In early 2010, I was invited by a strategic government institute to join a workshop on how to safeguard and strengthen “national values”.
I immediately noticed that the well-intended program was pretty conservative and, unfortunately, outmoded.
A reflection on that workshop becomes necessary in the wake of some information technology related fiascoes that even highly performing authorities have found hard to cope with.
Zeitgeist relevant discourses on “national values” nowadays cannot ignore an understanding of the effects of the information technology revolution.
Soon, the workshops attendance was dragged into a quandary about what “national values” really are. As per usual, a self-centered litany was listed and tabled.
Things like “we are a highly civilized, religious people” or self-praises like “we have a rich culture” were expressed.
Of course, social graces like batik and Balinese fine arts were also mentioned. Never forget also the mantra “we are blessed with rich and abundant natural resources” and that “we are strategically located between two oceans and two continents”, and so on and so forth.
To be fair, “national weaknesses” were also acknowledged. Our production rate in global terms is not heartening.
We do not master the exploitation of our own natural resources. Other people steal not only our maritime resources but also our unique cultural heritage like songs, batik patterns and ancient scripts.
The balance was then confronted, again, against the wave of globalization and the “dangers” of the IT revolution.
Yes, the IT revolution has lots of dangers because we did not launch it. Some other highly performing peoples launched it, and at a very high speed.
It is quite natural to expect a defense mechanism come into play, entailing the proposition of a sort of rush-rush strategies to save the coming generations of the nation from the “evils of globalization” and the “dangers of IT”.
The problem is, again, that the well intended strategy was approached from a perspective that had a strong following in the past, but has proven its dysfunctional outcome in the present.
People talked about redefining, reconfirming and strengthening “national values” for a future that is difficult to define.
People often forget that the IT revolution has broken the doors and windows of the past and current safe houses of culture of many nations and tends to penetrate the very identity of the individual. Things that were very private in the past have now become public property without mercy.
Public spheres now have the capacity to enter and stay in the bedroom of the individual. It all comes, of course, with a caveat: provided you join the rush of the IT. You may reject it, and face the consequence of being alienated from most advantages inherent to IT.
In such a free-for-all playing field there is no sense in running the indoctrination programs of Mao Zedong, Soviet Russia or Soeharto. Students who must be ushered into their own era will not only receive information from school and watching television with their parents.
As soon as they get in touch with the Internet at primary school, there are very few ways for parents, teachers or religion instructors to monitor their silent relationship with the virtual world.
Some smart kids will become so savvy that they will even be able to hack into the Pentagon, World Bank or other “highly fortified” systems of powerful governments.
By the time the youngsters of the current generation find it proper, they will decide on their own as to what values are and what are not.
At a step further they will have the discretion to also build their own imagination about how “national
values” should look like, if any.
It is in such a frame of communication that The End of the Nation State of Kenichi Ohmae (1995) should have been conceived.
“People talked about redefining, reconfirming and strengthening “national values” for a future that is difficult to define.”
Nowadays, the concept of the nation state has not been weaker in stature since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Even the People’s Republic of China will now find it hard ignore the rising awareness in their villages. I may recall the warning of Dr. J. Kristiadi of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Jakarta that nobody can dictate anybody to become a people, a nation, or let alone a state. That warning will become increasingly critical in the coming future.
So what then? It is beyond doubt that the nation state will have a different shape in the future, as it will increasingly have to share its powers with civil societies.
National identities will then be subject to redefinition as well. Ernest Renan (1823-1892) maintained in his famous discourse Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (What is a Nation? 1882) that a nation is defined by “the desire of a people to live together” and “having done great things together and wishing to do more”.
Nevertheless, he also warned that the existence of a nation was based on a “daily plebiscite” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Renan ).
It is indeed the “daily plebiscite” which will become increasingly decisive in the future, because “daily plebiscite” implies the continuous consensus building, which on its turn necessitate communicative action as meant by Jürgen Habermas (Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns [The Theory of Communicative Action], 1981).
The discourse on “national values” conducted in the frame of communicative action requires pragmatically the cooperative argumentation in the continuous search for truth, where only the best argument should prevail (Jürgen Habermas, Erläuterungen zur Diskursethik [Statements on Discourse Ethics], 1991).
The IT revolution provides a broad playing field for Habermas’ proposal to become the new paradigm of the age, where indoctrinating the populace with “national values” will become pointless, and primordially motivated violence like that carried out across Indonesia on almost a daily basis is counterproductive to nation building.
The writer is a professor at the School of Philosophy, Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung.
