Abstract
This essay is an exercise in the phenomenology of personhood based on some 25 years of field research among Javanese, Thai, and Filipinos. As I still slip up from time to time, I am convinced that it is relevant to both scholarly researchers and others with practical interests in the region to better know the people with whom they are or will be dealing. The ideas presented in this essay are grounded in my experiences with mainly members of the urban middle classes. In the narrative, they follow from the course of my fieldwork and remain close to the immediacy of situations and their interpretation, even as they result in the prospects of an action theory of Southeast Asian personhood.
Keywords
“Dr. Mulder”, you feel like saying at this point, “Niels, old boy, how is it that after all these years, you still haven't learned that wearing a mask is de rigueur in these parts and that without one you're more or less naked?” – John Cadet (2010).
This essay is composed of reflections on earlier research and current experiences with life on Java, and in Thailand and the Philippines. Its composition was sparked by a recent incident of my having offended the art of observing smooth interpersonal relations.
Prefatory
Last year, in Chiang Mai, an American lady visited me in the hopes of learning about the ways of the Thai. In Bangkok, she taught English, and that's why she sought access to the mental world of her students. Early in our talk, she wondered how I could be happy in these parts. “Here,” she maintained,
people live in a world of make-believe and appearances. They hide themselves and dissemble, never coming directly to the point. Right or wrong, they always sport that smile; they don't even take responsibility for themselves or what they are doing.
I tried to explain to her that it is a virtue to adapt oneself to others and to the circumstances; that it is politic to give in to others; that it is self-protective to avoid confrontation and cultivate smooth interpersonal relations, to compromise and anticipate the feelings of others.
But they are in the wrong and get caught in their own fantasies and lies; they cannot face the truth! How is it possible that you feel at home here?
She certainly had a point with her observations; even a German friend who has been living and working in Thailand for the past 30 years recently observed that the Thai would be considered cowards from a German cultural perspective; that they say “yes” when they mean “no”; that they are awfully frustrating to work with. Why do they always take side streets and back alleys, even when the straight path is clear? It took me years to fathom the Javanese wisdom of “Yes, you are right, this is as it is; yet you had better not insist on it” (“Ngono, ya ngono, ning ojo ngono“), and I doubt whether the American lady will be in the country long enough to learn the art of dwarfing herself, of giving in and accepting. She only understood the straight track. She would stand up for her opinion. One should defend oneself! Of course, this was more than her marriage could bear, and now, as a single mother in a small town in the Bible belt of the Midwest, her children were looked down upon because she sported bumper stickers supporting the Democrat John Kerry for president. Even so, to her it was worth it; freedom of expression was the higher good.
When, back on the slope of my mountain, I received a letter from an unknown Javanese woman, it struck me as being too good to be mere coincidence. It was as if she revealed the indigenous side of the experience:
I was most interested in reading the book about your experiences here on Java and very impressed by the fact that you, as a foreigner, plunged into a city like Jogjakarta that is steeped in things Javanese. From when I was a baby up to the present, I have been deeply involved with its Java-ness. More precisely, I would say, I felt trapped in many of the norms and traditions that obstructed my growth as a person, all the more so because I am a woman. Recently, when I came back from my work in Sumatra, people commented that I no longer behaved like a Javanese woman because, in their view, I had become too assertive. Probably, the Javanese ideal forces women to be gentle and meek, and submissive to elders. As soon as we show disagreement, they'll brand us un-Javanese, which I consider a very superficial judgement.
The meeting in Thailand and the letter from Java came to mind when I was accidentally sounding the defensive attitude of the Filipinos among whom I live. They are touchy in all matters concerning their clans and personhood, and this touchiness often extends to their opinions as well. Life should be a pleasant, unruffled routine in which one shouldn't be made aware of oneself or of those with whom one identifies. I roused such awareness when, over lunch, I commented on a letter that had reached me that morning in which the European writer extolled his satisfaction with his self-sufficiency after his divorce and the subsequent cutting of the links with his ex's extended family that had, earlier on, played an important part in making him feel at home in his new (French) environment. It reminded me of my early days on Mount Banáhaw when I felt as if I was marooned on its slope and when I needed to be my own best friend most of all.
When I observed aloud how this contrasted with the way people here will always fall back on their family and how they are seemingly unprepared to go it alone, my lunch partner felt as if I were holding up a mirror for him that he didn't care to look into. As he closed himself off, I knew I had transgressed a sacred border. I am free to comment on anything under the sun, save for things that come close to home. When, a few weeks earlier, I commented on the massive gate his brother had recently erected on the driveway to his villa – they had been pilfering there – saying, “Reminds me of Subic Bay [military base]; maybe soon we'll see an armed security guard there,” I had come too close for comfort, too. I could have said it about any other gate, but not the one of a near relative.
