The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain
their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
– Dante Alighieri –

ARE WE A RESPONSIBLE CITIZENRY?

This is an uncomfortable question—one that demands honesty.

Unfortunately, the answer is no. To claim otherwise would be to deny a truth we often avoid.

In my fourteen years of living abroad, I have come to realize that we cannot attribute our failure to reach our full socio-political and economic potential solely to the government. In many ways, we ourselves contribute to the very condition we lament—more often than we are willing to acknowledge. The consequences we face as a nation are a mirror of our own choices. I see this as our own national contrapasso—the principle from Dante’s vision where the punishment perfectly fits the nature of the sin. 

I believe we often fail in our most fundamental civic duty: we do not choose our leaders wisely. From my perspective as an author who values the precision of every choice, it is painful to see elections reduced to popularity contests or questionable standards. When we elevate individuals who are unqualified or driven by self-interest, we are essentially drafting the very chapters of the dysfunction we later complain about. 

This failure is most evident to me in the persistent cycle of vote-buying and vote-selling. It breaks my heart to see the sacred right of suffrage treated as a transaction rather than a responsibility. This is the contrapasso of the ballot: on the eve of elections, when an envelope changes hands for a day’s relief, it sets a narrative in motion. Years later, those same hands wait again for a change that never comes. 

When we sell a vote for a single meal, we shouldn’t be surprised when we are governed by those who treat public office as a commodity to be exploited for years of profit. We are not simply victims of a corrupt system; I’ve come to realize that we are often the architects of our own deprivation. We are bound by a cycle where the short-term relief of a bribe becomes the long-term chains of our national poverty, and leadership is no longer measured by the integrity I strive for in my own life, but by the capacity to buy an advantage. 

This dynamic feels like a modern staging of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, where the titular general’s contempt for the public makes the process of seeking the people’s voice a hollow, transactional performance. In that chasm between a detached leader and a manipulated citizenry, the entire nation is swallowed.

In my view, what makes this cycle so destructive is how it fundamentally warps the meaning of representation. I’ve observed that when someone assumes office through monetary influence, they stop seeing their role as a public trust; instead, it becomes a private investment to be recovered—and, more often than not, multiplied.

In my own creative work, I strive for a “Holistic Approach” where every element serves the whole, but in this distorted system, governance becomes about the “return” on that investment. Decisions are no longer formed by the actual needs of the people, but by a desperate desire to recoup the costs of acquiring power. It makes me realize that corruption isn’t just an unfortunate accident in our story; it is embedded in the manuscript from the very first page. 

Faced with this reality, I feel that our duty goes far beyond simply refusing to sell a vote; we must practice a deep, intentional discernment when choosing those we entrust with office. As someone who carefully evaluates every line of a poem or every margin of a 5×8 layout, I believe the right to vote is not just a procedure—it is a moral responsibility that demands our best judgment. We have to set personal standards that exceed the bare minimums of the law, evaluating candidates on their competence, their integrity, and their actual capacity to serve. Without these standards, I fear our voting becomes nothing more than an empty ritual, rather than the meaningful contribution to nation-building I know it can be. 

This responsible exercise of our right is even more vital in a culture where we so easily mistake popularity for competence. I’ve often reflected that public office is not an extension of fame, and it shouldn’t be treated as a platform built on recognition alone. True leadership, like the mastery required for complex writing, demands the ability to understand intricate issues and make sound decisions in the public’s best interest. When we let popularity become our primary yardstick for success, I believe we inevitably diminish the very standards of governance we rely on to survive. 

Worse still, I see us continuing to recycle the same traditional politicians or replacing them with members of their political dynasties, yet somehow expecting different results from these same tired choices. In doing so, we reinforce a system in which power remains concentrated within a limited circle, which I believe restricts opportunities for genuine reform and perpetuates the very conditions we claim to oppose. 

What I often find overlooked, however, is that these political dynasties do not sustain themselves—they are maintained by our repeated electoral support. Leadership within these families persists not just because of their ambition, but because we, the electorate, continually permit it. In this sense, I’ve realized that dynasties are not simply imposed upon us; they are reproduced through our collective decisions. 

As I watch positions of power pass from one family member to another, I feel governance becoming less about public trust and more about the perpetuation of control. This tendency narrows the variety of perspectives in our leadership and makes significant change feel increasingly out of reach. When I see the same names dominating our political landscape decade after decade, my expectations for a different outcome grow increasingly detached from reality. 

Recognizing this reality highlights a profound personal responsibility for me. I know the means to make informed choices are within our reach; we can examine track records, assess qualifications, and critically evaluate platforms. To me, the ability to choose wisely doesn’t require extraordinary expertise—it only requires us to be attentive, thoughtful, and responsible with our votes. 

Beyond how we vote, I see a mindset of misplaced expectations, in which we believe the government is solely responsible for solving every societal problem. We often view our relationship with the state through a lens of entitlement, demanding benefits and services without fully recognizing our own vital role in nation-building. In many ways, our national psyche has become a staging of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, where we sit by the side of the road, suspended in a state of ‘what could have been,’ waiting for a savior who never arrives. We remain rooted in place, expecting the government to deliver a transformation that can only be authored by our own hands.

I’ve noticed that this belief is often accompanied by a dangerous expectation: that those in power can single-handedly deliver national transformation, as if progress were the work of political saviors rather than a shared responsibility. In my own reflections on self-improvement, I see how such expectations reinforce patterns of dependence that go beyond mere perception and begin to actively shape our behavior. 

This mindset is further reinforced by what we often call the ayuda mentality, reflecting a growing dependence on government assistance as a primary means of survival. While I recognize that aid is absolutely necessary during crises, it becomes deeply problematic when it fosters long-term reliance rather than empowerment. 

Instead of being seen as temporary relief, I see assistance being regarded as an entitlement, which inevitably weakens our drive for self-reliance and personal initiative. Over time, this erodes the very values I believe are necessary for a responsible citizenry—hard work, discipline, and accountability. Even more concerning to me is how this assistance becomes entangled with political interests. Rather than serving as a mechanism for public welfare, I’ve seen it dangled as a reward for political favors, votes, and loyalty. This practice transforms aid from a tool of empowerment into an instrument of influence, reinforcing our dependency while distorting the democratic process I hold dear. 

For me, this cycle of dependency mirrors Dante’s Third Circle, where the gluttons lie in a foul-smelling slush, eternally drenched by cold, ceaseless rain. Our gluttony is not for food, but for the ease of reliance. The contrapasso is evident: by choosing the temporary comfort of a handout over the challenging path of self-reliance, we condemn ourselves to remain in the mud of national stagnation. We are left perpetually waiting for a rain of ayuda that neither cleanses nor empowers, but keeps us mired in a situation of our own making. 

The more we rely on external provision without cultivating self-reliance, the more we reinforce the very conditions that make such reliance necessary. It becomes a quiet echo of the same moral logic found in Dante’s vision, where consequences reflect the choices that give rise to them.

When citizens begin to associate public assistance with political allegiance, the relationship between the people and their leaders shifts from one grounded in accountability to one driven by patronage. Instead of evaluating leaders based on competence, integrity, and vision, some are compelled to support those who provide immediate material benefits, regardless of long-term consequences. In this way, assistance no longer uplifts—it conditions. It discourages initiative, weakens independence, and fosters a cycle in which both leaders and citizens become trapped: leaders in the pursuit of political survival through distribution, and citizens in the expectation of continued provision.

To be clear, assistance has a legitimate and necessary role—especially during crises, disasters, and periods of financial hardship. A compassionate government must provide safety nets for its most vulnerable citizens. However, when assistance evolves from temporary support into a permanent expectation, it ceases to empower and begins to weaken.

The issue, therefore, is not the aid itself but the mindset surrounding it. A society that depends primarily on external support, rather than cultivating internal strength, risks losing the qualities that sustain long-term progress: initiative, resilience, and self-reliance.

A nation cannot progress when its people are conditioned to wait rather than act, to receive rather than build.

I see this condition further compounded by a culture of blame that I encounter all too often. When we fail to reach our goals in our personal or professional lives, I’ve noticed how quick we are to point fingers at the government, our leaders, or our circumstances, rather than pausing to examine our own decisions. In doing so, I feel we absolve ourselves of responsibility and, more tragically, surrender the very agency we need for growth. Instead of the accountability I strive for in my own life and work, we resort to excuses. 

It brings to mind the caution from Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” In my own work on a holistic approach to self-improvement, I’ve had to confront this same truth—that we often stay suspended in limbo because we have inherited a mindset that change is something granted to us, rather than something we must seize

To me, this mirrors a recurring moral pattern where inaction—though it seems harmless—allows dysfunction to persist. I’ve come to believe that our silence as citizens serves as tacit permission for that dysfunction to continue, unchallenged and uninterrupted. 

This is where I feel our Faith must move beyond mere ritual and into resolve. As I reflect on my own spiritual journey, I realize that claiming faith while remaining indifferent to the “hell” of corruption is a profound contradiction. True faith doesn’t offer me an escape from responsibility; it provides the mandate for it. If we are to be led by this “Virgil,” we must realize that God does not build nations—He empowers us to build them ourselves. 

At its core, I see the problem as a lack of personal responsibility and civic discipline. Whether I am working on the second edition of my book or navigating life in South Korea, I am reminded that we often neglect the role we must play—not just as voters, but as individuals who must work diligently and contribute to society. Nation-building, I’ve realized, is not a task for the government alone; it is a shared responsibility that demands effort from everyone of us.

The Nation We Created (Part 3)