Dana and I regularly attend class to learn Bahasa Indonesia. Our lesson book is okay but necessarily banal. We describe activities, when we do them, etc. It is not entirely without charm. For example, it turns out that it’s okay to describe family members as both “short and fat”. I introduced my friends Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa to the class.

Tutoring hours are more fun because we talk about whatever we want. We’ve learned about coffee beer and compared cuisines. We’ve discussed the salacious shows our tutors watch. We learned how volcanic evacuation routes work. These have more pull than introducing myself as a curly-haired American named Steve who likes to exercise at 6am before breakfast.

We once talked about Pancasila Day, the birthdate of the national ideology. Pancasila is a series of five pillars upon which Indonesia’s society and constitution rests.

• Pillar One: Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa ([Belief in] one, great God)
• Pillar Two: Kemanusiaan yang adil dan beradab (Fair/just and civilized humanity)
• Pillar Three: Persatuan Indonesia (Indonesian Unity)
• Pillar Four: Kerakyatan yang dipimpin oleh hikmat kebijaksanaan dalam permusyawaratan/perwakilan (Democracy guided by comprehensive wisdom based in deliberation and representation).
• Pillar Five: Keadilan sosial bagi seluruh rakyat Indonesia (Social justice for all of the people of Indonesia)

As with most great aspirations, reality tends to diverge from the ideal. The gap between intent and execution is sometimes a chasm. Our baser human instincts constantly battle against nobility’s higher calling. For example, some business owners seem to hire their employees at obscenely exploitative rates. The rich live in gargantuan houses next to broken-down, concrete shacks with tin roofing. Many believe corruption and cronyism are a permanent fixture of government.

As incompletely manifested as they are, the pillars show themselves in the actions and expectations of the Indonesian peoples. Religious tolerance and respect is a must. Everyone is Indonesian first regardless of ethnic origins. Meetings last forever because everyone must have a turn to speak. The pillars of Pancasila permeate Indonesia’s cultural concrete.

The Small Question

“What do you call your pillars?”

Our tutor posed the question to me in perfect, mildly-accented English. This did not prevent momentary confusion. What did she mean by “our pillars”? I briefly relived my senior high Government/Civics class and came up with nothing. The Bill of Rights is the closest analogue, but the Bill of Rights is a guarantee of personal rights. Dana offered the Preamble, but those are purposes. Neither document is a list of aspirational social virtues that underlay the social order.

I replied, “I don’t know that we have something analogous. At best, I think we have one pillar named, ‘personal rights’.”

“Personal rights” is the only “pillar” I can think of that has been codified into our federal law. The Civil RIghts Act, Title IX, and Brown vs. Board of Education are all legal matters that have been collectively categorized under the aegis of “personal rights”. Things are not always so tidy. For example, Citizens United grants personal rights to corporations at the severe (perhaps unwitting) cost of citizens’ personal rights to have a say in their government.

Several US cultural movements put personal rights as their raison d’etre. Black Lives Matter centered itself around the idea that Black Americans have the right to live free of racist policing. Abortion activists frame the matter as a right of choice while anti-abortionists frame it as taking away the rights of the unborn (or murder). Gay-marriage activists fought to gain equal rights to marriage and its benefits alongside their heterosexual counterparts. Many adults complain about “Political Correctness culture”, not because it is difficult to adopt new vocabulary, but because they feel they have lost the right to say things the way they want to say it. Personal rights and the freedoms they afford are everything.

My point is this: personal rights are the first and central purpose that undergirds our legislation and cultural movements, for better or worse. It is the one “pillar” I can name based on my experience in the US over the last 2 decades. The Altar of Personal Rights has translated itself into American culture as the one transcendent virtue above all other virtues.

Our tutor asked, “So…. then America is all about me?”

I thought on that for a moment. The question is interesting precisely because I’ve lived in the Venn diagram that most every other Asian-American lives in: the intersection of Eastern collectivism and Western individualism. I am an American whose life cannot be lived without thought of my family and work community. Conversely, I know many selfless people far more considerate than I who are not from collective ethnicities. It would be rude to paint with such a crude brush. Yet it seemed hard to argue from a cultural and legislative point of view.

I replied, “Sometimes it seems that way.”

The Big Question

“Well, which one do you think is better?” our tutor asked with a playful glint in her eyes.