People here are uneasy when forced to confront themselves or to scrutinize their feelings. The course of life should be taken for granted, even as it jumps into the face of reality. It is good to deny unpleasantness; it is good to do as if disagreeable experiences didn't occur, and if one doesn't succeed in doing just that, it is others or circumstances that are to be blamed. In thinking about this, I once again wondered about the “self experience” of the people here. They seem to panic when they come face to face with themselves. They do not need to stand on their own feet; they are encapsulated in their group, in the family, in their home – these spell unquestionable security and identity, and should be taken for granted.
Elusive Individual
Because of the long history of colonial and mercantile relations, there is no scarcity of Western observations on life in Southeast Asia. Even so, for a very long time we had to make do with Orientalistic stereotypes and judgemental clichés that were at best outsiders’ impressions, of value to understand the latter's position in relation to native life, yet not very revealing of the nature of the same.
Having been born and bred in the Netherlands in the late colonial days, and having lost my innocence at the time the country bungled its decolonization of Indonesia, I had been exposed to piles of statements on life on Java. Many held the Javanese to be the gentlest people on earth: They were easy to rule, obsequious and unobtrusive. Among themselves, they enjoyed being together, were talkative and humorous, but vis-à-vis outsiders and superiors, they were remarkably reserved. This resulted in a sense of unpredictability; when asked or even commanded to do something, they would invariably agree, say “yes”, and often do “no”. If constantly pressured to obey, female servants had the tendency to be seized by bouts of latah or obsessive imitative behaviour, while male inferiors could explode in the frenzy of amok. Generally, though, they were self-effacing, albeit that one never knew what went on inside; even under stress or the experience of grave loss, they would still politely bow their head and show acceptance. In brief, they were impossible to read.
Altogether, this colonial wish-wash failed to explain the hatred and violence that surfaced in the revolutionary struggle against the Dutch. Collective amok? There was nothing blind about it; the Javanese knew very well what they were doing, and after the Netherlands’ recognition of Indonesian sovereignty, it was again the Dutch misreading of their mood that caused them to be thrown out altogether in 1957. Gentlest people on earth, obsequious and giving in? For me as an undergraduate, these people half a world away remained highly enigmatic.
When I had completed my master's degree, I was, being Dutch, still banned from entering Indonesia, and so my mentor pushed Thailand, saying, “Nobody here knows anything about that country. You go and find out.” From then on, I read everything I could lay my hands on in the libraries in Amsterdam, which, altogether, was not very much. There was some literature on Thai, or rather, Theravada, Buddhism; a pre-war ethnography on village life; a little on older and newer history; and, most promising, a few recent monographs generated by Cornell-affiliated researchers and some independent American scholars on village society, politics and public administration.
In view of this essay, the paradigm of Thai personhood that emerged from the literature sounded, in all its simplicity, plausible. In contrast to the disciplined ways of the Japanese, Embree characterized Thai life as “loosely structured” (1950). Subsequently, this impression pervaded the writings of the Cornell anthropologists. Their experiences at their research site, a peasant village on the fringe of Bangkok, confirmed the idea: The people there struck them as individualistic to the core and were mercurial in their relations with the researchers. The scholars found a good explanation in scriptural Buddhism, where it is held that everybody is individually responsible for his own karma and that there is no direction to turn to other than toward the self. Loose structure, Buddhism, and elusive individualism simply reinforced each other, leading one member of the team to proclaim, “Thai society forever travels on the brink of social chaos” (Phillips 1965: cover).
Almost 20 years after preparing for Thailand, I had begun reading up on the Philippines, and was pleased to come across much more sophisticated ideas than colonial prejudice and loosely structured impressionism. In the 1960s, Ateneo de Manila-based psychologist Jaime Bulatao, S. J., was writing pioneering essays charting Filipino personality at the same time that the also Ateneo-based Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC) was producing a series of reflexive and empirical studies on Philippine culture and personality. Psychiatrist Lourdes Lapuz had published on Filipino psychopathology and common marital problems (Lapuz 1977), just as several – mostly American – social scientists had contributed challenging interpretations of interpersonal relations.
At first glance, I had the feeling I recognized similarities with my research on Java and in Thailand, even as I soon found out that the interpretation of Filipino personhood was the subject of a tug-of-war between the scholars at the Ateneo and the Filipinologists at the University of the Philippines (UP). Because experience had taught me to suspend judgement and even to doubt accepted wisdom until I was sufficiently equipped with local knowledge, I was, early on, open to the ideas I picked up on UP's Diliman campus, although I recognized that the fervent nationalism of its proponents served as a caveat against wholehearted acceptance. Whereas much made sense in the perspective of a Kulturkampf, it also smacked of ideology and didn't taste academic. Be that as it may, the people at UP rejected the findings of the IPC scholars. To them, the latter's conclusions sounded “colonial”, not worthy of the “true” Filipino who had, in the course of the country's sad history, been clothed in alien gear, and whose personality had been distorted accordingly. As a result, UP challenged all previous interpretations, from pakikisama (“getting along with one another”) to bahala na (“come what may”), and from humility to pride.
