On the Concept of National Community

The piece On the Concept of National Community by Cesar Adib Majul simply discusses about Dr. Jose Rizal’s analysis in his community during his time and his analysis about it too. The piece mainly discusses about the basic defects that can be observed, that is traceable to the Filipinos. First, the defects of their educational training at home and in the schools and second is the lack of the national sentiment. As you go further on the piece, you’ll find yourself discovering how Dr. Jose Rizal tried to make the Filipinos understand what “national sentiment” is and how its absence affects the society Filipinos are into. How he tries to develop it in each and every Filipino through his writings for he believed that its development might not only reduce indolence but might slowly inevitably do away with what was depressive and stifling in the colonial regime. The first one that was discussed was about the kind of educational system the Filipinos have during Spanish regime. The attempt at personal improvement beyond the formal curricular requirements was judged by the authorities as presumptuous. How the educational system stifled the development of every Filipino which would have become productive and progressive. The second that was discussed which covers almost entirely the whole piece was about the absence of national sentiment and how each works of Dr. Jose Rizal tries to put it in every reader. And this is the thing I want to focus on.
Dr. Jose Rizal’s work are complex, it is difficult to discover a positive description of what he called national sentiment but he characterized situations that reflected its absence, and in at least one case, he pointed out an evil in the society that might be due to its absence. According to the piece, there are three negative characterizations which can be found in La Indolencia de los Filipinos. The first one was an absence of national sentiment that allowed the individual “to be guided by his fancy and his self-love.” Which