Tag: liberalism

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Liberty Society

[2121] Of refusing to agree to disagree

Is it not great to witness the culture of freedom spreading in Malaysia, no matter how painfully slow progress has been so far?

To observe individuals debating in the public sphere on issues that none was willing to ponder so openly in the past is an encouraging development for all freedom lovers. It opens up windows and doors of an old house to exchange stale air with fresh, belonging to that of delightfully fragrant summer days.

The bright light of summer now shines where darkness once reigned. With it, old perceptions succumb to more liberating views to present all with new possibilities to explore. The barrier to fulfilling individual potential is now less intimidating to overcome due to advancing freedom.

That barrier must continue to be chipped away. Challenges to greater freedom must be conclusively addressed, no inch must be surrendered.

With continual erosion of the fear of freedom, many Malaysians now are eager to practice their individual rights, especially free speech. They express their opinion in public space on issues ranging from the crucial to the comical. Along with liberty comes diversity of opinion, regardless of the validity of the opinion held.

There is a mechanism to sort out the issue of validity of opinion or ideas while respecting liberty. The mechanism is in the nature of spontaneous order and free competition, as each individual — or at least those who care enough — tries to convince the other of a position while others poke their fingers at that position, just as the invisible hand acts to allocate resources in a free, competitive market. It is the natural selection of ideas.

The act of convincing others through intelligent debate must continue to happen, if the process of natural selection is to separate the wheat from the chaff. If a society is interested in having the best ideas proliferate while phasing bad ones out to the margin, actions that prevent natural selection deserve rejection.

Most of the times, such actions detrimental to natural selection are easily identifiable because at its heart is coercion. A few common examples backed by coercion, as practiced by the governments all over the world — Malaysia definitely included — are banning of books, censorship on television and prohibition of public speaking. Others involving intolerant individuals include issuance of security threats, be it simply rhetorical or real.

Subtler is a situation when there is there is absence of coercion. Yes, challenges to the advances of liberty do not merely come in the form of coercion only. One way that it can exist is in form of thought-terminating clichés that try to end discussions held in the public sphere.

I have to be more concrete about this and I intend to do exactly that: how many times, when faced with difficult issues, has one heard the phrase ”agree to disagree”?

On the surface, a person who suggests for all to agree to disagree so politely sounds like a great liberal democrat. It signals willingness to tolerate diversity of opinion. The truth cannot be any farther however; the phrase somehow has wrongly gained reputation as the liberal thing to do.

Unable to convince others or unable to mount convincing rebuttals to a brilliantly presented point, and in a situation where all sides refuse to budge, such a suggestion when forwarded so politely immediately resolves tension. Case closed. Discussion ended. Criticism ceased.

Meanwhile, those who refuse to agree to disagree unfairly risk being accused as intolerant of diversity of opinion.

This is downright wrong.

The phrase and the spirit of ”agree to disagree” has nothing to do with free speech and the concept of liberty at large. Far from it, it seeks to end criticism without debating on points raised.

It does not promote free speech but in fact, it brings upon adverse effects to the agenda of freedom. This spirit masks itself as a liberal ideal but it is really an effort to cover a sign of weak intellect, by creating a force field to insulate the promoter of such illiberal spirit, from criticism.

Free speech does not come with freedom from criticism. Such insulation is the antithesis of the idea of freedom. At its worst, those who seek such insulation are intolerant of free speech. At the other end, at its best, they are either appealing to political expediency or running away from the issue.

The illiberal spirit of ”agree to disagree” is not the proper way of respecting diversity of opinion and liberty. The right way is by continually debating on the issues, no matter how sensitive they are — rationally and respectfully, without threats and force. It is the right way because the only factor that makes a point unassailable is its soundness.

All are entitled their own opinion but that does not mean every opinion is valid. The assertion that the Earth is flat is an opinion but we know that that is untrue. The spirit of ”agree to disagree” ignores the point on the validity of the idea. It treats all ideas as equally valid and sound when that is not the case. It is because not all opinions or ideas are valid that none should be beyond inspection and criticism. Hence, the invalidity of the appallingly inadequate spirit of ”agree to disagree”.

If that ersatz culture spreads and becomes the way of the majority, then that society, our society, is building its foundation on sand, incapable to supporting argument as good as we should because each time there are disagreements, we agree to disagree. Such weak foundation cannot support a liberal society in a convincing manner.