So, in between these rather contrasting interpretations that ironically resulted from more advanced scholarship, the Filipino individual remained as elusive as Javanese and Thai personality had been at the times I prepared for research. Accordingly, I chose to bracket the ideas I had come upon and to start, similar to my methods regarding the other two cultures, on the exploration of religiosity. This research-technical consideration is warranted by the accessibility and visibility of religious behaviour and practice (in contrast to family life, for example); the identity function of religion; and my experience that, as a mentality, it informs the logic of everyday life.
Interpretations
Java
At the outset of my research on Java in May 1969, a misunderstanding about what I had come to do fortuitously led me to adepts of kebatinan mysticism, who make something of a cult of the Javanese cultural heritage. To me, it opened previously inconceivable worlds of thought; at the same time I surmised to have hit upon the key to understanding Javanese identity and mentality. From then on in my fieldwork, I would focus on the religious imagination first of all.
Individual Identity
By the end of July 1969, after three months of participant observation, I ventured,
Is there a connection between all this magical-mystical mishmash, these injunctions against ambition and competition, and the way people live? I speculate there is. Here, people grow up in large groups of relatives with which they fiercely identify, and that seem to insulate them from the big bad world outside. Children are primarily trained to fit in with such groups, to follow injunctions, respect elders, and fulfil duties and obligations. If they venture out into unknown society, they seek to do so under the umbrella of a patron who knows his way around. They trust his leadership and follow as dependents, just as they do in their core and extended families. Such leaders, like parents, mystical gurus, religious and secular teachers, should, no,
In other words, people grow up in a very personal environment that keeps them from directly confronting the world outside. In this inner world, they know their way, and find security in the maintenance of harmony, of smooth interpersonal relations. As soon as they have to operate beyond these bonds, they show a curious mixture of insecurity, indifference and individualism (Mulder 2006: 71-72).
Toward the end of the year, I observed:
Their relationships breathe a stickiness in which people are not intimate but cling together. They need one another more than anything else, yet they keep their motives and opinions to themselves (if they have them at all). They are suspicious of each other.
Conscience
Observing them, I feel hurt. Is this phenomenology in action? Is it my groping, sounding, and exploring that makes me see too many things I do not like, that go against my character? Those individuals without personality, their individualism without individuality, their conscience in relationships and fear of the other; they are afraid to stand out and they find harmony in conformity (Mulder 2006: 123-124).
Three months into 1970, in commenting on intellectual life at the university, I observed, “Rule-following is as unquestioned within this institution as it is outside of it. Go with the flow; you do not need to think. Teaching is dictation; learning is committing to memory. There is no need to test knowledge against the material world; things are as theory, as the American textbook has it.”
This quality may clarify what is known as that mysterious Javanese tolerance. If knowledge does not allow for doubt and if you do not need to test it, then you cannot be in the wrong. As long as you feel you are right, it is fine, as long as you respect this in others as well. As a result, differences of opinion are tolerated and do not matter. If you start disagreeing, you are at fault and insulting the person you disagree with. Then, if things finally need to be decided, the boss simply imposes his will (Mulder 2006: 148).
This still leaves me with a problem I cannot solve. In the Philippines, Bulatao, a Jesuit, coined it “split-level” personalities who, on the one hand, subscribe to the most elevated of Christian norms, and who, on the other, are as opportunistic and materialistic as can be. It doesn't seem to lead to a personality conflict. They feel equally comfortable in both realms, which apparently have no connection to each other (1967). Here on Java this is paralleled: One day, they present me with an exposition on service to God, the wonders of mysticism, and the blessings of the Javanese attitude to life – acceptance, patience, modesty, gratefulness – and then they demonstrate an unbridled materialism and a complete disregard for others. I do not know whether this is “split personality”. As a sociologist, I rather see the split at the line where the public and the private meet. In the private sphere of family (in brief, in the known group to which one feels he belongs), Java applies. Outside of that sphere, society at large appears to be a free-for-all, a hunting ground where one seeks a prize. I wrote about this before when I tried to understand corruption, and obviously the question still plagues me (Mulder 2006: 148-149).
Toward the end of my stint in the field, I mused that
a person's public identity is primarily social; you are your position. Personal things, like emotions, opinion, the senses, ambition – all these are socially irrelevant and should be suppressed. They are not allowed to disturb “harmonious”, conformist society. As long as you master your exterior, you master your role and its attendant expectations. It also means that individuals have no security beyond the social realm. In this construction, the practice of mysticism appears as an escape, which it is: It is escaping from the social to land directly in the wonderland of the beyond. Be that as it may, practicing mysticism has nothing to do with taking critical distance from oneself.
In this scheme, the person is appreciated and valued as a status; he is his position. He becomes a puppet in a show of ranks, in which interpersonal relations are the most important commodity. Politic behaviour is caring for connections, seeking and extending patronage. In brief, one's horizon of action is purely social, and one's dominant orientation is hierarchical, aspiring upwards. Because the resulting action system is self-contained, it is conservative, unwilling to change, and thus somewhat timeless. Its dynamics, its historical process of change, are set in motion by cosmic predestination, and thus religion acquires extraordinary importance. A supernatural clock, rather than human volition, somehow regulates life on earth. This condition feeds the values of acceptance, patience, and grateful acquiescence in fate; man should adapt to given circumstances, not change them (Mulder 2006: 160).
