Meditations on a Malaysian philosophical society, preamble to a Malaysian cybernetic republic

We continue to live in interesting times in an age wherein, like Lao Tzu would say, the only permanent thing is change. We are living with a hope that one day a “republic of virtue” ruled by a “philosopher-transformative-ruler” will come into being.

A REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE

Azly Rahman

on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/AzlyRahman/689079971
on blog: http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/

(Questions pertaining to a possible virtual forum of a Malaysian Philosophical Society, circa 2010)

The Death of Socrates. 1787
Oil on Canvas, 129.5 x 196.2 cm (51 x 77 1/4 in).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

We continue to live in interesting times in an age wherein, like Lao Tzu would say, the only permanent thing is change. We are living with a hope that one day a “republic of virtue” ruled by a “philosopher-transformative-ruler” will come into being. While we work to construct such a utopian state, let us explore the following set of questions:

i) How are human beings controlled by those who own the means of intellectual and economic production? How does power, in its raw and refined form, operate? How is it dispersed? How is power sustained? How is truth produced and owned? How is truth multiplied, disseminated, and broadcasted? What is the relationship between culture and truth?

ii) How is the self constructed? How are we alienated? What is inscribed onto the body and into the mind, in the process of schooling? How is human imagination confined and how might it be released? How is the mind enslaved by the politics of knowledge? How is historical knowledge packaged? How do we define our existence in this Age of Information?

iii) Who decides what is important in history? What is an ideal multicultural society? How have our ideas of multiculturalism influenced the way we organise our lives? What historical knowledge is of importance? What tools do we need to create our own history?

iv) How is the individual more powerful than the State? How might a philosopher-ruler be created? How is an authentic system of justice possible? Who should rule and why? How is a society based on distributive or regulative justice possible?

And finally our ultimate question will be: how might we realise and establish a democratic-republic of virtue -- one that is based on a form of democracy that is meaningful and personal?

These are also some of the questions that come to my mind as I plough daily through the writings in Malaysia Today and other progressive online national and international news and views portal in search of a terrain to plant the seeds of frontier thinking.

Throughout the course of my study on the origin and fate of this society, I have learned how much the work of those who have contributed to the social construction of the Malaysian self and the democratic ideals that this nation aspires to realise.

I have learned how the early philosophical journeys of the Malays, Indians, and Chinese look like, what kind of statecraft was practiced, what the metaphysical system of these peoples constitute, what form of social-humanism is to be fought for, what a Malaysian social justice may mean, what a multicultural Malaysian might look like, and finally, what brand of nationalism must be embraced in an age wherein, as W.B Yeats say, “the Centre can no longer hold”.

However, the answers they provided are inadequate especially in these challenging times.

I am essentially a student of Trans-cultural Philosophies and Cultural Studies interested in education for liberation and to promote the idea that in this age of hypermodernity and rapid technological changes one can advance to different levels of thinking and acquire wisdom. I want to help people ask relevant questions so that one can explore meaningful relationships between the Self and the Culture/Environment/Social Structures one inhabits.

I want to explore the history of the questions asked and to find out how we arrive at this or that historical juncture. I believe these questions will help us go back to the origin of things and in the process, to understand the world we live in.

I believe that these questions can help us go back “to the Centre” and to our “Primordial Nature”, through what the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau calls “sentimental education”, or, to explore, as the Indonesian poet W.S. Rendra once said in his play The Struggle of the Naga Tribe (Kisah Perjuangan Suku Naga), the “world within and the world outside”. Through these questions I believe one can break free of shackles of domination and release the imagination and create better utopias.

And as Rousseau continues: “Man is born free … and everywhere He is in chains”, and that the first language he needs is the cry of Nature.

Based on a Columbia University thesis I produced on the intellectual origin of the city of Cyberjaya and its relationship to hegemony and utopianism, I am currently further contemplating on a social theory of how nations develop and hyper-modernise as a result of trans-cultural flow of ideas, impacted by emerging technologies of human control. I want to know, in the process of developing an explanation of how the human being loses its essence, gets alienated, and become conditioned by the system of signs and symbols; by its genealogy, anatomy, chemistry, and its cybernetic properties.

Ideas dance and flow gracefully from one nation to another; from the mind of one group of people to another, from a nation at the centre to those in the peripheries and the hinterlands. But in their dance there is always beauty and deadly persuasion.

It is believed that, in this age, we are born into a matrix of Chinese complexities, and we will spend our lifetime understanding it, possibly escaping it, and consequently constructing an understanding of our Existential self.

We are born to be makers of our own history, not as victims or victimisers, nor objects of history to be forgotten and reduced to numbers. In this world without borders, are all essentially, trans-cultural citizens differentiated only by our national identity cards and our passports.

I want to share the experiences I have in developing the human mind and in the teaching multiple perspectives of knowing. I am looking forward to these contributions. At the end of my writings, I hope we can name the inherent contradictions between our existentialism and the world of cybernetics we inhabit.

Let us exchange ideas so that we may produce the thesis and anti-thesis of ideas, guided by the spirit of inquiry. We will be all the more enriched on this intellectual journey we are to embark upon.

Let us all, through this interactive forum and through your experiences and multiple perspectives of knowing, develop a manifesto of social change using radical and alternative tools of analysis and prescriptions. Let us construct the foundations of a “republic of virtue”; one based on trans-cultural ethics, peace and social-justice, meaningful democracy, and science for the people. Let us challenge ourselves with the ideas we are going to explore, to expand, and to exhaust so that in the final analysis, we will generate more questions than answers to deconstruct and shatter paradigms we are familiar with.

Let us have opinion leaders and lawmakers read the synthesis of our thoughts and help them understand and mediate issues plaguing us. Let us become many Niccolo Machiavellis who will advise our princes and princesses so that the latter may better serve and transform the lives of the paupers in our society.

I look forward to our virtual and intellectual engagements. You are also welcomed to produce ideas in Bahasa Malaysia.

Lastly, my gratitude to Malaysia Today for granting me a space to share my ideas and experiences – since 2005.