University of the Philippines is considered as the national university in which students from where ever and from whatever status is free to take the exam and be called a UPian. Prestigious school in which all students that enters and be part of being a UPian is proud to state it. No doubt entering the university gave me the excitement and the feeling of being one of the blessed ones to be able to pass the entrance exam. There are pros and cons that take great effect where ever UP students mingle with outsiders especially when we conduct fieldwork and researches.
Let us start with the pros of being a UP student or UPian. (1) the feeling of being proud that you and your parents feel, (2) meaning you are branded as one of the "matalino" as the outsiders quote, (3) the somewhat bragging right that comes from being one of the passers, (4) you know that you set the standards of the young adults being aware of what is happening around them specially when it comes to the events that will greatly affect the Filipino people, and lastly (5) the mind frame of standing for what you know is right and what yo know will be for the greater good. These somewhat contributes to what we as UPians are today. The cons of being a UP student are the stereotypes that outsiders connects to us mainly (1) being "mayabang", (2) bossy,(3) activists, (4) students who doesn't know how to follow rules, (5) the students who always go on the street to rally, and (6) know-it-all personality. These points of view makes it hard for us to outright tell people that we are from the University of the Philippines.
From this standpoint i will coin or connect my topic to Derrida's "differance". This is a word or a coined term and Derrida contrasts it with the vernacular term "difference". The pattern of differance as was explained by Derrida is produce - deferred - by difference. Differance is the hidden way of seeing things that is deferred out of awareness by our distraction with imaginary that captures our attention. Derrida quotes De Saussure, " in language there are only difference. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences without positive terms." Derrida re-emphasizes the point that meaning isn't in the signifier itself, but that it only exists in a network, in relation to other things. "Differance" comes before being. This throws the idea of "origin", of true meaning, into radical. It comes from both "defer", to put off, which happens to meaning in language in a relational system where signs themselves do not have essential meanings and from "differ" to be unlike not identical. The "ance" gerund from the words puts it somewhere between passive and active, like "resonance" or " dissonance". Derrida explains that differance is the condition for the opposition of presence and absence. Differance is also the hinge between speech and writing and between inner meaning to outer representation. In the "signature event context", margins of philosophy by Derrida published in 1972, "differance" refers to a combination of temporal deferral and difference within a system and is the conditioning form of difference. There is always distance between sender and receiver, delay in the arrival of message and the division of the message because it can be received by different addresses, or the same receiver can interpret it in more than one way. According to Derrida the inner voice must still be in language that is material, intersubjective, social and historical. Espression must always have an indicative aspect. The emphasis is on the difference between average literal meaning and the meanings that may be taken up depending on context.
Batches from 2005 to the present has a big difference specially when it comes to what we call "bragging rights" They differ in a way in which the younger batches take pride of being a UP student into something that can be hated by other people. They take it for granted by th way of bragging and margining themselves a snot form the "mass" but form the elite point of view. We as UP students are considered to be the students who portrays the mass people, mainly the farmer, the fishermen, etc. but what the younger batches do today is that they see to it that people around them notice that they are form UP and that they are rich and intelligent because of electronic gadgets and the school they come from. Basing from my experience, we UPians do rally but we do it for a certain cause and for a certain belief that we should be the ones to show people that we can attain change and we can have a better society than what we have today, but from the rally I have been with the younger batches they portray themselves as activists just to be " in" or just so that people can say that they are really fighting for something which they are not apparently doing. I am not generalizing but stating the obvious facts that these younger batches show.
I connect the subject to " differance" because by the term itself meaning to be unlike and regarding the distance between the sender and receiver. UP students are unalike in so many ways if compared to other students coming from other universities. We signify our difference, for example by wearing slippers, which symbolizes as protest before not like what it is today which is viewed as a fashion. As time pass ti is visible that these things that symbolizes us would only turn into a common thing that we don't even bother to question. Being a UP student doesn't merely signify that you are intelligent or you are a law breaker or what outsiders connect to us but it just means that we as a student and as an example for the mass should show that the mass can stand up for their rights and what should be done in the current situation. It is not always about bragging rights what we are more intelligent than the other students from other universities but it is centered o the message that we went them to understand and what we want them to open their minds to. Basically we shouldn't even brag because we should be down to earth of being one of the "privileged" students because people look up to us and people will realize that we don't just do rallies because we want to but because we have to. Let us be an example in which all students form all universities can tell themselves "hey they have a point." We don't just be proud of ourselves but be proud of being front liners of the mass people who we are aiming to protect and to show hope for a better future. Being different is not just being unlike the others but being different in a good way, meaning you have to be different so that they can see that the difference that you are making is not for you but for them and for their own good and for the good of future generations.
SOURCES:
-hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/diff/html
-web.utic.edu/~misty.derrida376.html
-www.angelfire.com/md2.timewrap.derrida/html
-Jacques Derrida: basic writing, edited by Barry Stocher (London: rout ledge 2007, VII, 443p)
-Writing and difference/ Jacques Derrida; translated with an introduction and additional notes by Alan Bass ( University of Chicago Press 1978)
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