Private versus Public
Ten years later, I went back to reconsider and expand my earlier interpretations:
This much was clear: I should take history more seriously, and start comparing. In Thailand, I had encountered a marked individualism that had nothing to do with mystical inclinations. People felt burdened by hierarchy, by social oppression – and so the underdog was looking for his own way out. Hierarchy was splitting society rather than uniting it. Its pressure made for weak horizontality, and admiration for those who took revenge, went their own way and refused to surrender.
Of course, Java is not Thailand, as many Javanese consciously cultivate the resource of their secretive inner core (batin) to protect them from society's demands. Those demands are real enough, as are the impositions of the developmentalist state in which individual persons do not count. But sources of resistance are different from essential character. They are, at best, a strategy that may alter as circumstances change. And so I went back and forth between the requirements of self and the claims of society.
One of the first people I interviewed about these things was Drs. Soetrisno PH of the economics faculty. His irritation at Mochtar Lubis’ (1977) and my (1978) interpretations of Javanese character had led him to respond with his book The Pancasila Worldview as Reflected in the Javanese Worldview (Soetrisno PH 1977). The first time we met, he excused himself for the impudence of criticizing, even as he was fair enough to take a firm stand and to invite me to his home for a discussion.
“We Javanese are a closed people. We show and tell you what we hope will please you, but we'll never expose ourselves, what is inside of us. Your impressions and interpretations are only based on what you have seen and been told, but you cannot look behind our posture.
We open ourselves to the extent we want to, but you'll never know our true motivations.”
Keeping to oneself is a respectable way of staying out of trouble, of maintaining a certain distance from the demands of social life, of safeguarding one's calm. It is separating one's presentation from one's opinion. It divides the world into two areas of existence, the social and the personal, and the two should not interfere, one not being the measure of the other. This idea could lead to very interesting perspectives on moral decisions. In the impersonal world outside, one protects oneself with politeness and presentation; it is a world of show that should not touch the heart. To profit a little bit – or very much – from one's position there is not a matter of conscience.
Self-esteem also plays on two planes. The most obvious is to be well regarded, not to be gossiped about. This corresponds with the pressure to conform, to show interest, and to uphold status and face, which to some may be all pervading. It doesn't necessarily mean that one is personally involved. It is like politeness, neighbourliness – it is guarding one's calm and protecting one's inner self.
The other sort of self-esteem – glossed in Wojowasito's Dutch– Indonesian dictionary as “the genuine value of the self” – is to go your own way, to be convinced of purpose and self, to be like Bima, Karno or other mythological guiding lights that sail by the compass of their private conscience. Their admired characteristic is their independence of the crowd, their courage in facing hypocrisy and delusion (Mulder 2006: 196-198).
In concluding my re-study, I observed that the split between private and public life is likely to persist for a long time to come:
It seems that the current flourishing of congregational religion touches directly on individual lives, drawing them out into the open. Religious participation appears to have a ring of modernity – in contrast to self-centred mysticism. It reflects a social life that is enlarging and speeding up, one whose demands and worries cannot be easily sidestepped. Children have to be sent to school; the need for money is increasing; civil servants remind the citizens of their duties; people complain of pressures and compulsion. Even so, most would like to continue existing next to society in a way that involves them in a non-committal manner at best.
In the old constellation, the demands of hierarchy were seemingly accepted, came “naturally”, and the response of compartmentalizing experience in public and private realms was wise. The New Order State works the same way; its dynamic is to force or impose – so it drives people apart. In contrast to the old order of the Sultanates, the acceptance of the modern state is tenuous, as it offers hardly any meaningful possibilities for participation and civic responsibility. As a result, it remains wise to persist in the separation of the social from the personal. Yet, the way in which this is accomplished is changing. These days, few people seem to be attracted to building their inner resources. That was the way of the past. Now the personal seems to be shaped by cruder forms of individualism, and by the quest for righteousness in religions that place their truth outside the self in Books. Hence, Jogjakarta, at least in my eyes, has become a very different place – or is it that I have become a different-minded observer? (Mulder 2006: 199-200)
Thailand
Because the relationship between individual and society has prominent psychological dimensions, I visited the Spanish Jesuit again. After all, he is a psychologist, and I am not. Our talk delivered more than I can handle, and so it is appropriate to try to sum it up.
Individual Identity
The reasoning proceeded more or less like this: Thai culture fosters people's abilities to find their identity in their group; the person feels secure because he is accepted by his fellows and, in a wider sense, because of his reputation. In other words, his points of reference are primarily social, and typically not idealistic or self-centred. This is reinforced through a social game that emphasizes outward appearances that are not compensated by inner development.
