Reading not a 'serious business'

By Ignas Kleden

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Publishers Association's (IKAPI) Jakarta branch recently held a book fair. As is always the case, if there is an event which is related to books, one is tempted to raise the issue of book publishing and the low reading habit in the country.

To try to solve the problem, IKAPI proposed reducing or eliminating the import tax on paper. The Ministry of Culture and Education, on the other hand, believes publishers should use more creative marketing strategies to emulate what has been done so successfully in the production of music cassettes.

In a sense, publishers can rightly wish for more legal and political protection. The hijacking of best-selling titles are still common and it seems that those who undertake such an illegal action are not frightened by the fact they might be punished if their action is disclosed. Why does the police immediately react to the theft of a car, while the hijacking of books takes tremendous effort to attract the attention of Indonesian law custodians?

Many people in this country do not consider books valuable property. If you lend a friend your radio, you are entitled to ask for it back, and the borrower feels obliged to return it. But if you lend a friend two or three books, you feel awkward asking for them back, and the borrower is equally embarrassed. Books do not belong to the realm of private ownership because they are not yet considered real property. Car or video rental is a booming business in big cities in the country, but libraries deteriorate quickly because cars and cassettes are considered valuable property while books are not. The struggle for intellectual property rights has a long way to go.

The situation is aggravated further by the fact that listening to the radio or watching TV is not subject to cultural constraints which hamper the reading habit. Book reading presupposes a condition of privacy, which is not very familiar in many Indonesian cultures. One can watch TV and listen to the radio in the presence of many people while being involved in a conversation, but one cannot concentrate on reading a book unless there is privacy. In other words, reading presupposes a certain level of ability and opportunity to be alone. Do Indonesian people feel the need to be alone? Among Americans and Europeans, the request (or even the requirement) "please leave me alone" is quite common. This is because being alone is considered equally important as being together.

The need to be alone is the need to be with oneself and to look deeply within oneself. Only those who are at one with themselves are able to deal satisfactorily with other people. This is the basic outlook of societies which are usually characterized as individualistic. But the label "individualism" often gives an overly generalized impression of the self-centered attitudes which supposedly ignore or do not care about other people's interests. Of course this is only half the truth.

Togetherness is important, but it also has its negative side. Gotong royong (mutual help) is a habit and a fondness of doing things together, but in many cases it does not imply a well coordinated division of labor. People are inclined to participate in doing the same thing, whereby everybody is supposedly responsible for everything, without the organization of who should do what. The Indonesian words kerja bersama-sama (working together) do not necessarily imply kerja sama (cooperation), whereby people are assigned different duties.

There is a legitimate need to review the collective mentality to eliminate its weak elements just as one has to review one's perception of individualistic mentality to adopt its strong features. In Indonesia, personal responsibility at work, autonomy in personal consideration, the independence of thought, the courage to take risks, as well as the ability to be alone, are some of the individualistic patterns which should be adopted.

Not all collective attitude patterns should be retained or are worth preserving. A collective attitude can become a place where the individual capacity is devoted and dedicated, or a place where individual incapacity is concealed. This ambivalence cannot be done away with since it is rooted in the basic symbolic character of every cultural pattern. In the individualistic attitude, it can become a place to show individual autonomy and personal responsibility, but it can also become a place to cover up the indifference toward other people, or even a refuge to hide the inability to deal with other members of the community satisfactorily.

It is impossible to push for the improvement of reading habit if the opportunity and the ability to be alone is not deemed important in a culture. This cannot be promoted if reading a book is considered an exaggerated action which should not be done in front or in the middle of other people who are engaged in conversation.

Reading is not considered such a serious and legitimate business as talking or playing cards. The Japanese are known for their collective attitude, but this does not prevent them from reading privately. After office hours, when the train is crowded with exhausted passengers, the Japanese still manage to find a small space to read a book or newspaper even if they are standing.

Reading is rooted in the cultural ethos. Students at high schools or universities in Jakarta often do not emulate their friends who spend leisure time going to the library, but instead ridicule or even treat them scornfully as pretending to work hard. Some of my son's friends have just graduated from junior high school (SMP) with very good grades. I know from their parents that they worked extra hard to achieve the best possible result of ebtanas (final examination). But if my son asked them whether they studied hard, not one of them would admit it and they would try to give the impression they were less industrious than what people believed.

This is of course negative, because working hard is regarded as something to be concealed. A social-psychological study is possibly required to find out why that is the case. Is it because everyday competition among students makes them feel it is necessary to pretend they can pass the examination without necessarily having to work hard? This is relatively easy to understand because it is linked to the need to boost one's identity.

Or is it because the general worldview of their society relates hard work with competition which could harm their harmonious friendship? This is a serious matter because it not only concerns self-identity, but is also related to the cultural belief which is rooted in the worldview that hard work is supposed to make one tower over one's peers, to make oneself different, and thereby disturb the social harmony in which everybody is just like everybody else.

Or perhaps hard work is considered a requirement for people from the lower-class, because those in the middle or upper-middle-class look like white-collar workers who can enjoy a comfortable life without necessarily engaging in dirty work (this is evidently a remnant of class bias which is rooted in the feudalistic mentality, and has not yet attained the bourgeois idea of work and progress).

The reading habit cannot be separated from one's idea of learning. But this is also closely related to a general work ethos, or a specific class bias with a social mooring to feudalistic mentality.

In cultural matters, a particular behavior such as reading might have many links with other cultural patterns, so it cannot be treated separately for the purpose or target you have in mind, without taking other patterns into account. If it is true that reading presupposes a certain level of the ability to be alone, this can only be promoted if individualistic patterns are adopted.

The concern about the excessive development of individualistic attitudes are somewhat exaggerated, because it ignores the capability of cultural participants to be selective in their cultural learning. To be excessive is not only something specific of individualistic mentality, but it also applies to collective mentality.

A community or even a society cannot be culturally sound and productive simply by adopting one pattern while condemning another. One has to learn what is worth taking over and what should be left off regardless of where a cultural pattern originates. This presupposes a mental maturity and intellectual autonomy, things which are akin to the ability to be alone, which is the basic requirement for reading books.

Window: The reading habit cannot be separated from one's idea of learning. But this is also closely related to a general work ethos, or a specific class bias with a social mooring to feudalistic mentality.