Reading not a 'serious business'

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.