People find security in conformity, in shutting up and respecting their elders; they have to follow, and thus had better rely on the wisdom of their superiors. These are beyond criticism, and so the individual keeps to himself. As one grows older and the elderly generation dies out, the imbalance will be redressed. In this way, people keep growing as members of their group.
In Western culture, however, the emphasis is on the development of the individual personality. One has to be a person in one's own right, or, at least, one should endeavour to become one. Because of it, we have to fend off our parents whom we'll blame for everything we are and do not want to be. As a result, it can take us many years to achieve our independence and be a personality in our own right, and whether we'll succeed is not at all certain. From then on, we do not need acclaim, because we have learned to accept ourselves. Of course, acceptance by our fellows remains very important, but is, as it were, disconnected from one's individual being per se.
This is a prominent theme in Western literature. We talk about it, and during a certain period of our lives, we are preoccupied with it. When you think of it, you see happiness and suffering, certain contrary behaviour, and also initiative and decisiveness. It is part of our being, along with feelings of shortcoming, guilt and related masochism. In Thailand, on the contrary, people take life easier. The protest against parents is toned down, and being an independent personality is not an ideal. One develops as a part of a group and follows in the well-laid tracks of the elders. In this country, to rebel against one's parents equals rebelling against the moral order, and if it happens, it can become a deep source of guilt. Besides, it is simply stupid, because the individual is wholly unprepared to stand on his own two feet. If one took that path, one would end up as a dropout or a monk in the forest.
As it developed, our exchange resulted in a flood of intriguing leads. Of course, it is psychologist's stuff, but I cannot permit myself to steer clear of it. Talking on, we hit upon an even more enigmatic idea: According to Padre Miguel, the Thai tend to rigidity. Their lives are laid out, ritualized, as it were; people are afraid of change and cannot rely on their individuality. Life is strictly organized, obsequiousness a virtue, and originality equal to social suicide. Life is a show, composed of ceremonies and ritual, in which obligations are taken very seriously. The exterior is more important than the interior, and often it appears as if the presentation of things is equivalent to their sum and substance.
With all this, one wonders where the individualism hails from that was set forth in the older anthropological literature. It may have resulted from the struggle of some for personal space, from the tendency to keep away from matters not directly of personal concern, or from the refusal to accept social responsibility (Mulder 2009: 82-84).
Conscience
In teaching the monk Phra Son, we chanced upon another teaser. If one studies German, one will at a certain point come across das Sollen und das Sein, roughly, the incompatibility of what should be and what concretely is. It appeared that the dichotomy was not easy to explain. Of course, the Thai language has the idea of “should be”; one even finds it in the Constitution: “The King is in a position that should be respected”. Yet, the German Sollen has more to it, and refers to the unreachable, to the pursuit of perfection and always falling short of the aim. In brief, it refers to “the human condition”.
Sollen implies the Christian ideas of guilt and conscience as they refer to the One God, and as such, it is resistant to translation into Thai. Here, the Christian idea of sin and its psychology are settled as a question of ignorance versus understanding. A wise person (one who understands the Dharma) will not commit stupidity. It is not good versus bad, but enlightenment versus ignorance, wisdom versus mindlessness. As a result, conscience is not anchored in the unreachable, but in concrete relationships between people.
I didn't want to leave it at that, so I went to Dr. Chamlong, the local psychiatrist. He offered some ready-to-come-by solutions. People should not strive after goals they can never reach. Setting one's aims high is not faulty, but a person progresses step by step, and we should concentrate on those steps. Besides, a Buddhist has time, even if it stretches to last a thousand lives. It is, therefore, more practical to lower one's sight. Everybody who has the least of Buddhist understanding is familiar with the recommendation not to cling to persons, ideas or things. If one doesn't succeed in one's endeavours, one should let them be.
The doctor agreed that conscience is anchored in tangible worldly relationships. As a result, it is there that problems arise. The inferior has to honour the superior and not to impose himself on others. He should be krehngtyai, filled with a mix of reserve and consideration vis-à-vis others, and shouldn't bother them with his negative feelings. Consequently, he releases them indirectly, from kicking the dog to swallowing his emotions and acting as if nothing were wrong.
“Then I get them here, with depressions, aggressive feelings and the desire to take revenge, often with a marked tendency toward violence that they may even work off on themselves. Then they show an excess of masochism that makes them drive their cars like madmen or drink excessively. All the same, they may also turn on others.”
According to Dr. Chamlong, the incidence of such problems is on the rise. Before the advent of modern life, people were rather conscious of Buddhist recommendations; they were compassionate, and knew to give and forgive. These days, they have lost contact and cannot easily sympathize; they have forgotten what Buddhism can do for them.
When I confronted Phra Son with the psychiatrist's ideas, it was as if I took his lid off. With me, he is at ease, but not with the abbot and other superiors:
“They depress me and force my inner being; they are not interested in the opinion of inferiors; they expect us to follow orders.”
As one of the “little people”, he felt he was of no consequence and simply had to swallow things. To free oneself of this oppression, he said, “one has to cultivate the art of re-establishing a ‘calm heart'”. Then he donned his smile again (Mulder 2009: 73-75).
