Obstinacy overrides reason when pride gets in the way

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): "Isin Mundur!" This is a Javanese expression meaning, roughly: "An absolute refusal to retreat (from a pronounced opinion or statement) because it is shameful!"

This expression is used to describe someone who stubbornly defends an opinion or statement even though all the available evidence indicates that the opinion -- which one so jealously clings to -- is incorrect, not supported by data and not shared by others.

How do we explain such stubbornness?

As far as I know, within the traditional Javanese community this refusal to alter or change one's opinion is generally caused by fear of loss of face or the prospect of being publicly embarrassed.

But, according to Jean de La Bruyere (1645-1696), the tendency shown by obstinate people to "turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and willfully follow the wrong path" signifies fear to be controlled (Les Caracteres, 1688).

What happens after a stubborn person discovers that he or she is alone in his or her opinion?

Nothing! Such a person will continue fighting against public opinion. He or she will continue to ignore reason and common sense.

It is the environment which suffers from the presence of such people. They will erode public confidence in themselves and in their common sense.

Why? Because it is usually a person with power who can irritate and intimidate the public with their obstinate defense of mistaken opinions and incorrect facts.

Ordinary people will never attempt to offend public sensibility. If they do, they will be immediately ridiculed and repudiated by public opinion.

Observed superficially, obstinate people seem to have a tremendous amount of ego, an unshakeable self-confidence and an equally unshakable feeling of self-importance.

According to some wise people, however, behind this facade, obstinate people are really poor creatures for whom we should feel sorry rather than irritated.

Lee Iacocca, for instance, wrote that inflexible people have a large but not strong ego. And according to Iacocca: "There is a world of difference between a strong ego, which is essential, and a large ego, which can be destructive."

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), the American economist who coined the term "conspicuous consumption", wrote that obstinate people are abnormal people, that is their temperament deviates from the normal.

He wrote: "Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can, in the long run, retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows." (The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899).

Are not such people aware that they are being looked upon by their environment as nuisances, you might ask?.

No! I don't think they ever perceive themselves as annoying. Being looked upon as a nuisance is one thing. Perceiving oneself as a nuisance is quite another thing. Only people with a sufficient amount of social sensitivity will be able to see themselves as obnoxious in a given situation.

Why? Because a nuisance is defined as: "one that is inconvenient, annoying, or vexatious; a bother." Thus to perceive this requires one to feel inconvenient, annoying, irritating or vexatious.

Obstinate people never have this kind of feeling. Even after having said or done a very stupid thing, this type of person still feels that he or she has said or done the right thing and that it is the society's stupidity which prevents it from seeing the correctness of the decision.

Once, a professor of mine, Broekema, told a story which illustrated this principle. At one time -- I do not remember when but it must have been sometime between 1898 and 1914 -- the autocratic Tsar Nicholas II of Russia visited the Netherlands. One evening, Queen Wilhelmina held a gala dinner in his honor. Among the beautiful utensils displayed and used on the dining table was a finger bowl made of crystal and filled with water.

According to Prof. Broekema, Tsar Nicolas II mistook this finger bowl for a drinking glass, and drank the water from it. Everybody in the Dutch entourage gasped, witnessing what they considered "a barbarian blunder!"

But Queen Wilhelmina, who was quite well-known for her wise character and diplomatic subtleties, remained calm and after noticing the incident immediately took the finger bowl at her side and drank from it. Everyone else followed her example.

The moral of this story is that it is just impossible to treat an important person like a nuisance, no matter how many blunders he or she may have made.

People who happen to occupy important positions -- albeit these positions may be temporary -- cannot be simply brushed aside every time they have said or done a stupid thing.

They must be dealt with in a different manner. And the most important thing here is to contain and control effectively the damages done by such people.

This brings us to the question of whether power and prominence generate obstinacy, or whether being stubborn is a characteristic that eventually takes one to power and subsequently to prominence.

I do not think that stubbornness is an essential requirement for becoming a person with power. Staunchness or resoluteness, yes, but not stubbornness.

Stubbornness and obstinacy connote unreasonableness or perversity, whereas staunchness and resoluteness denote firmness in adherence to a value. There is, thus, a qualitative difference between being obstinate on the one hand, and being staunch on the other.

I am quite confident that it is power which corrupts people into becoming obstinate and not the other way around. Obstinate people are victims of their ego and their vanity.

Is it true that obstinacy is the product of "false pride"? Maybe so, but what is false pride?

Pride means different things to different people. I think there is "healthy pride" but there is also an unhealthy version. Healthy pride is perhaps that characteristic which makes a person behave with self-respect without becoming arrogant. Perhaps this is why Charles Calob Colton (1780-1832) said: "There is a paradox in pride -- it makes some men ridiculous but prevents others from becoming so."

In the face of the realities that exist around us, the question we have to answer is: How do we respond wisely to obstinate expressions and outbursts so that we do not loose our faith in common sense and in reason and do not loose sight of the new world that is unfolding around us and ahead of us?

I think that not loosing our courage to think, even in the face of the most absurd conditions, may constitute one such response.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.