Tradition vs traditionalism (1)

Tradition vs traditionalism (1)

By Ignas Kleden

This is the first of a two-part article examining the
relations between the concept of tradition and political
thinking.

JAKARTA (JP): Tradition and traditionalism are two closely
related concepts which, however, are quite different. Balinese,
for example, are Balinese because they have grown up in their
tradition. They are trained to speak the Balinese language as
their mother tongue, are brought up to behave like Balinese, and
become familiar with some ideals which, according to the values
of their culture, are worth striving for.

In other words, tradition is a terminus a quo, a point from
which one sets out on one's journey. However, tradition need not
be a terminus ad quem, a point one is damned to head for or to
arrive at. The fact that we cannot live without tradition need
not imply that, willy nilly, we must be traditionalists.

By "traditionalist" I mean a person who holds that tradition
is not only a starting point, but also the course one is expected
to run, and even the goal which one is expected to achieve.
Traditionalism is based, evidently, on the assumption that man is
culture-made. This is certainly true, but this truth becomes so
easily misleading if it is too forcefully emphasized or over-
generalized. To say that man is culture-made is as true as to
contend that culture is man-made. This mutual interplay or
dialectical relationship between a human being and his or her
culture can never be exaggerated.

In the modern cultural history of Indonesia the late Sutan
Takdir Alisyahbana is no doubt the most articulate and the most
outspoken -- in many cases even pertinacious -- proponent of the
proposition that the culture of modern Indonesia was yet to be
built since, he said, we could not have recourse to the
traditional culture which produced the temple of Borobudur.
According to him, that sort of culture belonged to the past, to
tradition, whereas the culture of a new Indonesia should be
oriented towards the future; that is, towards the search for new
ideals and visions, and could not be built upon those traditional
values and traditional knowledge.

Looking back, he said, would only cause pride about past
achievements and would tend to have a mesmerizing effect. As it
turned out, while rejecting the Indonesian tradition, Takdir
looked for another tradition and settled on one originating in
the European renaissance. I would argue that what he had in mind
was not the rejection of tradition as such but, rather, the
rejection of the traditional way of sticking to tradition, which
is traditionalism.

The opponents of this stance used to argue that the culture of
modern Indonesia could not be modeled on western patterns. Of
course, the negative sides of western culture should not be taken
over unnecessarily. Also, we have our own cultural values, on
which to base new education and to build a modern way of doing
things. Instead of taking over the western schooling system, for
example, we would be well advised to revitalize the traditional
school systems, such as the pesantren (Moslem traditional
boarding schools) and to provide them with new content.

The western education system can be a breeding ground for
modern qualities, but it can also be a place in which young
people become inculcated with the excesses of western modern
culture. Among those excesses, critics usually include the
tendencies towards materialism, egocentrism, individualism and
intellectualism, which they say could endanger the so-called
eastern values, such as spiritualism, harmony, togetherness and
the central role of refined manners and cultivated feeling.

In his response to this argument, Takdir argued that such
reasoning was constructed on a mistaken premise. It was mistaken,
he said, because it mistook the excesses of western values for
those of Indonesia, whereas in reality those values which were
overdone in western countries were still lacking in this country.

In effect he posed the question: why be afraid of
materialistic attitudes, while the people here are not yet able
to sufficiently appreciate material things?; why should we be so
concerned about intellectualism given the fact that most of our
people are not yet aware of the tremendous mental capacities
which they were for a long time deprived of, along with almost
all of their rights, during the long period of colonization?

In consequence, Takdir argued, instead of getting scared about
excessive individualism, we were obliged to encourage the
individualistic attitude in order that the society as a whole
could rest on strong individuals as its reliable members. On top
of all the substantial arguments Takdir also raised an argumentum
ad hominem by hinting that all the leading proponents of the
traditional culture were, in fact, graduates of the western
education system.

The debate concerning the nature of modern Indonesian culture
is now known as the polemik kebudayaan (the culture debate). It
contains something fundamental, in the sense that it laid down a
paradigmatic tenet from which many other conceptions derive or,
at least, can be derived. From the point of view of social
science this debate is comparable (both in terms of its
significance and the intensity of the debate) to some other
debates which took place among German-speaking social scientists,
and which have now become a basic reference in social science
discussions.

In a sense, the culture debate in Indonesia can be compared to
the Methodenstreit among the members of the Vienna Circle in
Austria, at about the same time, namely in the early and mid-
1930s. Both disputes were concerned with the question of
applicability: the latter with the applicability of the methods
of the natural sciences to the social sciences; the former with
the applicability of a western value-system to Asian countries.
It can also be compared to the Positivesmusstreit in the late
1960s, concerning the question whether social science could be
purely empirical or had, of necessity, to be normative as well.

Some parallels obtain between the cultural debate and the
positivism dispute. In each case we are faced with the question
whether a culture can become an empirical determinant for those
living within it. On one side the argument is, ultimately, that
we can only be so and so and cannot be otherwise because we were
born and grew up in particular culture.

Alternatively, might not culture be a set of normative
guidelines for one's own behavior? Since norms are collectively
and socially established, it follows that they are subject to
change if the collective or the society feels that such change is
necessary.