perspectives.

Critical thinking in the sense that one should realize where the observer is coming from. The peripherals in that observer’s life that made them form opinions and judgments. Critical thinking, to me then, is not just limited to scrutinizing the facts on which the judgment is based on but also their perspectives why they formed these.

So, the next time you come across a person with judgments, instead of shutting them out or bashing them, try your earnest to understand where they’re coming from. Take solace in the thought that nobody can really “judge” you into accepting other people’s opinions.