Introduction What if the empowerment movements sweeping the globe aren’t about equality at all? What if they’re merely disguising a chaotic redistribution of power—one that leaves societies fractured, roles meaningless, and traditions discarded? Modern empowerment often dismantles meaningful roles under the pretense of equality, framing success as a zero-sum game: for one group to gain, another must lose. But societies like the Philippines show us an alternative: honoring roles through recognition, celebration, and ritual —without tearing down the structures that give life meaning. The Illusion of Empowerment as Equality Empowerment movements—feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice—often frame their goals as "equality." Yet, their methods frequently demand role reversals, erase traditions, and force conformity, creating new hierarchies rather than balance. For example, women encouraged to "lean in" to corporate roles often face burnout because the system wasn...
Humility is often praised as a virtue. Yet every definition of it still orbits around the self, a quiet form of ego in disguise. They say Humility is the quality of not thinking you are better than others and having an accurate, modest view of your own importance. But that definition still orbits around the self. It assumes the self is a scale to be measured; high or low, superior or inferior. The word which originated from Latin word humilitas , meaning "lowliness," that is related to the adjective humilis and the Latin word humus , that means "earth" or "ground". This reveals why and what was it coined for; to recognize lowliness and humbleness as moral virtues for individual's ability to foster self-awareness, respect for others, and ethical conduct; yet this moral framing hides a contradiction. Thinking lowly of oneself is not a virtue. From its linguistic roots to its moral use, humility was meant to ground man — but the act of grounding became...