Kenan Malik
‘It’s good to be different’ might be the motto of our times. The celebration of difference, respect for pluralism, avowal of identity politics – these are regarded the hallmarks of a progressive, antiracist outlook. Belief in pluralism and the multicultural society is so much woven into the fabric of our lives that we rarely stand back to question some of its assumptions. As the American academic, and former critic of pluralism, Nathan Glazer puts it in the title of a recent book, We are All Multiculturalists Now .
I want to question this easy assumption that pluralism is self-evidently good. I want to show, rather, that the notion of pluralism is both logically flawed and politically dangerous, and that creation of a ‘multicultural’ society has been at the expense of a more progressive one. Proponents of multiculturalism usually put forward two kinds of arguments in its favour.
First, they claim that multiculturalism is the only means of ensuring a tolerant and democratic polity in a world in which there are deep-seated conflicts between cultures embodying different values. This argument is often linked to the claim that the attempt to establish universal norms inevitably leads to racism and tyranny. Second, they suggest that human beings have a basic, almost biological, need for cultural attachments. This need can only be satisfied, they argue, by publicly validating and protecting different cultures. Both arguments are, I believe, deeply flawed. The case for ‘value pluralism’ has probably been best put by the late philosopher Isaiah Berlin. ‘Life may be seen through many windows’, he wrote, ‘none of them necessarily clear or opaque, less or more distorting than any of the others’. For Berlin, there was no such thing as a universal truth, only a variety of conflicting truths. Different peoples and cultures had different values, beliefs and truths, each of which may be regarded as valid. Many of these values and truths were incommensurate, by which Berlin meant that not only are they incompatible, but they were incomparable, because there was no common language we could use to compare the one with the other. As the philosopher John Gray has put it, ‘There is no impartial or universal viewpoint from which the claims of all particular cultures can be rationally assessed. Any standpoint we adopt is that of a particular form of life and the historic practices that constitute it.’ Given the incommensurability of cultural values, pluralism, Berlin argued, was the best defence against tyranny and against ideologies, such as racism, which treated some human beings as less equal than others. This argument for pluralism is, as many have pointed out, logically flawed. If it is true that ‘any standpoint we adopt is that of a particular form of life and the historic practices that constitute it’, then this must apply to pluralism too. A pluralist, in other words, can never claim that plural society is better, since, according his own argument, ‘There is no impartial or universal viewpoint from which the claims of all particular cultures can be rationally assessed’. Once you dispense with the idea of universal norms, then no argument can possess anything more than, at best, local validity. Many multiculturalists argue not simply that cultural values are incommensurate, but that also that different cultures should be treated equal respect. The American scholar Iris Young, for instance, writes that ‘groups cannot be socially equal unless their specific, experience, culture and social contributions are publicly affirmed and recognised.’ The demand for equal recognition is, however, at odds with the claim that cultures are incommensurate. To treat different cultures with equal respect (indeed to treat them with any kind of respect at all) we have to be able to compare one with the other. If values are incommensurate, such comparisons are simply not possible. The principle of difference cannot provide any standards that oblige us to respect the ‘difference’ of others. At best, it invites our indifference to the fate of the Other. At worst it licenses us to hate and abuse those who are different. Why, after all, should we not abuse and hate them? On what basis can they demand our respect or we demand theirs? It is very difficult to