B. Herry-Priyono, Jakarta
“Culture” is a mysterious force that is always assigned a special task in public life. How this task is performed by culture is what makes the present state of this country puzzling. And the more puzzling the state of public life, the louder the call for culture to work its magic. This mood of despair seems to have characterized 2007 in a more acute way than it has in the past. The reasons are many and intricate, yet they are not entirely unknown.
It has been almost a decade since the tumultuous events of 1998 that set Indonesia traveling the road of reformasi. What has really changed? It is belittling ourselves to say that nothing has changed. Many of the contours of political life, such as the way national and local elections are conducted, have changed, even if they all remain feeble in substantive terms.
In the quest for establishing the rule of law, many new and good bills have been passed and enacted, even if they miserably fall short of the justice they intend to guard. Economic activities are also gradually returning to normalcy, even if we have mistaken corporatocracy (rule by big corporations) for economy, and therefore have had little to do with ordinary people’s welfare.
Indeed, there are many aspects of the contours of our political, economic and legal life that have been changed. Yet, despite all these formal changes, we know to a high degree of certainty that there is something deeper to change. Many call it cultural problem, while others refer to it as a problem of mentality. This sounds so familiar that these terms have become cliches of cliches.
The terms may vary, but the crux is surprisingly plain: there is something pathological in the way we perceive, feel, act, relate and treat each other, and all this makes up the character and climate of our public life. It doesn’t take a cultural determinist to see that changes in the contours of political, legal and economic life are not the same as changes in the way we think, feel and act about political, legal and economic matters.
No doubt all the changes in the contours of politics, law and economics that have so far been worthily pursued are intended to mold the way we think, feel and act about political, legal and economic matters. That is what public policy is for. But to confuse formal changes with substantive transformation is like mistaking a tree for a forest. And it is rather clear that the ongoing changes in the contours of political, legal or economic life have miserably failed to bring cultural changes.
But what is culture? Culture is an omnibus concept, and its precise contents seem to have got lost in the morass of academic debates. It is true that culture is mostly defined as a system of values, but this kind of definition simultaneously says too much and too little.
A concomitant problem is a tendency to see culture as something a-material, in the sense that it has nothing to do with the material, physical and bodily activities that make up our day-to-day political, legal or economic life.
This Manichaean notion of culture is self-defeating, for what is called culture is then sundered from the embodied, material and physical nature of real life. The only way to overcome this tendency is see culture not as, say, shadow puppets, tourism or beauty contests, but as our day-to-day habits.
In short, culture is habit. In this way, what is called a cultural problem then refers to nothing less than the problem of our day-to-day habits. If culture is reflected in life habits, the question of cultural change could then only be understood in terms of changes in habits. It is here then that what is called “culture” is indissolubly linked with our habits in political, legal or economic life.
But what is a habit? “Habit” refers to repeated and recurrent actions that make up the whole gamut of day-to-day practices, be they personal, political, legal, economic or religious. These range from the way we dispose of trash to the way we drive our cars; from the way we treat our forests to the way we treat our business customers.
The whole gamut of these practices is what makes up public life. Public life is the locus of civility if it is characterized by considerate practices, and incivility if marked by inconsiderate practices. No doubt this view has a bad reputation among cynics, who often see it as a form of hypocrisy. In fact, civility is the lubricant of social relations that makes society possible.
The problem is, social practices that make up our day-to-day habits are habitual precisely because they are neither pre-meditated nor mechanical. Rather, they are instinctive actions triggered by repetition.
In this way, littering becomes a habit not because we don’t know that littering is wrong, but because it has been done repeatedly by most people. So it is in the case of corruption. No doubt weak law enforcement is an important factor in the vicious character of these habits, but weak law enforcement is a poor argument for uncivilized habits.
The implications are far-reaching. If habits are neither pre-meditated nor mechanical, then the way to change them should not assume too much of our faculties for critical thinking. This tragic statement is of course an offense to our intelligence.
But we should not be offended by the fact that we know that corruption, littering and illegal logging are all wrong, yet the gap between “to-know” and “not-to-do” remains yawning. Indeed, in matters of day-to-day habits, we are not as intelligent as we would like it to be. Between knowing and doing is a long and intractable journey of acquiring good habits, and this is true in personal and social, political and economic life.
It is against this backdrop that we seem to be in urgent need of revising our vision for cultural change, if only because changes in the contours of our political, legal or economic life have brought little substantive transformation. The vision may be put in these words: as much as the havoc in this country is brought about by the vicious nature of our herd habits, so its reparation can only be possible through a broad movement of virtuous herd habits.
First, due to the herd nature of our habits, their transformation apparently can only be effected by starting from the types of habit that have clear visibility and tangibility. This means that the new-habit movement is best started from the transformation of vicious habits that are habitually done by most people in the most observable manner. Littering or the way we conduct our traffic is an example, at least for the urban population.
Second, the new-habit movement is best started with the types of habit that are morally clear-cut. Is trash littering or traffic jam morally “good” or “bad”? No normal person would regard littering or traffic jams as good. This sociological definition of good or bad is of course too naive for high-powered ethical reflections, but that is beside the point.
The point, rather, is that the movement is best started from morally unambiguous types of habit, precisely because it will save so much of the time usually wasted on debates over what is good or bad. In other words, it will be much more difficult to start the movement if new habits are yet to be considered “good” by most people.
Third, as much as it takes a long time for us to acquire a reading habit or for a nation to acquire public decorum, so is any hope to reap immediate results bound to be illusory. It is here that the real challenge for cultural transformation really lies. As vicious habits that play havoc with the nation are found in people across religious affiliations, racial and ethnic groupings or socio-economic statuses, the new-habit movement presents us with a civic and constructive non-sectarian platform.
It is also crucial to note that the new-habit movement need not rely on government initiatives. We have a penchant for blaming government for any wrong that befalls us, from the miserable quality of television programs to illegal logging. In matters of cultural transformation, the truth is surprisingly plain: governments may come and go, but without changes in our vicious habits, no cultural change will ever be possible.
If culture is embodied habits, then there is no way to have cultural transformation except through a colossal movement for the transformation of habits.
The writer, a lecturer in the postgraduate program at the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta, holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.