Private versus Public
It is easier to understand pragmatism; one does something because it enhances one's purposes, and in that way any activity can be classified as useful, useless and/or detrimental. Religious action is useful if one gains merit that will contribute to one's well-being in this or the next life. Useless action can be neutral and is no better than a waste of time, but it can also be detrimental and is best avoided. To kill is detrimental, and in order to steer clear of its negative results, hunters may take home the game they hit in order to have it killed by their servant. Those servants, executioners and butchers are the ones who accumulate negative karma. We, on the other hand, enjoy eating a good chunk of meat, while not having to take life – and the same goes for monks.
In a way, this illustrates the idea of being responsible for one's actions that impressed an earlier generation of Western researchers as both Buddhist and modern in the sense of promoting social awareness. It doesn't work that way, but rather pushes people into moral isolation in the sense of “I hold no responsibility for the actions of others”. It fosters wilful ignorance while avoiding being affected by what happens in the world. It is pragmatic through and through, and leads to the acceptance of the social arrangement as it is. He is rich, I am poor; such is life. He has to kill, I eat; that's the way things are. This type of individualism has nothing to do with Buddhism, nor is it modern. It, rather, leads to the roots of evil, to greed, anger and ignorance (Mulder 2009: 94).
This pragmatism plays an important part in Professor Adul's article “Social Values in Thailand” (Adul 2010), in which he argues first of all that Thai individualism is no more than egocentrism. He sees it as a strategy of avoidance; one shouldn't inflict oneself on others and had better steer clear of confrontation. Accordingly, it is impolite to assert one's opinion and independence, and thus people lie low. Personally, I am not quite happy with “independence”; I do not know whether it exists. Adul did his studies in England and likes to present himself as an eccentric Briton; as a result, he may be overvaluing both individualism and independence when he argues Thai mentality.
He is more convincing when he discusses pragmatism. He observes that the Thai are interested neither in doctrine nor in political ideology; these represent, and this includes the basic tenets of Buddhism, a high level of abstraction, and as such they are difficult to imagine. The anatta tenet of the illusionary nature of the self and karma as a depersonalized cosmic principle are far too difficult to even begin to ponder. As a result, good and bad deeds are more a matter of accounting than of sin and guilt, and spirituality is hard to come by. Things need to be clear and easy to grasp in order for the choice between useful and useless to become evident. Besides, one must always back the winner. As a result, the Buddhist argumentation that drinking liquor is useless and a waste of money does not find willing ears; drinking is pleasurable, it relaxes, and most of the time it leads to fun (Mulder 2009: 100).
In this very vein, a well-known teacher at Thammasart University postulates that Thai individualism provides a fine basis for building a modern, industrial society. Professors Anand and Kramol push the argument a little further and propose that the ideals of democracy promote “greed, individualism, and disregard for the common good”. Although all of them have studied in the West, they remained ignorant about democracy and socially engaged individualism. They disconnect the individual and society, and cannot imagine the autonomous yet responsible citizens who supposedly compose a modern, democratic society. Yet, their argumentation does open perspectives on the enigmatic problem of Thai individualism (Mulder 2009: 102).
Philippines
Individual Identity
According to Enriquez's Indigenous Psychology and National Consciousness, the idea of personality as it pertains to Western psychology is counterproductive to understanding the Filipino. In said psychology, “personality” expresses the private being, the true self of an individual irrespective of his/her relations with others. Alternatively, in the Philippines people do not exist in isolation from each other, but consider others to share in their pagkatao (personhood) that subsumes others – kapwa. In Enriquez's words, the idea of kapwa expresses “the unity of self and others” or ego's awareness of shared identity (1986: 11-12).
At the time Enriquez began to formulate the characteristics of a Filipino psychology, he was irritated by the interpretations of Filipino behaviour reached by the IPC researchers. Their notion of pakikisama, of getting along with others, drew his ire as being too facile and merely descriptive of a certain type of relationship. Through reflecting on the intensity of relationships, he finally distinguished eight levels of relating, from mere “civility with” to “being one with”, or from pakikitungo to pakikiisa. In this scheme, the lower levels of intensity, among them pakikisama, described relations with outsiders, or ibang tao, whereas the more intense relations are with kapwa, that is to say, with those with whom one shares [a measure of] identity.
Some form of identity-sharing would be normal among Filipinos; accordingly, people who refuse to take positive account of others somehow lose their pagkatao or “personhood” by forfeiting their pakikipagkapwa or “shared inner self”, that is, their essential human quality (1989: 35, 45). In doing so, they place themselves beyond civility: “We Filipinos really care about the feelings of others” (Mulder 1997: 19-20).
At this point I should sound the caveat that there is a strong tendency among the early psychological thinkers to approach the psychology of the Filipino through assumed values, which, in the case of Enriquez, even leads him to impose a nationalist ideology on his “psychology”. Even so, by reflecting on current Tagalog vocabulary, he certainly opened a window on the mentality that possibly informs relations with others.
