The Slow Fade of Culture
Around two years ago, Mas Irfan Afifi, a cultural figure and contemporary Javanese philosopher, touched upon the idea of cultural sovereignty. On several occasions, our meetings discussed and revealed the perspective behind the idiom ‘daulat kebudayaan’. It certainly made my eyes feel as though they had been opened to the reality underpinning that idiom. Culture, running away from its roots of meaning and purpose.
As a society born of the same cultural roots, I share in the awareness, pride and appreciation that today’s various spaces are packed with ideas and perspectives on, or ways of viewing, culture.
Some are reflective, applicable and ultimately creative. Everywhere, people are talking about culture. The government frequently organises festivals. Communities are reviving traditional arts. Schools introduce traditional dress. Museums are becoming busy again. Historic sites are being visited once more. Even social media is filled with posts demonstrating a love of culture.
Everything appears heartening. The question is why, when culture is displayed ever more frequently, do we actually feel further removed from it? Why does culture so easily become a spectacle, an annual agenda item, a tourism object, or even a fleeting source of pride, yet never fully present in the way we think and live our lives? Perhaps this question arises because, without realising it, we have equated culture with tradition.
Yet the two are not the same. Tradition is the form, whilst culture is the soul that gives birth to that form: Sangkan Paraning Dumadhi, Memayu Hayuning Laku, Hayuning Tiyu, Hayuning Bawana Ambrasta Dur Angkara, and so on.
Tradition may take the shape of dances, clothing, customary houses, language, music, ceremonies, or various ancestral legacies. Culture, meanwhile, lives far more deeply. It lives in how humans understand life. It determines how a person views others, how society resolves its problems, how humans treat nature, how knowledge is valued, how power is constrained by ethics, and how the future is prepared.
That is why culture never actually begins with objects. It begins with the mind (budi). The word ‘budaya’ itself derives from the word buddhi, meaning intellect or the inner capacity of human beings. From this comes the term ‘kebudayaan’, meaning the product of the human mind’s cultivation in understanding and ordering its life. Thus the roots of culture are not temples, keris daggers, batik or wayang.
The roots of culture are the way humans think. Thinking gives rise to values. Values give rise to attitudes. Attitudes give rise to habits. Inherited habits give rise to traditions. Traditions then give rise to the various symbols we can see to this day.
If this sequence is reversed, we experience what we are experiencing now. The symbols survive. But the values are fading. Traditions continue to be held. But the way of life that gave birth to them is increasingly difficult to find. This is why a person can wear traditional dress with great pride, yet still behave dishonestly.
Why can a society stage a magnificent cultural festival, yet lose the space for dialogue when opinions differ? Why can we maintain historic buildings, yet be less successful in passing on the wisdom that once grew within them? What is lost is not the tradition. What is slowly fading is the relationship between tradition and the values of life. Yet our ancestors never created traditions without reason.
Deliberation (musyawarah) was born because they believed truth is more easily found through collective wisdom than through solitary arrogance. Mutual cooperation (gotong royong) was born because they understood that human beings cannot live alone.
Customary rules on forests, rivers and the sea were born long before the term ‘environmental conservation’ was known, because they realised that nature is not an inheritance to be consumed, but a trust to be passed on. Wayang was not created merely to entertain. It became a space for testing human character, criticising power, and teaching that victory without wisdom ultimately brings about destruction.
All of these were born from a single common source: a way of thinking. That is why culture always shapes human beings before it shapes works of art. The concern, then, is why has that relationship become loose today? Perhaps because our era has slowly changed the measure of what is considered valuable. We live in a time when attention is a commodity. What is popular is considered successful. What goes viral is considered important. What generates profit is considered worth preserving.
That logic unconsciously seeps into culture. We find it easier to count visitor numbers than to measure changes in behaviour. Easier to build stages than to build awareness. Easier to immortalise traditions through the camera than to bring them to life in daily existence.
There is nothing wrong with festivals. Nothing wrong with tourism. Nothing wrong with documentation. All are important. But culture will lose its meaning when all of these become the goal, rather than the path. For culture never asks to be admired. Culture only asks to be lived.
Herein lies our real challenge as a nation. We are not short of cultural heritage. We are not short of artists. We are not short of communities. We are not even short of pride in our identity. What is becoming scarce is the habit of asking questions.
Why did our ancestors choose such a way of life? What values were they safeguarding? Are those values still relevant? If so, how do we revive them amid a world that has changed?
It is questions like these that truly keep culture alive. For culture is not a dead object. It is always in dialogue with its era. It does not reject change. But neither does it lose its direction.
A living tree will continue to grow new leaves each season. Yet not a single leaf can grow if its roots are dead. So it is with culture. We may create new forms. We may harness technology. We may open ourselves to the world. But all of this requires roots that remain anchored in values that dignify humanity.
Perhaps that is why the greatest task of cultural actors in this century is not merely to preserve tradition. The more fundamental task is to revive the way of thinking that gave birth to that tradition. For when the way of thinking lives, tradition will find its own form.
Conversely, when that way of thinking is lost, tradition will become nothing more than clothing worn for a moment, a stage erected once a year, or a memory slowly losing its meaning. It seems culture is not something we store in a museum. Cultural sovereignty must keep moving; its values remain, yet there is room to adapt to the times, whether through cultural products presented in new ways, or offerings presented in keeping with current conditions. But once again, the roots of culture in the form of ways of thinking, social attitudes and ways of life should not shift — ideally they should become more complete and wise.
This means culture is not merely something we celebrate on particular days. Culture is how we become human. And for as long as culture remains capable of shaping people who are honest, just, wise, respectful of others, devoted to knowledge, and caring for nature, culture will remain alive, even as its forms continue to change with the times. Perhaps that is our true work. Not simply ensuring that culture continues to exist. But ensuring that human beings continue to possess budi. Wallahua’lam.