Life Musings

More on the foibles of Philippine culture...

Another huge problem is the excessive conformity within Filipino society. Filipinos are expected to conform to each other -- to follow the crowd, so to speak. In contrast, Westerners welcome, embrace and celebrate individuality and diversity.

So how is this a problem? Well for one thing, it stifles creativity. Instead of venturing out to try new things, Filipinos stick to what everyone else is doing. As a result, the popular media (movies and TV, in particular) fester for lack of creativity and innovation. Technology and industry suffers as well, as few people strive to become true entrepreneurs and innovators.

A professor of mine once said that the Philippines is a nation of merchants. When we talk about starting a business, people invariably think about opening a store or restaurant -- after all, it's what all the other business owners would do. This conformity and lack of creative insight is truly crippling the nation.

Conformity is also a problem insofar as it fosters the "pakikisama" attitude. Filipinos like to pressure one another into doing unsavory things, all in the name of "pakikisama." This contributes to our crime rates, drug addiction rates and other forms of hooliganism. I've also seen how this affects our school systems, as otherwise studious teenagers are pressured into ignoring their studies at critical times, lest their "barkada" think that they have no "pakikisama."

I think think that this comformity may be symptomatic our lack of exposure to other cultures. Or perhaps our lack of openness to other cultures is symptomatic of our extreme conformity. I'll say more about this when I bring up the subject of racism in the Philippines.