A free society will continually examine and re-examine any idea presented in the public space. Any action that discourages that, whether laced with coercion or not, is incongruous to the greater spirit of liberty and the goal of building a liberal society.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on November 30 2009.

Categories
Education Liberty

[2112] Of a return to basics

One simply cannot overestimate the power of education in shaping a society. It has an awesome capability of influencing a person’s perspective towards the world by impressing certain mind frame, especially to young, whose mind is naively free of skepticism. A liberal society will require an education system that removes that naiveté and develops critically minded skeptical individuals. In an ideal world, that is the function of early formal education. Our world, and certainly our society, is less than ideal, where the agenda of individual empowerment gradually yields its space to other agenda that does not empower individuals but rather seeks to cow them into certain mold that erodes individuality.

By skepticism, it means not a society full of cynics, where each person somehow deep in his or her heart holds on to extremely pessimistic view of human nature and in doing so, distrusting the other person in all places at all times. By skepticism, it refers an independent mind that is capable of evaluating a proposition critically and not merely accepting it blindly. This is the truest and the greatest agenda of individual empowerment. Without this agenda, the path towards liberty is an overly arduous one.

It is for this reason that I prefer for primary and to some extent, secondary level of formal education, to focus primarily on aspects that encourage skepticism. These aspects hark back at the foundation of all knowledge: grammar, logic and rhetoric. It is a demand for a person to think for his or herself by demanding proofs for all propositions. It is a culture of questioning without fear of tradition and its biases. Only when the young truly grasp the basic tools of an independent mind will they then be free to explore areas that may interest them, and effectively at that.

Even if one speaks of holistic formal education that seeks to formalize everything to the point of suffocation to seemingly robs space for informal education, it is impossible to deny how a focus on grammar, logic and rhetoric is the base of any education worth of going through. Any person that is unable to write intelligibly, think critically and speak clearly up to some acceptable degree likely has failed in his or her education.

Admittedly, so basic a goal is hardly inspiring. Many are not impressed with such uninspiring goal. And so, they suggest for additional roles for schools and therefore, formal education to take up.

One that has been proposed from time to time is the inculcation of entrepreneurial spirit. For the religious, they want an education system with spiritual aspect tags included in multiple areas of education; probably, to have the fairy tale of creationism taught as part of science too. Another popular suggestion is a stress on unity. This is not merely weasel words; Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Murugiah Thopasamy has proposed for a course called 1Malaysia to replace moral studies, where the new course would apart from unity, encourages patriotism among Malaysians.

We live in a world of constraints and introduction of additional items to school syllabus will necessarily mean less time for foundation of knowledge found in vital courses such as language and mathematics. This concern of constraints is true at any level of education as well as within and without the realm of education.

One has to understand that formal education can only do so much. Entrepreneurial spirit, spiritualism and unity for instance cannot be taught through textbooks. Many of these additional goals necessarily belong to the realm of informal education. It is something acquired through interactions outside of schools and out of pure interest.

Granted, schools can play a huge role in prodding students toward whatever goals that one may desire, especially through after school activities. Any effort at that should not however turn the syllabus into a hodgepodge of additional goals that eventually dilutes the agenda of individual empowerment that seeks to set a strong foundation of knowledge.

Really, many of these additional goals are not educational of value, but more likely than not appear to impress on young students’ psyche to accept certain ideas. It is really propaganda. Such impression would likely be successful impact on young students who have yet to acquire the foundation. Unable to think for themselves and access any proposition effectively, young students may become sad victims of propaganda.

Advocates of holistic education especially miss and at worse ignore the importance of informal education. UMNO Youth for instance has proposed to lengthen school hours to enable implementation of holistic education. It is exactly this kind of so-called holistic education that considerably expands the possibility of role of formal education to include items of little if no educational value at all. The odds are that these items are only trying to influence students to accept certain things that might not survive inspection of a critical mind.

Even if the proposal of holistic education is purely innocent in its consequence and aimed at producing well-rounded individuals without having the potential of diluting the focus on foundational knowledge, it robs students of their time to explore not what the state what them to have interest in, but of their own interest. Such holistic education robs these students from the opportunity to undergo informal education. In fact, it robs them from living their life, to trap within school compound and oblivion that there is a whole wide world out there full of adventures that no formal education can provide. It robs them from a chance to practice their senses and deciding their own destiny.

