Ideas and ideals : essays in Filipino cognitive history. / Florentino H. Hornedo.

So dramatic (and traumatic) was the Philippine Revolution against Spain at the close of the nineteenth century that it has been an obsession of Philippine historiography for over a century now. This is the impression one gets from a look at any listing of Philippine historical literature, especially (but not only) by Filipinos. This seems to have had the effect of defining Filipinism both topically and affectively. As topical agendum, , it focused on narrative of events within the confines of the national territory; and as affective rhetoric it legitimizes the violence with which it was undertaken and continues to inculcate an imperative" of resistance and oppositionality to hegemony whether of foreign or local origin. This has tended to define patriotism as opposition to power - any power. It has tended to define "heroism" as bravado. It has not fostered a truly satisfactory national notion of statesmanship in the general population. It has produced a democracy of mere numbers not genuinely enriched with political discernment and statesmanly horizon. While it is rooted in a narrative of events, it appears to be deficient in an understanding of cognitive unfolding in the country - an unfolding that is the result of native consciousness in dialogue with the influx of ideas and ideals from the outside. In lights of this, a cognitive history becomes significant."-from Foreword