Is it discourteous to discuss the future?

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): I have always been a strong advocate of anticipatory thinking. In every lecture I give, whenever there is an opportunity, I try to urge and persuade my audience to look into the future and think of our present problems in terms of conditions that very probably will evolve in the future. It has become my habit to ask my audience not to become prisoners of present conditions. Break the temporal walls in your mind, and take a penetrative step into the future. That has been my favorite strategy to create a more optimistic mood in a discussion.

This approach has worked wonderfully with the young generation. It has never been difficult to ask them to join me in projecting our hopes, our idealism and our belief into our collective future. With a little bit of information regarding existing trends and their meaning for our future, spiced with a little bit of encouragement, they enthusiastically make a mental leap into the year 2000 or 2005 or 2008. Such discussions make them realize that the future is not a totally unknown entity, not a dark and mysterious. These discussions make them understand and believe that to some extent we have a choice regarding our future.

There are instances, however, when this approach does not bring about the results I expect. This happens usually in discussions with older people -- 50 years or older -- whose occupations do not require much intellectual exercise and who seem to feel content and secure in a consistent setting.

Whenever I meet a group of this kind, I sense that there is reluctance among them to probe the future. I sense that they feel uneasy whenever I ask them to look at the present in terms of future perspectives.

They become visibly restless every time I say "Let us look into the future, let us try to make a choice concerning the kind of life we would like to have in the future, and let us discuss what we have to do now to ensure that our future will not be too different from the one we now envisage in our mind."

I sense their growing uneasiness, and also their reluctance to participate in any further deliberation.

At first I did not understand the reason for this phenomenon. Later on, I began to see their mode of reasoning. I began to see the mental conditions that make them reluctant or afraid to think about the kind of future they would like to have.

I was told in private discussions that what they absolutely reject is discussions about both present and future personalities. To them it is impossible to talk about the future without referring to personalities.

And to make projections about the future without the knowledge and consent of personalities now at the helm of our country is to them a very improper, very impolite and a very uncultured act. No matter how hard I try to convince them that thinking about the future can be done without touching upon the problem of personalities, they refuse to be part of such a discussion.

Initially I really did not understand this reasoning and thought that it was just another expression of their political conservatism. But gradually I realized that they are expressing their genuine feeling, and that this it is a consequence of a tradition which many of us still hold very highly.

I then remember how reluctant I was whenever my father and my mother tried to talk to me about inheritance, about how the few earthly belongings that they had should be divided between myself and my sister after they died.

It was very painful for me to think about what will happen after they died while they were still very much alive. Even when my father became sick and all the signs indicated that he wouldn't live much longer, I still refused to talk about inheritance. The only thing I agreed to was to talk about the care of my mother after he died.

"I won't live much longer," he said weakly, "I entrust your mother to your care."

I just nodded my head, couldn't say a word, and couldn't withhold my tears.

Talking about the future is in a sense like talking about inheritance. If it is improper to talk about inheritance while our parents are still alive, then it is also improper to talk about the future while the old generation is still very much alive.

Talking about the future is essentially talking about the time when the young generation of the present will have the reigns of the country in their hands. Can you do that while the old generation is still capable of governing?

I think that it is this kind of sentiment which constitutes the basis for the reluctance among some people to look into the future, and to think about ways of influencing the future.

It seems to me that to those who are reluctant to probe the future believe that thinking about the future means thinking primarily about personalities and governments and not societal forces and governance.

In my view, this interpretation is quite different from thinking about the future as basically societal forces that influence the developments of events and the style of governance that controls these forces.

Thinking about the future will definitely become very difficult if one perceives the transition from the present as a power play among personalities, and not as interactions between societal forces.

This matter becomes more complicated still if one perceives the relationship between citizens and government as parental. Perceived in this way, to talk about the future over and above those personalities who are now at the helm will indeed look very improper, and should be avoided by any Indonesian who considers himself or herself cultured.

But must we look into the future in that way?

To me the central question is whether we can really afford to move into the future without thinking about it, without probing it and without some understanding about it.

Can we afford to move into the future without understanding the forces that are shaping it and that will be at work in it? And is it healthy for the growth of democracy to personalize the relationship between citizens and the government in a way that it becomes patriarchal?

I still think that exercises in anticipatory thinking is a necessary part of preparing ourselves for the future, and that such an act does not violate any norm of civility.

The writer is an observer of social and political affairs.