Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
POLITICS is ideally a noble profession because it requires sacrifice. Plato even wrote about rulers abandoning their private properties and families in order to serve the collective good. Thus, in an ideal world, those who are running for office should be ready to abandon everything that they hold dear as individuals, and subordinate this to the common interest is that which is not just about what one sector holds valuable, but that which will be the lowest common denominator to everyone.
It is easy to talk about reaching a consensus about the common good in Plato's city-state. But the task has become infinitely complex now that we deal with a republic with over a hundred million people. This is precisely why in order to forge unity despite diversity, there must be a willingness to compromise, forgive and forget in the same manner that Plato urged his philosopher-kings to abandon and forget everything they hold dear and just focus on governing. Unity in a fractured political community cannot be achieved when there are people who are so blindly loyal to particular personalities or narratives that they would label those who disagree with their preferences as enemies to be conquered and not as fellow citizens to be understood and accepted.
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