support respect for difference without appealing to some universalistic principles of equality or social justice. And it is the possibility of establishing just such universalistic principle that has been undermined by the embrace of a pluralistic outlook. Equality requires a common yardstick, or measure of judgement, not a plurality of meanings. As the philosopher Richard Rorty observes, the embrace of diversity and the desire for equality are not easily compatible. For Rorty, those whom he calls ‘Enlightenment liberals’ face a seemingly irresolvable dilemma in their pursuit of both equality and diversity: Their liberalism forces them to call any doubts about human equality a result of irrational bias. Yet their connoisseurship [of diversity] forces them to realise that most of the globe’s inhabitants do not believe in equality, that such a belief is a Western eccentricity. Since they think it would be shockingly ethnocentric to say ‘So what? We Western liberals do believe in it, and so much the better for us’, they are stuck. Rorty himself, a self-avowed ‘postmodern bourgeois liberal’, solves the problem by arguing that ‘equality is good for “us” but not necessarily for “them”. We can see here how the argument for incommensurability leads not to equal respect for, but to an indifference to, all other cultures. Equality arises from fact that humans are political creatures and possess a capacity for culture. But the fact that all humans possess a capacity for culture does not mean that all cultures are equal. ‘We know one of the realest experiences in cultural life’, the art critic Robert Hughes has observed, ‘is that of inequalities between books and musical performances and paintings and other works of art’. Much the same could be said about all cultural and political forms. Some ideas, some technologies, some political systems are better than others. And some societies and some cultures are better than others: more just, more free, more enlightened, and more conducive to human progress. Indeed the very idea of equality is historically specific: the product of the Enlightenment and the political and intellectual revolutions that it unleashed. The idea of the equality of cultures (as opposed to the equality of human beings) denies one of the critical features of human life and human history: our capacity for social, moral and technological progress. What distinguishes humans from other creatures is capacity for innovation and transformation, for making ideas and artefacts that are not simply different but also often better, than those of a previous generation or another culture. It is no coincidence that the modern world has been shaped by the ideas and technologies that have emerged from Renaissance and Enlightenment. The scientific method, democratic politics, the concept of universal values – these are palpably better concepts than those that existed previously. Not because Europeans are a superior people, but because many of the idea and philosophies that came out of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment are superior. To argue this today is, of course, to invite the charge of ‘Eurocentrism’, or even racism. This simply demonstrates the irrationality of contemporary notions of ‘racism’ and ‘antiracism’. Those who actually fought Western imperialism over the past two centuries recognised that their struggles were rooted in the Enlightenment tradition. ‘I denounce European colonialist scholarship’, wrote CLR James, the West Indian writer and political revolutionary. ‘But I respect the learning and the profound discoveries of Western civilisation.’ Frantz Fanon, one of the great voices of postwar third world nationalism, similarly argued that the problem was not Enlightenment philosophy but the failure of Europeans to follow through its emancipatory logic. ‘All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought’, he argued. ‘But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission that fell to them.’ Western liberals were often shocked by the extent to which anti-colonial movement adopted what they considered to be tainted ideas. The concepts of universalism and unilinear evolutionism, the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss observed, found ‘unexpected support from peoples who desire nothing more than to share in the benefits of industrialisation; peoples who prefer to look upon themselves as temporarily backward than permanently different’. Elsewhere he noted ruefully that the doctrine of cultural relativism ‘was challenged by the very people for whose moral benefit the anthropologists had established it in the first place’. Multiculturalists have turned their back on universalist conceptions not because such conceptions are racist but because they have given up on the possibility of economic and social change. We live in an age in which there is considerable disillusionment with politics as an agency of change, and in which possibilities of social transformation seem to have receded. What is important about human beings, many have come to believe, is not their political capacity but their cultural attachments. Such pessimism has led to multiculturalists to conflate the idea of humans as culture-bearing creatures with the idea that humans have to bear a particular culture. Clearly no human can live outside of culture. But to say this is not to say they have to live inside a particular one. To view humans as culture-bearing is to view them as social beings, and hence as transformative beings. It suggests that humans have the capacity for change, for progress, and for the creation of universal moral and political forms through reason and dialogue. To view humans as having to bear specific cultures is, on the contrary, to deny such a capacity for transformation. It suggests that every human being is so shaped by a particular culture that to change or undermine that culture would be to undermine the very dignity of that individual. It suggests that the biological fact of, say, Bangladeshi ancestry somehow make a human being incapable of living well except as a participant of Bangladeshi culture. The idea of culture once connoted all that freed humans from the blind weight of tradition, has now, in the hands of multiculturalists, become identified with that very burden. Multiculturalism is the product of political defeat. The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the left, the defeat of most liberation movements in the third world and the demise of social movements in the West, have all transformed political consciousness. The quest for equality has increasingly been abandoned in favour of the claim to a diverse society. Campaigning for equality means challenging accepted practices, being willing to march against the grain, to believe in the possibility of social transformation. Conversely, celebrating differences between peoples allows us to accept society as it is – it says little more than ‘We live in a diverse world, enjoy it’. As the American writer Nancy Fraser has put it, ‘The remedy required to redress injustice will be cultural recognition, as opposed to political-economic redistribution.’ Indeed so deeply attached are multiculturalists to the idea of cultural, as opposed to economic or political justice, that David Bromwich is led to wonder whether intellectuals today would oppose economic slavery if it lacked any racial or cultural dimension. Not only is the demand for the ‘recognition’ the product of political pessimism, it has also become a potential means of implementing deeply authoritarian policies. Consider, for instance, Tariq Modood’s distinction between what he calls the ‘equality of individualism’ and the ‘equality encompassing public ethnicity: equality as not having to hide or apologise for one’s origins, family or community, but requiring others to show respect for them, and adapt public attitudes and arrangements so that the heritage they represent is encouraged rather than contemptuously expect them to wither away.’ Why should I, as an atheist, be expected to show respect for Christian, Islamic or Jewish cultures whose views and arguments I often find reactionary and often despicable? Why should public arrangements be adapted to fit in with the backward, misogynistic, homophobic claims that religions make? What is wrong with me wishing such cultures to ‘wither away’? And how, given that I do view these and many other cultures with contempt, am I supposed to provide them with respect, without disrespecting my own views? Only, the philosopher Brian Barry suggests ‘with a great deal of encouragement from the Politically Correct Thought Police’. The thought police are already at work. On more than one occasion over the past decade I have been refused permission by both newspaper and radio editors to quote Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses because it was considered to cause too much ‘offence’. The McPherson inquiry into Stephen Lawrence argued that even racist comments made in the privacy of the home should be made a criminal offence. Thankfully, this suggestion has so far been ignored politically. Many multiculturalists, however, wish to go further still, demanding that all private thought and feelings be subject to political scrutiny. Iris Young welcomes what she calls ‘the continuing effort to politicise vast areas of institutional, social and cultural life.’ Politics, she suggests, ‘concerns all aspects of institutional organisation, public action, social practices and habits, and cultural meanings’. ‘The process of politicising habits, feelings and expressions of fantasy and desire’, can Young believes, ‘foster a cultural revolution’. Culture, faith, lifestyle, feelings – these are all aspects of our private lives and should be of no concern to the state or other public authorities. Multiculturalist policies inevitably bring to mind George Orwell’s description in 1984 – ‘A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police… His friendships, his relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression on his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in his sleep, even the characteristic movements of his body are all jealously scrutinised.’ The irony of multiculturalism is that, as a political process, it undermines what is valuable about cultural diversity. Diversity is important, not in and of itself, but because it allows us to expand our horizons, to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and lifestyles, and make judgements upon them. In other words, because it allows us to engage in political dialogue and debate that can help create more universal values and beliefs, and a collective language of citizenship. But it is precisely such dialogue and debate, and the making of such judgements, that contemporary multiculturalism attempts to suppress in the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect’. A truly plural society would be one in which citizens have full freedom to pursue their different values or practices in private, while in the public sphere all citizens would be treated as political equals whatever the differences in their private lives. Today, however, pluralism has come to mean the very opposite. The right to practice a particular religion, speak a particular language, follow a particular cultural practice is seen as a public good rather than a private freedom. Different interest groups demand to have their ‘differences’ institutionalised in the public sphere. And to enforce such a vision we have to call in the Thought Police. Multiculturalism is an authoritarian, anti-human outlook. True political progress requires not recognition but action, not respect but questioning, not the invocation of the Thought Police but the forging of common bonds and collective struggle. Unlike · · Unfollow Post · Share You, Madiana Havidz, Abdul Hadi Wm and 13 others like this. 2 shares Abdul Hadi Wm Esei Kenan Malik ini saya unggah bukan karena setuju dengan pandangan yang dikemukakan. Namun karena terdapat pertanyaan-pertanyaan menarik yang saya kira patut dijadikan renungan, terutama bagi mereka yang menganggap pluralisme adalah suatu yang mutlak. Kita juga mesti diperkenankan bertanya apakah ia bukan sebagai kegenitan intelektual atau kepongahan baru. Tidak sedikit pula yang beranggapan, berdasarkan prakteknya di beberapa negara ketiga, pluralisme ternyata telah dijadikan senjata ideologis untuk mengerdilkan budaya dominan. Padahal suatu budaya atau agama menjadi dominan barangkali lebih disebabkan kehendak sejarah. Monday at 2:01am · Unlike · 10 Immanuel Surya ini menarik sekali prof. pluralisme akan sulit menjawab pertanyaan apakah kita harus menerima dan menghargai kebudayaan yang destruktif terhadap mereka yang berbeda dengannya. pluralisme memang kemudian jadi terlalu sempit sebagai cara pandang. Monday at 2:17am · Unlike · 5 Iman Suligi Terimakasih untuk berbagi tulisan ini Prof, kuliah pagi menambah wawasan. Monday at 4:49am · Unlike · 1 Madiana Havidz mantab mantab, tks Prof. Akhirnya Saya menemukan renungan Prof tentang pluralisme pada komen note ini. Dan saya amat sangat sepakat. Monday at 5:44am via mobile · Unlike · 2 Muklis Gumilang Terima kasih Prof. Saya merenungkan, Tuhan menciptakan keragaman, dan Tuhan membekali kasih sayang untuk mempertalikan keragaman. Di facebook, di twitter, dan dalam realitas keseharian di keluarga dan pergaulan kita bernafas dalam keragaman. Monday at 5:51am · Unlike · 5 Arief Machmudy Menurut saya, manusia itu pd hakikatnya diciptakan sbg yg “pluralis”, sbg “makhluk sosial” (zoon politicon), krn Tuhan mmg tidak ingin diduakan (there is none like into him), sehingga disini terdapat demarkasi yg jelas antara manusia sbg makhluk & Tuhan sbg Khaliq. Dalam kaitannya dg iman, konsep/issue pluralisme ini mmg tidak berlaku. Semoga Gus Dur, bapak “pluralisme” kita dapat beristirahat dg tenang menemui Tuhannya yg Ahad. Amin. terima kasih om Abdul Hadi Wm, satu note yg menggelitik benak/pemikiran saya, salam…. Monday at 10:16am · Like · 1 Chen Chen Muthahari Dad, Abdul Hadi Wm, Moving Beyond Pluralism-nya Sr Gerardette Phillips bagus tuh, bukan inklusivisme juga bukan pluralisme. Monday at 10:37am · Unlike · 3 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Immanuel Surya : ISalah satu kesulitan merealiasikan pluralisme (pluralisme sebagaimana dimengerti para pencetusnya) adalah seperti disebutkan anda. Misalnya bagaimana kta bisa menerima aliran kepercayaa yang memuja Setan atau gerakan anti kulit berwarna seperti Ku Klux Kan di Amerika. Atau gerakan Neo-Fascist di Eropa yang membenci dan bertindak semanya terhadap kaum pendatang seperti imigran Muslim dari Timur Tengah dan Afrika? Monday at 11:36am · Like · 4 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Iman Suligi : Terimakasih juga. Salam. Saya tag anda karen relevan untuk dibaca sekarang agar dapat membedakan mana gagasan yang dlandasi kepentingan politik tertentu dan mana gagasan yang secara universal benar-benar membawa pada kearif…See More Monday at 11:39am · Like · 4 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Madiana Havidz : Pluralisme adalah proyek Barat untuk meletakkan kebudayaan-kebudayaan dan agama-agama di luar tradisi Aufklarung Barat selalu di pinggir.I, pluralisme, adalah cara dan tehnik licik untuk menyumpal pembela keyakinan yang bertabrakan dengan tradsi keimanan dan worldview Barat. Monday at 11:41am · Unlike · 4 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Madiana Havidz : Contohnya saja dalam penetapan atau klasifikasi ilmu yang mesti diajarkan di lembaga penddkan. Selama ini penggolongan atau klasifikasi ilmu yang dijadikan acuan di lembaa pendidikan kta adalah warisan zaman kolonial, brtolak dari tradisi neo-posivisme dan aufklarung/pencerahan. Ilmu penetahuan dibatasi pada ilmu-lmu empiris dan rasional positvistik. Karena itu ilmu-imu agama tidak digolongkan sebagai ilmu dan tak boleh diajarkan, begitu pula ilmu-ilmu humanora dan kebudayaan dipandang kurang mantap basis ilmiahnya sehingga boleh diabaikan dalam kurikulum. Alagi ilmu tentng kesenian dan sastra. Monday at 11:45am · Like · 3 Abdul Hadi Wm @ uklis Gumilang : Tetapi dalam pengalaman saya di kampus, seminar, pergaulan inteektul, budaya dan seni, cenderung oang menjadikan pluralisme sebagai “alat penekan” agar kita tak membicarakan masalah keimanan, islm, sastra islam, kebudayaan religius dan lain sebagainya. Aneh. Monday at 11:47am · Like · 3 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Muklis Gumilang : Pada hakekatnya sebenarnya manusia, khususnya orang Indonesia, dilahirkan sebagai pluralis. Saya misalnya selain mendapatkan pendidikan formal dengan sistem barat, juga memperoleh pendidikan di madrasah dengan sistem Islam. Di SD dulu diajari lagu-lagu Jawa dan Madura yang sstem nadanya berbeda, kemudian lagu-lagu Arab yang popular di kalangan santri, tapi juga lagu-lagu Barat. Ilmu yng dipelajari juga dari tradsi berbeda : ilmu-ilmu Islam, ilmu-ilmu Eropa, dan ilmu-ilmu dari tradisi Jawa. Makanan apalagi. Pun cara berpakaian. Monday at 11:50am · Unlike · 5 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Arief Machmudy : Benar. Kita