A voice of conscience must speak

A voice of conscience must speak

By Marianus Kleden

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (JP): Incorrect "input" in forming
the conscience of Indonesians has inevitably resulted in
erroneous "output".

In the continuing sociopolitical turbulence, a juridical
question can be asked of someone's guilt. Its juridical answer
depends on the judicial process, in which the judge makes a
decision according to the strength or weakness of the argument
set forth by both the accused and the accuser.

An ethical question as to whether a deed or action is good or
bad is also applicable here. Are the never-ending student
demonstrations sometimes demanding law enforcement intervention
good or bad? Are the security measures of the Armed Forces,
sometimes resulting in casualties, good or bad?

Answers to such ethical questions depend on the sensitivity of
the Indonesian people's conscience.

Conscience is not an agency that automatically knows how to
distinguish between the two. Conscience, extremely speaking, is a
type of tabula rasa, a thinly wax-layered tablet upon which
everybody can write. When the "writing" is done, the tablet
becomes a frame of reference for human behavior.

A conscience full of regulations, instructions, norms and
values is deemed the superego in Freudian psychoanalytic theory
or authoritarian conscience according to Erich Fromm. The term to
some degree is equivalent to "institutions" in the Indonesian
social science terminology, which means a system enabling members
of society to act in accordance with social expectations or to
behave in a standard manner.

The "writing" process -- which is nothing but the process of
internalization of norms and values -- can be compared to the
"garbage in, garbage out" principle in computer programming. If
the input is correct, the output is correct, and if the input is
garbage, the output is inevitably the same.

Since a juridical answer is made with reference to inner
disposition (i.e. the judge's conscience), juridical matters then
become part and parcel of ethical matters. But since law and
ethics have been dichotomizing each other, this article has
little to do with legal matters. Instead, it has much to do with
"input" used by bureaucracy in the engineering of a conscience
that fits national policy, which it hopes will be employed by
people as a social frame of reference.

In the last 30 years, there has been so much incorrect "input"
in the giant programming of conscience formation in this country
that it has resulted in erroneous "output" in conscience as a
frame of reference. Here are some outstanding examples.

Input: As the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) is an outlawed
organization, its followers must be "crushed".

Output: Butchering thousands of people is taken for granted as
a heroic accomplishment to secure victory of good over bad. So-
called personally as well as environmentally unclean individuals
are denied access to occupations although they know nothing of
the party.

Input: Cooperatives are the main pillars of the Indonesian
economy.

Output: State intervention in crop distribution leaves farmers
destitute and benefits an elite group of state-coopted people.

Input: Civil servants must vote for ruling political grouping
Golkar because they are behooved to government money.

Output: Subjects saddled with a slave mentality are unable to
execute their rights and freedom to choose from available
alternatives; they uphold asinine loyalty and are a solid corps
ready to be exploited by whimsical tyranny.

Input: The 1945 Constitution is the foundation upon which the
state is built. Like a house crumbling when its foundation is
demolished, the same fate awaits the state if there is any
discussion of constitutional amendments. Thus, in order to
maintain the continuity of the state, the Constitution must not
be changed.

Output: An attitude deeming as sacred and even idolatrizing
the Constitution in such a way that people are unable to see the
drawbacks in a man-made legal product used to preserve the status
quo.

Input: Mikul dhuwur mendem jero, a Javanese proverb meaning:
"Bear what is good and bury what is bad."

Output: It is inappropriate to talk about weaknesses and
misconduct of the deceased or personalities who made great
contributions to the nation. In a like manner, it is also
inappropriate to speak critically of a retired president.

President B.J. Habibie has just programmed new input:

A group of people is masterminding a plan to replace the
current (read: legitimate) government.

Predicted output: Any demonstration can be accused of being
rife with such plans and thus subject to government repression.

The immediate question is: Does the formation of conscience
depend entirely on the internalization of norms and values from
without and not have any independence from within? The answer is
undoubtedly no.

Fromm calls it humanistic conscience that he describes as
"knowledge within oneself" that pertains not only to cognitive
ability (i.e. knowledge) but also to effective ability for it
involves the whole personality.

When our mind, action and feelings are conducive to the
realization of a self with integrity, our conscience would
recommend it as something good. But whenever our mind, action and
feelings offend our personality, our conscience would judge it as
something bad.

Anyone will be happy with praise for success, and be angered
by offensive profanities. These are spontaneous reactions that
are nothing but expressions of humanistic conscience.

But are we not confronted with the fact that the voice of
conscience is so feeble in so many people that it is hardly
heard?

The question can be answered by saying that conscience can
speak loudly insofar as someone has not lost his or her
personality and become the prey of personal indifference and
destructiveness. The more productive one's life is, the louder is
the voice, and the less productive -- or, even worse, the more
destructive -- the weaker is the sound.

What was done during the New Order regime and is now beginning
to be imitated by the current government is to destroy humanistic
conscience and to cultivate authoritarian conscience. The effort
to engineer a prospective conscience is so villainous that a slap
is to be believed as education, the muzzling of human rights
champions must be accepted as tolerance, and a filthy prison
should be regarded as a civilized institution.

If humanistic conscience can only develop in a climate
conducive to productiveness and creativity, we then should ask
what kind of climate it is.

First, it is not a homogeneous, but a heterogeneous
atmosphere. The wind of this atmosphere is now blowing through
the practicing of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble
principles. The mushrooming of political parties and print media
is indicative of this. We are grateful for the decision to
discontinue the P-4, a quasi Pancasila-based doctrine for, by
doing so, we have crushed the machine that produced authoritarian
conscience. The next thing worth considering for the scrap heap
is Pancasila as a single ideological basis for organizations and
the uniforms still worn by kindergarten kids and schoolchildren.

Second, the government image as ing ngarso sung tulodo -- the
ego ideal in Freudian terminology -- should be wiped out. The
construction of the government image as a perfect self is so
pervasive and, to some degree, ingratiates as faith even though
there is a wide gap between what is constructed and what is real.

Witness that many retired civil servants, instead of blaming
Soeharto for the disaster we are experiencing, blame his
ministers for being unable to put his policies into practice.

Another implication of image construction as an ego ideal is
that the venerated one is part to privileges envied by the many
curious and thirsty to have them at their disposal. Biblical
mythology of Adam and Eve and the story of the tower of Babel are
typical examples of this primordial human desire to share divine
privileges and the destructive results. In order to appease the
deities, human beings had to offer sacrifices in the form of best
cattle and best crops.

It also hold true for the government. The government as ing
ngarso sung tulodo results in social jealousy in people who long
for a share of its spoils -- power, wealth, prerogatives and
perfection. This longing would certainly end up in repression
unless people offer sacrifices (or tributes in past kingdoms) as
an act of appeasement to worldly gods. The imitation of the ego
ideal bred the celebrated corruption, collusion and nepotism
(known locally by the acronym KKN).

The logic is simple but persistent: You cannot criticize a
perfect personality. Soeharto made himself untouchable behind the
shield barring "humiliation of the head of state".

Today, we find room for social controls, but not in its real
sense because the channel for our criticism is opened
reluctantly. Instead, we have gossip, blasphemy and social
parody.

Yet, it seems necessary to pave the way for the growth and
maturity of humanistic conscience.

The writer is a social science lecturer at Widya Mandira
Catholic University in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara.