Should employers be influencing the political views of their employees? It brought the core of the controversy surrounding the limits to which an employer can influence her employees’ personal choices front and centre in what is evidently an unresolved debate. For that matter, the ethics around whether it is right for a person who enjoys a position of power over a party the personal views of whom she seeks to influence come to light. This also brings to mind the “normalised” practice of religious leaders wielding their followers like a political weapon come election time. Or the Roman Catholic Church’s dishonest use of “pastoral letters” to indoctrinate their congregation on their preferred political position. It raises questions around the legitimacy of a religious “vote bloc” when considering how said vote is an outcome of inappropriate influence applied by a leader or superior.
This all depends, perhaps, on the the contract that underlies the context where said “education” is being applied. In the case of an employer-employee relationship, said contract governing that relationship will likely exclude guidance or directives to an employee coming from a superior not related to the services stipulated in an employment contract. As such, an employee’s political views clearly lie outside of the remit of an employer to prescribe. In the case of teacher-student relationships, one can argue that parents give license to teachers to impart their values on their charges. However, even in such cases, there is still a line that prompts debate — is it right for a teacher to encourage students to attend the protest rallies of a particular camp? Some years back, the sight of students in uniform attending — even instigating and leading — protest rallies was a thing leading some quarters to question whether the parents of these kids (often pictured on public channels) were aware of their schools’ complicity in these activities.
The debate continues, much of it packaged under the euphemism “voter education”. Examine the notion more closely and it is easy to see that a thin line separates that concept from the more insidious field of voter re-education. Voter “education” — more precisly re-education — becomes potent as a tool for furthering political agendas when applied within the context of a the also-debatable premise that voters are too dumb to be given the responsibility of choosing their leaders. This brings us to the curious case of a certain “Mrs Unlawyer” whose Twitter thread on her own efforts to “educate” the nanny of her kids (she descibes her as a “diehard Duterte supporter” or “DDS”) sparked an intense ethical debate.
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The kernel of Mrs Unlawyer’s “education” was the idea that her nanny had much more to lose making the “wrong” decision on who to vote for in the coming elections; that while she felt no “adverse effects on [her] family” as an outcome of the “lousy government” of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, it is her (the nanny) who should be reflecting more carefully on whether this government actually delivered promised changes to her relatively wretched lot. Mrs Unlawyer goes on to tweet how, as the conversation with her nanny progressed, “it finally sank in how voting for someone inept impacted people in her social class so much more adversely”.
To be fair to Mrs Unlawyer, she points out towards the end of her thread that she cautioned her nanny not to “let me dictate to you”. But that is basically like telling someone “it’s up to you what you want to do next” after softening the subject to a pulp with a barrage of emotional blackmail.
Few people would disagree that bosses exert disproportionate influence over their subordinates — more so when they wield direct control over their financial situations (some people leaders don’t). The question is, is it right to use one’s position of power to exert influence over their subordinates — people who are effectively a captured audience?
Perhaps conversations of the sort Mrs Unlawyer shared over Twitter go on everyday in normal course of most people’s daily interactions in obscurity. Mrs Unlawyer’s only mistakes were to (1) subject her personal circumstances to public scrutiny given that she had made categorically judgmental statements about one political camp and (2) introduce into the mix the equally-controversial issue of the widespread employment of domestic servants whose services are made “affordable” by an economic structure regarded as “oppressive” by the very same political clique that Mrs Unlawyer sees herself as a member of. That opens her and others like her up to charges of hypocrisy. If you benefit from a social order that makes certain services “affordable”, criticising said social order makes you a hypocrite, basically.
Meanwhile, the debate as to whether Mrs Unlawyer was “educating” or really just re-educating her nanny rages on.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
We have our own free will to do what we want to do…Bosses or those who employ us have nothing to do, to control our own free will. We can seek , other employment, if , we have these kinds of employers : “CONTROL FREAKS”…
If you don’t want your religion – change your religion. If you don’t want where you are – move in a better place. No one can force us, to stay where , we are, unless we surrender our own Free Will !
Be FREE, Live and let live !
We are not pantay-pantay so that the person beneath gets to keep his own views. That’s just the logical consequence, benign0! It’s just a social climbing exchange system of advantage! Even though we can multiply the goods. I really don’t understand how this is still a mystery. Are you also acting against your own views?
Here’s the problem where being “more educated” gives people the impression that they are superior to others, except that they are superior only in their own bubble. It mixes with what I talked about before, such as managers interfering with the personal lives of subordinates (one of the negative aspects of Filipino culture), and “educated” people thinking their ideas are so great, they want to force their ideas on others, and when they see their ideas are refused, they throw a tantrum and sometimes become terrorists. This is the hubris of the Filipino middle and upper class. That’s why my conclusion these days is, let people live as they see fit, don’t interfere in their lives.
A country can become more powerful if its education system is strong.
The “improved” education system of this country bred the kind of degenerate thots that Mrs. Unlawyer is representative of.
Worshipping Diplomas, shiny pieces of toilet paper that they are, will not save this country and improving a fundamentally degenerative system will not save us.
We need a revelation and a total reckoning, complete with a full revamp of the Education System, even if it means burning it to the ground with all the current members of it inside the edifice screaming as the structure and themselves are incinerated.
It’s funny considering how Mrs. Unlawyer practically represents in microcosm the disconnected, deluded nature of the Metro Manila Urbanite who thinks it’s cool/trendy/hip to support literal communists while simultaneously acting like the sort of unelected aristocrat that her commie support would tend to despise. Hell, an extra 2 pesos if she’s also a person who hates America but loves America for it’s democracy and the idea that every has a shot and there’s equality when everyone Left, Right, and Center in America now agrees that the 2020 election was a fraud conducted by a corrupt elite who wanted Biden in because they wanted someone who is the same as George W. Bush or Bill Clinton.
The absolutely hilarious thing about all of this, is the fact that, by and large, these upper middle class Urbanites are easily the single most disconnected class of people from the entire experience of the Filipino. One would have to be blind to not see that of all the strata of Filipino Society, it is the lower classes, who have benefitted the most from the policies and projects of Rodrigo Duterte. While upper middle class hipsters try and LARP as Libertarians who think Duterte bad because muh taxes, Duterte institutes policies that help the lower and middle lower class Filipino sustain and create livelihood. While rich people play being socialists while representing the worst excesses of the Bourgeoisie, Duterte creates vital infrastructure that builds nations and communities for the benefit of the whole nation.
Truly, the ilk of Mrs. Unlawyer needs to realize that they are the problem here and are PRECISELY THE REASON why Rodrigo Duterte got elected into office in the first place. And being the unholy offspring of the Bourgeois Liberal and the Marxist they are, the SJW, the always lie, always double down on their lies, and always project by accusing those they hate of being the exact kind of filthy scum that they themselves are.
I’m going to get my popcorn ready, because once Trump starts his second term, these insects are going to kvetch so much harder than the next set of Presidents after Rodrigo are probably going to make DU30 look like a gentle, plushy moderate. It’s what our country needs and I fully endorse the acceleration.
Mabuhay ng Pilipinas.