sendiri sejak lahir saja sudah pluralis, tetapi tak harus jadi pengikut pluralisme. Contohnya sudah saya kemukakan. Monday at 11:52am · Unlike · 4 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Arief Machmudy : Dalam hal penerimaan kemajemukan budaya, etnik, agama, dan aliran keaamaan sebenarnya bangsa Indonesia sudah sangat maju melampui bangsa-bangsa di Eropa yan cenderung etnosentrik. Monday at 11:53am · Unlike · 4 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Aref Machmudy : Kita telah memilki dasar pijakan Bhineka Tunggal Ika. Terlalu ceroboh untuk ditukar dengan pluralisme yang penuh dengan bias terhadap ras, bangsa, suku dan agama tertentu. Monday at 11:54am · Unlike · 4 Wahyu Handayani Iswandi @Prof. Abdul Hadi Wm: Thank you for tagging me, I love this note,,, it makes my point of view about pluralism wider than before. Xie xie… @Mbak Chen Chen Muthahari: would you like to make a note about Moving Beyond Pluralism-nya Sr Gerardette Phillips,,, and tag me please. I really want to know about that, thank you before. Monday at 11:54am · Unlike · 4 Madiana Havidz Belakangan memang bikin gerah, semua teriak2 PLURALISME, tanpa konsep yang jelas. Saya sendiri juga kurang “bahan” untuk menanggapinya. Seakan kalo gak pluralis , sesuai dengan “konstruksi mereka” gak keren. Bener2 mabok, kegenitan, puber. Monday at 12:00pm · Unlike · 4 Arief Machmudy sip Prof. Abdul Hadi Wm, terima kasih sekali lagi…. Monday at 12:02pm · Like Chen Chen Muthahari secara sederhana dapat dipahami sbb: Inklusivisme adl paham bahwa agama yg kami anut benar dan yang kalian anut ‘benar’ sepanjang sesuai dengan agama yg kami anut – secara kondisional, batasannya adalah agama kami bukan agama kalian. Pluralisme adl paham bahwa semua agama itu sama. Di sini justeru tidak terjadi ruang dialog. Dr Gerardette Phillips mengajukan satu tesis baru yaitu Open Integrity berdasarkan prinsip Etika Global dan Perennialisme: Agama yang kami anut benar sesuai dengan yang kami pahami dan yang kalian anut benar sesuai dengan apa yang kalian pahami, kita memiliki dasar-dasar etika yang kita sepakati bersama berasal dari sumber agama kita masing2 dan agama yang kami anut dengan agama yang kalian anut keduanya terdapat campur tangan Tuhan. kami mengormati dan mengenal dan memahami agamamu sesuai ekspresi agama dan tradisimu, begitu pun kalian terhadap kami. Justeru dengan begitu terjadi dialog. Dekalogisme menyatakan bahwa semua tradisi dan agama itu benar sepanjang berdasarkan 10 perintah Allah sebab dasar-dasar ini telah ada sejak Adam, dikukuhkan secara loh pada masa Musa dan ditemukan pada tradisi-tradisi keagaman di seluruh dunia. hal-hal lain yang melengkapinya harus dilihat sebagai pengukuhan atas dasar syariat-syariat itu yang telah ada, dan akan ada untuk selamanya dalam setiap tradisi dan agama. Etika Global tidak dapat tidak pasti dirumuskan dari dasar-dasar Dekalog ini, walaupun dapat meluas dan mendetail darinya. Dan kesadaran terhadap dasar-dasar ini tertanam di dalam hati setiap hati manusia dan mudah dipahami bahkan oleh orang-orang bodoh dan tidak terpelajar sekalipun. Monday at 12:17pm · Unlike · 4 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Wahyu Handayani Iswandi : Terimakasih juga. Sejak 1970an ketika mulai digagaskan di Canada, Amerika Serikat dan Australia saya sudah mengeritik paradigma dan asumsi-asumsi pendukung pluralisme. Begitu pula multikulturalisme. Kita kan punya Bhineka Tunggal Ika? Pandangan saya ternyata tak salah. Multikulturalisme yang dipraktekkan Eropa ternyata bermasalah. Akhirnya negara-negara yang memraktekkannya seperti Perancis, Jerman, Belanda, dan lain-lain kembali ke asas semula yaitu Monokulturalisme. Kalau d i negara asal sudah gagal untuk apa dibesar-besarkan di negara kita yang sudah bhneka ini. Monday at 12:19pm · Unlike · 5 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Madiana Havidz : Kita ini sudah pluralis, kok mau dicekoki lagi dengan pluralisme? Lihat saja upacara atau pesta perkawinan di kalangan masyarakat Jawa, Sunda, Madura dan lain-lain. Pagi hari melaksanakan akad nikah di masjid dan diberi ceramah agama, yang terdiri dari tiga bahasa yaitu bahasa daerah, bahasa Indonesia dan Arab. Siangnya kta menengar musk gamelan. M diselilingi lagu-lagu Barat. Maamnya ada cara musik dangdut atau