I peeked over the edge of the cliff I was about to jump off. I was not asked about my preferences. She wanted a moral judgment on two cultures made distinct by their underlying philosophies. My tutor was genuinely curious. Yet I could feel undercurrents of pride surrounding her country’s culture hang in the air. I doubted I would offend should I choose American culture, but I had to tread carefully when talking about hers.

I like that Pancasila is a list of purposive values that Indonesian law and culture could work towards. It clearly spells out each value as equal and definitive in their own right. By its very omission from the pillars, it seems to be tacitly understood that personal freedom is assumed so long as it is balanced against the consideration and benefit of others. If you want to be cheeky and clever with your dad puns, “U” comes before “I” in “Community”.

For example, the first pillar mandates that everyone must adopt one of the six state-endorsed religions. I personally find this pillar the most mystifying and controversial. I disagree with its foundational assumptions and even more strongly with its execution. Yet I conceptually understand the reasoning behind it. The pillar was adopted to guard against Indonesia sliding into communism (communism is philosophically atheist). Put another way, you are free to have a religion of your choosing… but you must have one so that everyone continues to benefit from democratic rule.

On the other hand, the fact that my personal liberties are enshrined by law (however tenuous or untrue it is for other fellow US citizens) is wonderful. The American ethos has allowed me the ability to live according to my own rhythm and drummer. I enjoy a freedom of life unchained from social expectations and unhindered by guilt for not meeting them. No one cares except Dana. She will make do so long as I am not a maverick all the time.

I hedged. “They both have their merits and detractors”, I replied.

My western and eastern halves were both content with their noncommittal solution. They continued to cohabit their small, definitive Venn diagram space in the middle. Why satisfy one side when you can leave both sides equally dissatisfied? Our tutor gave the wry smile one gives while trying not to overtly show how much they enjoy watching other people squirm under duress.

Then I thought about how the mere suggestion of limiting gun rights sparks cries of, “Tyranny!” About all the needless, preventable COVID deaths spread by the relentless need to prove that freedom in God is greater than government. That “free speech rights” granted to corporations has resulted in a massive, inequitable hording of wealth. That giving rights of free enterprise to markets results in increasingly marginalized low-income communities. That we as a hegemonic power insist on the right to do as we please but then take away the rights, and even freedom, of those who come to our borders looking for a better life after our freedoms irreversibly altered theirs.

“But if I had to choose, Pancasila.”

The Best Question

I was torn because Indonesia certainly has its own problems despite having Pancasila embedded into its laws. Yet I believe that explicitly stated goals, ideals, and virtues have great value precisely because they are aspirational. In this case, those explicit values point towards a communal identity first. As an example, consider that Bahasa Indonesia was chosen from a universal trade language to avoid favoring the largest people groups over the smaller ones. Pancasila attracts me precisely because it starts at the community level and works inward. I love that, “What about everyone else?” is considered a legitimate question.

Americans do recognize that we must coexist peacefully. For example, anti-defamation laws and anti-hate laws both recognize that free speech must be limited for the sake of the social good. Yet the US constantly battles within itself to determine the extent of personal rights and whom they are for.

I suspect this is a consequence of subsuming everything under the umbrella of personal rights. When social justice, fairness, civility, or tolerance are swept under the aegis of “personal rights”, they are tacitly understood as inferior or limited concepts. These “lesser” principles were often ignored in the worst aspects of American history: slavery, Trail of Tears, Jim Crow Laws, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Japanese internment all easily come to mind as periods where the personal rights of one group were the sole consideration for action at the cost of another group. US culture has mostly improved since then.

Yet personal rights still seem to rest at the center of everything. Suggestions for gun bans or universal healthcare are immediately decried as socialist or communist with all the attendant baggage. Evangelical churches met in defiance of stay-at-home orders in the first COVID year touting God’s authority over government’s. Promoting affirmative action inevitably leads someone to assert that it strips university spots from those who show more academic prowess. CEO Dan Price raised his employees’ minimum wage to $70k annual and was then pilloried by many for pressuring other companies to pay their employees a livable wage.

“Oh look! Waktu habis… time flies! Thank you, Pak Josh, Ibu Dana! That was fun!”

“Fun” is a strong word, though it definitely illuminated something. Nothing ages you more than thinking about sobering topics. I got up out of my seat groaning like an old man, said goodbye, and shuffled off to the next classroom. The truth is, I love my country. I just want to add this question into the legislative and national dialogue: “What about everyone else?”