JP/3 /INSIGHT

Our independence: In the shadows of violence and seduction

B. Herry-Priyono Lecturer Driyarkara School of Philosophy Jakarta

The river of time has brought us again to the eve of Indonesia's 58th anniversary. It may be time to prepare a celebration. A celebration could be a moment of hurrah; it could be a moment for soul searching as well. Either way, it is a virtuous moment to briefly escape from the torments of living in our present predicament.

Indonesia is a dream, not a reality. This may simply say something so familiar and worn that it has become the cliche of all cliches: It is an aspiration to a political community in the form of a nation.

A community is a group of people who share bonds of affection and a moral culture in the broadest sense, and it is distinct from an interest group. People that band together to gain privileged treatment make an interest group; those who share a certain level of geopolitical history make a community. An exalted definition indeed.

The fact that it is so lofty and because of this, too remote, could be gleaned from how the concept of "sharing" is too tall an order. Again, we are forced to leave the utopia of normative definition and return to the torments of our present condition. After the political vices and virtues of the founders of this republic in creating a nascent Indonesia, one of the torments we face today is how to transform Indonesia as a mere crowd of people into Indonesia as a community.

Here, what we find is not the process from crowd to community, but a quick deterioration from crowd to mob. Nowhere has this shift been more pronounced than in the escalating orgy of violence in the form of acts of terror, bombings and communal violence. What has all this to do with our sense of community? It is simple proven logic that violence shatters the sense of trust and togetherness.

Surely, unearthing the roots of this orgy of violence requires a thorough investigation. And, as in many other areas of public life, assigning such a difficult task to government is like going out to hunt with a pack of toothless dogs.

In truth, the orgy of violence is also much greater in scope than acts of terror, bombings and communal violence. It is embedded in the way our media, especially television, run their entertainment programs. Every time they visit Indonesia, my European friends are disgusted by Indonesian television, which are cannibalized, if not by brainless gossip programs, then by thoughtless violent films.

They are not mistaken. As always, the apologists of such programs would argue that there is no connection between the "bang-bang" programs and the actual, increasingly rampant violence in our society. For sure, such apologists would advance their point with the support of vacuous statistics.

What a pseudo-scientific attempt! They hardly look into the problem that the issue is not statistical, but psychological, in how the barraging images of violence penetrate deep into our psyche and become a real force in forming the foundation of our basic instinct.

Surely this is not the same as saying that the cannibalization of our media by violence has a causal link to, for example, the Bali or JW Marriott bombings. What it says is that the orgy of violence in our society is more commonplace than these tragedies, and ours has increasingly become a society that is ambivalent toward violence: It is loathed and simultaneously liked, and it is despised and simultaneously celebrated.

It is through the orgy of violence that our sense of community is banalized and shattered. It is wise, however, to pose the following devil's advocate question: Should the orgy of violence cease, will the banalization of our society also stop?

Most likely not.

The above question may sound strange and, because of it, is hardly raised. To raise this question is by no means to underrate the urgency for solutions to the orgy of violence. What it says is that the corrosion of our society comes not only from the orgy of violence, but also from the orgy of seduction.

Again, what we have in our media, television and mushrooming voyeuristic print-media in particular, could be taken as an example. Turn on any television channel, and in a matter of a few seconds we will find ourselves stupefied by mindless programs, mostly presenting gossip, celebrity chat shows and other voyeuristic programs. This is an economy founded upon the commercial preying of voyeurism.

Or, going to most newsstands on any city boulevard, we would find more and more gossip, life-style and celebrities magazines, ad infinitum, all valorizing brainless consumerist cults. All are targeted at the consumption of the mindless cupidity of youth, dazed by the ecstasy of voyeurism. As expected, the apologists would argue that such is the demand of most people, ergo they provide the supply. Ooh, come on, don't we remember Say's law that "supply creates demand"?

Indeed, in this process of banalization, depth is by definition lack of accessibility. It takes only a short step for this cultural banality to become interchangeable with vacuity. The credo of this cultural banality or vacuity is proudly advertised, for example, by A Mild cigarette: Gue berpikir, karena itu gue tambah bingung (I think, therefore I become more confused).

What has all this to do with the problem besieging Indonesia? If the orgy of violence shatters the potential fabric of a community, the orgy of seduction banalizes the potential intellectual depth by which a political community called Indonesia is made possible.

In the midst of such orgies of seduction, we should not be surprised then if people would vote for murderers, thugs or corruptors as leaders of Indonesia.

Indeed, as the late Antonio Gramsci, a renowned Italian thinker, warned us a long time ago, monstrous power operates through dual faces: Coercion, and what appears as consent.