If we want to enquire into Filipino psychology proper, we had better fall back on Bulatao's pioneering work on Filipino personality.
According to his early writings, Filipino family-type relationships, socialization practices, and inescapable togetherness foster the experience of oneself as a part of an encompassing whole or as a part of a closed group (1964: 430). This state of being results in a low level of “individuation” (if compared to members of other nations) and an interpersonal world that becomes the primary source of emotional gratification, reassurance, recognition, and acceptance (Lapuz 1972: 176-177).
Accordingly, one's self-esteem depends on how one is regarded by relevant others, thus making for conformity to group opinions, timidity and unassertiveness (or what is known as “Filipino tolerance”), while leading to the satisfaction of role fulfilment. As Bulatao surmises, this situation, in which the self finds no room for development, often results in a low level of self-esteem or an inferiority complex (Bulatao 1964: 434).
This is why Bulatao describes the Filipino as somebody whose individual core is identifiable but whose ego boundaries blend with others (Bulatao 1964: 431). In the words of Arellano-Carandang, this can be summarized as “a relative[ly] low degree of ego-differentiation” (1987: 66-67). Filipinos are parts of groups and have a group-dependent identity; because of this, the basic social unit is not the individual but the closed group (Bulatao, interview 1988) (Mulder 1997: 20).
Conscience
Seen from a more sociological point of view, we may observe that a person belongs to somebody else and, in his turn, claims others. These others, with the members of the basic family at the centre, spell a person's moral universe. The pillars of that universe are obligation and hierarchy: obligation to place family before self, and hierarchy as the unquestioned acceptance of parental authority. The basic responsibility would appear to be not hurting the feelings of parents, thus obeying and respecting them. Talking back to them becomes a despicable show of disrespect and a blow to the self-esteem of lowly individuated, vulnerable fathers and mothers (Mulder 1997: 22).
In this scheme of things, conscience is located in relations with concretely known people. The most important of these relations involve the recognition of goodness received, which gives rise to the debt of gratitude known as utang-na-loob. It is consciousness of such debts, the most important of them being to parents, relatives, patrons and friends, that practically defines one's conscience and moral horizon (Mulder 1997: 23).
Private versus Public
According to the Constitution, the family is the bedrock of Philippine society. This opinion is widely shared among Filipinos: To them, the family is the lynchpin of their life at the same time that the wider society appears to be indifferent and anonymous.
The public world that surrounds private life is politics and business. People need the public world, have to deal with it, yet hope to be able to withdraw into the emotional security of their private spheres. The predominant image of the public world may, therefore, be well reinforced by the contrast it affords with the identity-confirming family. These contrasting images somehow confirm each other, and deflect from positive action in the society that is, after all, no better than a market. This results in a kind of cultural short-sightedness that confines the relevant world to family, relatives, patrons and community.
It is the baranggay (community) of old kept alive into the present. Its surrounding territory was the realm of nature, a place to hunt, to make forays into, an undomesticated area stretching among one's own and other communities and clans. As everybody's and nobody's land, it was a shared and a hostile domain all the same. It was not a place to commit oneself to and to take responsibility for. It was there to use, to profit from, at the same time that in it, one was at risk.
When a state was imposed on the scattered populations, it was a colonial one. This means that it was low in legitimacy in the eyes of the subject people. If one could get away with it, there was nothing wrong in deriving advantage from it, or avoiding its exactions. The public sphere, so to speak, was something to defend oneself against. In essence, this did not change when the Americans took over. To profit from the state or to sabotage it even became an act of patriotism during the Japanese occupation.
A little later, the native colonial elite became the legitimate heir to the colonizers. They saw the land somehow as their private property, to be exploited for their personal benefit. As a result, it is hard to perceive the state as the caretaker of the common good or the public welfare. Whereas it undoubtedly does its best, the ideas of common good or public welfare have not developed beyond most rudimentary comprehension, and in the hands of a state run by traditional politicians who seek their own interests, the state, like in colonial days, offers little to identify with or to participate in. The public world, in other words, does not inspire commitment.
If there is devotion, it is not to the state or the public realm; instead it is directed to the land in general, to the Heimat, the place of birth and home. It is devotion to the Inang Bayan, “Mother Land”. This attachment is like the bond with family and relatives. It is the privatization of the nation in contrast to the public world of state and society at large.
It appears to be tough to be committed to the state, to be a proud citizen of the republic, and that is not because of its present performance, but because its tradition is so unconvincing. This, compounded with the confusing school images of the whole and its history, with kadiri – nauseating – politics, violence and crime in the press, injustice, arbitrariness and fate in fiction, gives rise to indifference and cynicism. One is part of it all, but reluctant to identify with it. A regional or communal identification is more comfortable. The lack of opportunity the land offers fuels a steady stream of migrant labour and outright emigration. Of course, one remains Filipino at heart, the more so while abroad, but takes little pride in citizenship of the republic. (Mulder 2000: 188-90)
Southeast Asian Personhood
Whereas in preceding paragraphs I have occasionally alluded to comparisons with contemporary Western constructions of personhood, I think it is appropriate to explicitly reiterate that my observations are informed by the fact that I am a Western outsider-anthropologist interpreting what I have seen, tried to understand and still experience. Of course, I was not alone in doing so, and whereas Padre Miguel and I are obvious outsiders, both Professor Adul and the Filipino scholars also made comparative observations on individual identity or personhood.