japongan. Hehehe. Monday at 12:22pm · Unlike · 5 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Aref Machmudy : hehehe. Saya tambahkan : Dulu ketika kecil saya belajr di sekolah umum dg sistem pendidikan Barat. Siang harus belajar di madrasah untuk mengetahui agama Islam dan bahasa Arab. Sore ikut kegiatan pandu/pramuka. Malam belajar mengaji al-Qur’an. Apa masih kurang pluralis? Monday at 12:24pm · Unlike · 5 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Chaen Chen : Nah tag saja tulisan yang dimaksud. Monday at 12:25pm · Unlike · 4 Arief Machmudy a itulah yg sempat membuat “criss-cross” pikiran saya, dan mgk jg manusia Indonesia modern yg lain pd umumnya. “Pluralisme” adl.mmg faham/ideologi yg canggih namun mengacaukan “idea” yg sebenarnya sudah sehat, heheheh…. Monday at 12:32pm · Like · 2 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Arief Machmudy : Wacana-wacana dari Barat yang dpaksakan kepada kita untuk diteriima sebagai paradigma-paradigma baru menyikapi kehidupan dan setengahnya ditekankan sebagai suatu keharusan, seperti posmodernisme, pluralisme, multikulturalisme, d HAM dll, padasa dasarnya adalah kelanjutan dari kebijakan Barat untuk menjajah bangsa-bangsa Asia Afrika. Dalam hal wacana dimaksudkan untuk menjajah pandangan hidup, pikiran dan orientasi budaya kita. Monday at 12:51pm · Like · 4 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Arief Machmudy : Kita mestinya mampu menjadikannya sebagai bumerang bagi imperialisme Barat, seperti dilakukan oleh Edward Said dalam buunya Orentalism. Monday at 12:52pm · Unlike · 5 Arief Machmudy Betul om, tapi saya ya kok malah kurang setuju juga dg konsep “occidentalism” (sbg tandingan dari “orientalism”) yg digulirkan oleh Hasan Hanafi, hal ini spt “vicious circle” saja. Monday at 1:02pm · Unlike · 1 Frans Wibawa ”A truly plural society would be one in which citizens have full freedom to pursue their different values or practices in private, while in the public sphere all citizens would be treated as political equals whatever the differences in their private lives.” “Today, however, pluralism has come to mean the very opposite. The right to practice a particular religion, speak a particular language, follow a particular cultural practice is seen as a public good rather than a private freedom. Different interest groups demand to have their ‘differences’ institutionalised in the public sphere. And to enforce such a vision we have to call in the Thought Police.” Monday at 1:36pm · Like Frans Wibawa Bila kutipan yang pertama sungguh-sungguh dijunjung dan dilindungi dalam sebuah masyarakat yang bhineka, tentu kutipan yang kedua sebenarnya tak diperlukan kecuali untuk penegasan eksistensi atau yang lebih serius dan berbahaya demi kepentingan egoistik kelompok tertentu. Sayangnya ini (pada kutipan pertama) bukan realitas sosial yang sering ada. Dalam perkembangan dan proses sosial ini, nafsu penaklukkan dan hegemoni ada pada kedua belah pihak yang berhadap-hadapan. Hingga inkonsistensi dan politik standar-ganda menjadi pilihan, yang kemudian tentu saja mengabaikan pertanyaan etik dan moral yang mendasar. Sebab, misalnya, lagi-lagi kutipan kedua sebenarnya tak menjadi masalah yang mengganggu bila kutipan pertama sungguh-sungguh dijunjung tinggi. Dan kenapa pula Thought Police dipermasalahkan dalam proses dialektik ini, sebab ia lebih nyata dan kejam ada dalam sistem yang getol menghakimi dan menghukum, apakah itu dengan landasan fasis, otoritarianis, komunisme, atau atas nama Tuhan. Monday at 1:36pm · Unlike · 2 Abdul Hadi Wm @ Frans Wibawa : Terimakasih. Rupanya menjadi polisi yang mengawasi cara orang atau pemikiran orang sangat digemari orang di Indonesia sekarang. Baik yang merasa dirinya religius maupun sekuler. Monday at 3:26pm · Like Frans Wibawa Betul prof Hadi. Ada belahan bumi dimana orang boleh berpendapat dan menilai cara dan pemikiran orang sebebas-bebasnya namun mengetahui batas perilaku dan tindakan, memahami hak dan kewajiban sebagai sesama warga negara dan sesama mahluk Tuhan, tetapi di Indonesia orang boleh mengawasi, memaksakan pendapat dan penilaian, menghakimi sekaligus menghukum layaknya polisi bahkan Tuhan. Monday at 4:50pm · Like · 1 Syafiq Basri Diskusi yang amat menarik dan bermanfaat.. Saya menyimak dan menikmatinya
Abdul Hadi Wm