The oft-repeated complaint that employers have against far too many fresh graduates is a lack of quality. I dare say the employability of these graduates is low because their foundation is not strong. Weak foundation affects how knowledge is received. When it is received uncritically, one will have trouble applying knowledge obtained through books and blackboard into practice.

One is tempted to solve the problem at tertiary level but it may be too late at that level. Tertiary level is the place where specialization is supposed to begin. While foundation may further be expanded and strengthened as liberal arts tries to do, this kind foundation itself will crumble without the foundation involving solid competency in grammar, logic and rhetoric that accommodate thinking process.

The problem of such employability can be solved by returning to basics and doing away all unnecessarily fluff. Focus on the grammar, logic and rhetoric as formal education and give the young the liberty to explore their life as part of their informal education.

Through this, not only we will have a competent individual, but also a free individual making up a free society.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on November 17 2009.

Categories
History & heritage Liberty

[2109] Of 20 years after the day the Wall fell

Here is to liberty.

Forgive, but never forget the tyranny of communism and socialism.

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Categories
Liberty Society

[2108] Of a liberal separation between religion and state

An optimist may take the view that politics is unifying. A realist will understand that politics is divisive. It is possible that this realization is the reason why the Sultan of Selangor expressed his concern about the use of mosques for political purposes. For better or for worse, political activities in mosques are inevitable, if there is respect for freedom. Divisiveness is a symptom of difference in opinion and freedom of conscience. Any effort to eliminate such divide, in most cases, involves abolition of freedom. It is for this reason that I do not share his concern. Rather, I am more concerned with the roles of mosques in Malaysian society.

When I speak of mosques, I do not speak of them literally, buildings with calligraphy adorning minarets, walls or domes. I am referring to a more substantial issue that is relevant within the context of separation of mosque and state, or the separation of church and state, if you will. I am talking about the role of religion in state and, therefore, public space.

While this debate has been going on for a long time, the issue still suffers from misunderstanding of what the separation entails. For liberals, more than anything else, such separation exists to support freedom.

It is true that separation between religion and the state — call it secularism if you must — can exist on its own without the idea of liberty as a pillar, and subsequently, may be hostile to religion. This happened in the Soviet Union in the past, when the communist state was openly hostile to religion.

The Soviet Union perhaps went to the extreme by adopting an atheistic outlook for the state, creating a nightmare state for both liberal and religious individuals. But then again, Soviet Union was not secular state. It was not a state that was neutral of religion. It was a state that was anti-religion and that is not the definition of a secular state. Thus, perhaps Soviet Union is an inappropriate example of a secular state.

A more appropriate example is likely to be Turkey, where secularism is embedded with hostility to religion is observable. In the country, especially in the past and perhaps less so nowadays, the state regulated religions to cement its own influence in the society.

Those states were and still are jealous beings, as with any authoritarian state.

Such separation is abhorrent to the concept of liberty and it deserves no contemplation at all. Adoption of such illiberal separation here in Malaysia will only witness migration from one unacceptable tyranny where religions breathe down the neck of individuals to another woeful type of tyranny where religious freedom comes under relentless attacks. That should never be the purpose of a person upholding the principle of liberty.

The function of the state is the protection of individual rights. It is the protection of individuals from coercion and fraud. Any further function that the state adopts, in most cases and within our context with respect to freedom of conscience, is excessive. And, too much excessiveness lays down the path towards tyranny.

Just as the institution of separation of powers of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary arms exists as an effort to ward off tyranny, the separation between the state and religion should be instituted to ensure the two forces would have less success in conspiring against free individuals. To have the mosques function as moral police stations, as proposed by Hasan Ali in Selangor, is surely good enough proof to demonstrate how such conspiracy is more than a product of someone’s wild imagination.

The separation may begin by having the state to not wield power to enforce religions and its rules on individuals. Religious laws should only be applied on the willing. Given that the religious laws themselves do not contradict individual liberty, the state has no role in their enforcement.

An individual is a sovereign and he or she alone is the final determinant of his or her conscience within the constraint of the physical world. It is not the business of a state to determine the religious belief — or lack of it, or even any kind of belief — of a free individual. It is not the business of the state to sanction any lifestyle that any religion deems acceptable for an individual to adopt.

That separation also means that no religion should receive funding from the state. Or if it must, the state can provide only limited funding to religious institutions, as the state may provide to various advocacy groups or non-governmental organizations.