The Similarities
Above, we observed that among the main lowland populations living along the littoral of the mare nostrum of the South China cum Java Sea, personhood and identity are anchored in the morally obliging sphere of the nuclear family and its encompassing circle of relatives.
Among the populations concerned, descent is recognized bilaterally, i.e., on both mother's and father's sides, which, in a way, enhances the position of women, most pertinently so in the inner circle of life. There, the mother, who gave life through endangering her own and whose nurturance can be fully relied upon, is entitled to the highest honour. Because the child is always on the receiving end, it is irredeemably indebted to her. This debt of gratitude for goodness received, variably known as hutang budi (Ind), nii bunkhun (Th), and utang-na-loob (Fil), puts the mother at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy, so giving offence to her is equal to giving offence to the moral order of existence, and is the gravest of sins.
In this way, the bond to the mother becomes exemplary of other morally laden, personalized relationships that spell one's identity and moral horizon in hierarchically structured social life. In this construction, basic human inequality becomes moral per se at the same time that it locates individual conscience in relations with known others; the super-ego becoming a super-nos, as it were. These relations are cemented by the recognition and fulfilment of the expectations and obligations inherent in them.
Symbolically, these relations are reinforced by their extension to include the personally known ancestors who have the power to bless and who, in their turn, depend for their well-being on the prayers and offerings of those they have left behind. On Java and in the Philippines, this is expressed in the yearly pilgrimage to ancestors’ graves, and in Thailand by their continued presence in ash and relics on the house altar. In the same vein, parents hold this role vis-à-vis their children: They are cultic figures who extend the blessings children need to prosper in life. In the three culture areas concerned, this is visibly expressed in the Javanese sembah, in which one's front touches the knee of the elder, in the Thai waai-ing, or respectful greeting of the feet of parents, and the Filipino magmano, in which one's front is to touch the back of the hand of the blessing-bestowing elder.
In terms of personhood, it means the acceptance as a matter of course of subordination and dependence, and a remarkable defensiveness about matters touching the inner core of life. There, one is embedded in a closed group that spells one's identity and thus it is most important to patiently bear the irritations of living closely together. Early in life, one learns to give in
Especially in the area of intimacy and there where one's more public persona is known, it is important to accept and to be accepted at face value. Any attempt to look behind presentation is felt to be intrusive, rude, and disturbing. Early in my Thai days, when I was curious about everything and sought the reasons for certain behaviours, my then-girlfriend showed her irritation at my inquisitiveness with, “My parents never asked the same question twice”. She meant that I should have the politeness to accept whatever answer, and not challenge her by casting doubt. In the case of the Philippines, Frank Hirtz summed it up as, “Filipinos have a remarkable degree of ambiguity tolerance” (Mulder 1997: 35). It was only later that I understood it as safeguarding oneself, the other, and the peace. As much as persons do not learn to face themselves, they should not try to invade the other, which led me, in Java, to see the social interplay as a gigantic theatre performance. In Thailand, I summarized the reality of the smile as “presentational society”. And when, in the Philippines, I accidentally confronted a friend with himself, I realized that I had given offence to the art of practising smooth interpersonal relations.
If I reflect on the days of my marriage when being together was something like a permanent confrontation in which reasons and rationalizations were incessantly probed, surmised and exposed, then there is much wisdom in low-intensity relationships. Early in life, one learns that conformism and obsequiousness are virtues, that one should be “easy to teach”, as the Thai have it. One should be mild-mannered, easy-going, compliant, obliging and kind. Even so, I would still like to know how much of this is show and how much is self-suppression. Of course, especially for the lowly individuated personality, tolerance and acceptance are wise as s/he never learned to face her/his self. One's ego is a frightening black hole to stay away from. In a somewhat timeless manner, one's life is with others, a smooth continuity in which it makes sense to climb down and to reconcile oneself to one's frustration.
This way of life, in which the authoritarian, the nagger, parents, and obnoxious bosses always get their way, may trigger extreme reactions, such as the Javanese latah and amok of old, and the current tendency of blindly pandering to one's appetites. This has given rise to a conspicuous disdain for neighbours, which manifests itself in loud, thumping music, videoke-singing at full blast, bouts of drinking, and the more traditional stands of consumerism, showing off, pride in status and “face” – all of these being safety valves to release frustration in a milieu that suppresses the expression of the private personality. Because such uncivil behaviour is experienced as a moment of freedom and relaxation, the (normally) spoiled-brat machos concerned tend to explode in anger when asked to show some consideration.