Aubrey Lao Magdalaga | SBAC-2A 06 December 2020

The Intellectual’s Poison

Humans are considered as the most intelligent creature in this planet. We are capable of
critical thinking, problem-solving, cooking, forming a systematic language that are spoken in
various nationalities and of course, create a civilization for our own benefits. Those are just some
of main characteristics of being a human but believe it or not, there are mysteries still
surrounding our own species that remain unanswered. However, we would not dwell on that in
this essay. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old but humans, together with our extinct genus homo
cousins, just occupied this blue marble for about 200,000 years old. Despite of that seemingly
small amount of time, humans changed the world in every means possible.

Society had long been evolved from being hunter-gatherer who loves to seek food for
their grumbling stomach, to a horticultural-pastoral society who plant their own crops and heed
their animals for livestock, to an agricultural one driven by animal-drawn plow which cultivated
their lands easily than handheld tools and to an industrial revolutionary development filled with
machineries and equipment aiming to make less time-consuming. In addition, after the industrial
revolution, the post-industrial period comes, more specifically, the modern time. Computers had
emerged, wireless technology and the internet had made its presence known, smartphones,
laptops, and many others have been an utmost necessity among the members of the society. This
period can also be called The Information Society.

However, there is a common denominator in these different types of society. A problem

that had persisted in the 200,000 years of human life here on Earth. It developed to be somewhat
a ‘norm’, a thing that majority of the population did not pay a glance or an ounce of attention to
for they did not deem this as an important matter to give a solution to. It is social inequality.

The underlying discrimination of people among lower classes and genders have been
prevalent among these types of society. Some people who have power looked down to their
employees and not give them their rightful compensation for the work they gave them. Women,
due to their ‘fragile’ anatomy, did not get hired to do jobs that are ‘too masculine’ for them.
Men, who are not that muscular or looked weak in the eyes of people, had also have encountered
rejections. Racism, especially to the people of color (e.g. Blacks, Asians, or Native Americans)
Aubrey Lao Magdalaga | SBAC-2A 06 December 2020

had been constantly deprived of human rights and opportunities because of the colors of their
skins.

Society’s poison is society themselves. Change is constant but it was as if this part of
society, the problematic one, cannot be given a solution. While high-class people basked
themselves with delicious snacks inside their air-conditioned rooms and mansions, some people
do not have a roof to prevent rain and cold air from kissing their scrawny bodies. While some
people scrolled through the internet as if their lives depend on it, some are struggling to find even
a small amount of money to provide 1 kilogram of rice for their family. While some have
technologies to help them study during this pandemic, some are just settling themselves with
second-hand phones or even just relying on their modules to learn. Sadly, the comparison does
not end there. Inequalities across the human civilization are just immeasurable.

However, it is important to note that people who had been given privileges from their
hard work are not to be blamed from the state of those people who have not. They are not at fault
on why these people’s lives are the way they are. On the other hand, those people who had been
unfortunate in life were not also to be blamed if and only if, they are not the reason why they are
in that state. For further explanation, an example must be cited.

Person A is the owner of a conglomerate, housing hundreds of people in his glass-

windowed building. Person B is his employee, a rank and file whose only source of income was
his job in Person A’s business. Person B was contemplating on whether he will need to find
another job to provide for his family’s needs because his job was not enough, even if he was
doing what are required. However, Person B was not the only employee who are experiencing
this. The employees of Person A are not receiving the right compensation for their works,
working for 8 hours a day and reaching the quota needed. The working conditions were also
becoming unbearable, some aircons are not working, faulty locks and smelly bathroom that will
make you puke with its stench. But while the employees are experiencing this filthy state of their
workplace while tiring themselves, Person A and his fellow top managers are experience a
spotless and comfortable working environment. Upon realizing this when the news from his
fellow worker who had seen the pleasant condition that their bosses are experiencing, some
employees along with Person B, decided to just resign simultaneously from the company when
they find other jobs that they deemed to be worthy of their sweats and sleepless days. Person A
Aubrey Lao Magdalaga | SBAC-2A 06 December 2020

got what he deserved because right after the employees passed their irrevocable resignation, the
company had slowly verge into bankruptcy. Shareholders and investors have also withdrawn
their shares from the company, leaving the company to fend for its original capital. Person A
forgot the one thing that can make his company alive and prosper, his employees.

We are the captains of our ships. We are in control on how we will go through the stream
and breeze, against it or go with it. The decision on what path we will take is solely on us, but
while walking down the path you have chosen, we will trip and encounter hindrances. No road is
smooth, unless you put some solution on it. No path is clear, but be sure that in making your
coast clear, you would not cut anything that will trouble the person who will take the same path
as you. Society had forgotten that being humane is a thing, some are resorting to underhanded
tactics just to satisfy whatever they have in their minds. Being technologically advanced are
turning us into some morally ambiguous specie. Not that society are not ambiguous even before,
but it was becoming ubiquitous. Needless to say, we, as an individual, need to remind that we are
all different. You might have the privileged to live a comfortable way of life, but there are people
who are not. The key to ignorance is education. Educate ourselves to the subject we have no
knowledge about. Why education? We are humans, after all. Even if we are the most intelligent
creature of this planet, we are still not knowledgeable enough to the matters we have no
experience on.