Truly, religious institutions should only survive through donations which individuals or the faithful are willing to provide. After all, religious belief is about sincere belief. It follows that any money or resources for religion should come from the heart, not through coercion.

This separation prevents religions from being manipulated by the state and prevents individuals from being subjected to laws of conscience without his or her consent.

In this environment, parallel to the spirit of freedom of conscience, individuals can practice and express their religious belief. The proviso is that they can do so only without forcing others to live by the same ideals. These religious individuals may persuade others of their alleged morally superior lifestyle in line with freedom of speech but coercion is simply out of the question.

If there is coercion in that respect, then the liberal state will be there to meet the illegitimate coercion with legitimate force.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on November 3 2009

Categories
Liberty

[2095] Of in praise of trivial choices

It is easy to dismiss the triviality, for instance, of choosing a pair of high heels out of hundreds as excesses of modern life defined by free market. How does one sympathize with a dilemma of a purchaser who faces a petty option between consuming Coke and Pepsi?

Such inconsequential puzzles seem so shallow for it to be objects of attention at times when there are larger and more pressing issues that the society, or even the world, faces. So shallow and so trivial it seems that to defend it seems only so wrong. Yet, these trivialities continue to receive attention of great many people.

These have been derided as one of the excesses of a free world. There are simply too many choices that those choices divert precious attention from important issues.

Beware, however, of those calling upon such condemnation because it betrays an authoritarian tendency. If the condemnation sees execution, it opens an illiberal path for at the heart of the condemnation is a desire to apply strings to individuals. At its heart, there is distaste for liberty.

Choices, however trivial they might be, are crucial in the maintenance and enhancement of liberty in society. One perhaps may criticize this as overstretching an argument beyond its allowable elasticity. The band would snap before one could secure the point, as one may argue.

Yet, every little thing in life affects the psyche of individuals in society. Through this, the band can go farther than one would think.

In a society of illiberal culture, a majority of individuals born into it and raised by it would suffer from status quo bias, especially so for an isolationist society. Without effort or accident, they will acclimatize to unfree culture, unaware of the shackles that bind them down. They will be unaware of or suffer great difficulties in imagining choices that could exist, because it does not exist. For them, the limited choices they observe are the full imaginable choices.

In a society of liberal culture with full free choices restrained only by physical reality, just as a majority of individuals born into illiberal society, individuals will suffer from status quo bias. Unlike the illiberal society, the bias in a free society is a side with liberty as individuals have access or at least have knowledge of full choices available in their world.

It is here where choices are crucial in the creation and the maintenance of a free society, founded on non-aggression with respect to individual liberty.

Individuals familiar with full — mundane or exceptional, trivial or life-changing — choices due to status quo bias unconsciously impressed upon them by a free society will notice any disappearance of choices from their menu. From the awareness comes questions and from the questions, demands for the return of the disappeared options, if evolution within a free market is not the cause of that disappearance. If the free market is the cause of extinction of a particular option, then it must be that the individuals are willingly causing the extinction. That is a nature of the free market.

If the extinction comes from a diktat of unfree origin, the demands for the return of that particular choice will gather momentum, like an echo to an avalanche. It is so because acclimatization to full choices in itself creates sensitivity to elimination of choices. Free individuals will rise up to banish the diktat into a gutter, where all of things that resent liberty for whatever reason belong and restore the choices into the menu.

Familiarization to these little choices builds up awareness of larger choices. These larger choices are grand choices so well linked and easier related to the idea of freedom: freedom of conscience; freedom of expression; freedom of speech.

Willingness to defend these little choices translates into the willingness to defend these grand choices for executions of these little choices really are expressions of individuals’ personality. Without these freedoms, such little choices cannot exist. Yet, grand choices are so far removed from immediate life that it is hard for individuals on the streets to relate to it. Instead, freedom sees daily exercises through these little choices.

Each exercise of these little choices is another step towards grand choices. These little choices train individuals in making choices and there on, taking responsibility for their own life. The act of assuming that responsibility removes the need for a third party and reduces the possibility of tyranny by claiming their freedom. This collectively creates an environment conducive for the creation and maintenance of a free society. It follows that little trivial shallow choices deserve defense from ridicule.

Ignore those that condemn small little choices as excesses. Chances are, if in their heart is disgust for these small things, then they cannot stomach the exercise of grand choices. They condemn these little choices as excesses because their respect for individual liberty is limited. As soon as they have won the battle, the march from liberalism to tyranny begins.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on October 5 2009.