From: lhoei@fwi.uva.nl (Liang Hwie Oei (I90))
Subject: Buku Lagu-lagu Indonesia kecil (muncul lagi?)
Followup-To: idem dito
Summary: A small Indonesian songbook (Strikes Back)
Keywords: songs
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Distribution: alt.culture.indonesia
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 18:03:13 GMT


/News/alt/culture/indonesia/blik9301.untuk-mu

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%     MOQ, The Metaphysics of Quality applied to Meditations on Culture    %
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(wh, ............... koq muncul lagi ya????????????????????????????????)

Cheers and boooh's I will forward to Mas Togar Arifin Silaban, University of
Manitoba Canada; he brought me on this this track again. I simply cannot
ignore his friendly invitation and I have no proper reason to reject it
either. Apa sekarang saya masih bisa mengucapkan anda Selamat Tahun Baru?

                                  /* */

So why did I suddenly disappear anyway? Was I really that badly hurt by my
critic? Nop. The one who protested was actually a female (my dearest Anna);
so she might have been teasing or even provoking me. Referring to Pak Kasur
and Ibu Guling set the tone (mungkin ia ingin jadi kasur bantal-gulingku! duh
norak ya bayang-bayanganku). I was only annoyed that she wasn't being very
specific, leaving me at a loss of what I exactly have done wrong. 

The truth is, however, that I needed an excuse for my leave of absence
(without the intention to ever go back). I was going trough a YAIC (Yet
Another Identy Crisis). When I posted the first issue of BLIK, I hardly knew
what I was getting into. Identity is a very weird thing. Even when your
premise is that you don't know exactly what you are, people tend to assign to
you all kinds of identities you have never imagined for yourself. That's when
things gets tricky. Before I knew I realized that I'd better behave myself as
an Idonesian on the net, since that is what alt.c.i readers seem to expect
from me. On the other hand, my name gave cause to private correspondence with
a former 'tiga bunyi' I was not quite happy about. Apart from who was
actually showing a bad attitude (which might aswell have been me), the fact
that somebody approaches me because the way my name is spelled gives me the
creeps. Meanwhile a very demanding Dutch society is waiting for me out there,
ready to swallow me up as a prefabricated, thouroughly acculturated Dutchman.
Enough push and pull factors to find yourself down there again in pieces that
are increasingly harder to glue. 

                                  /* */

Sorry guys, I really have to go through this. Otherwise I will be knocked
down again by the next cultural blow and I will disappear again; this time
without leaving any trace. Be patient for at least the next followup.

                                  /* */


So during the previous Chrismas recess I found for myself the superglue:

      ROBERT M. PIRSIG, "Lila, an Inquiry into Morals" (Philosophy $5.99)
      Bantam New York 1991
      ISBN 0-553-18097-5
      Library of Congress 91-16417

In the Chrismas break of 1983, when I was at the University of Chicago the
college, an unforgetable Alaskian wrestler, who was neighbouring me in the
dorms lend me his copy of Pirsig's first book "Zen, and the art of motorcycle
maintenance". It sounds clich, but it di`d change my life. That book created
a snowball effect on me, the first and the most important one, that eventual-
ly caused me to drop out of school. So you have been warned. I will not get
into the details though.

The major point is that Pirsig felt the lack of rigor in traditional moral
philosophical systems in devicing a decision procedure for human beings to
account for their actions at all situations. If you take Christianity for
instance, the typical test would be the issue of abortion. You get trapped
into the law of "thou shall not kill" and that is exactly what the Irish
Catholic Church is preaching - even as far as crusading against birth
control. Strangely enough, the most sophisticated moral philosophy developed
during the period of Enlightement, "Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten" by
Immanuel Kant, does not pass this test either. Kant's principle of the
Categorical Imperative, which is in essential the Golden Rule that says: "Do
not onto others what thou not want others done onto you", when applied to
mother and her embryo conflicts. Both the life of the mother and the life of
the germ presumably have equal worth. Neither of them is justified in causing
suffering to the other. 

                                  /* */

The Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ), as described in [Lila] rests heavily on an
unshakeable believe in the evolution theory of Darwin. If you believe that
the world has been created by God the whole theory collapses, which is not
bad at all since people who believe in God do not need the theory; they have
God. It should be clear by know that people who are deeply religious should
definitely not read this book. The book requires a very open mind and some
familiarity with some major work in either Western or Oriental Philosophy is
desirable. The theory as an intellectual exercise is like E=mc2 rather
beautiful and harmless. Its application is as hazardous as an atomic bomb. I
will therefore only briefly summarize the theory and give a 'safe' example of
a possible application. 

First Quality that Pirsig had left undefined in [Zen], was finally identified
in [Lila] with the Greek 'arti', the Sanskrit 'darma' or just plain 'Virtue 
or the Good'. Thus Quality is a the ultimate yardstick of moral value. 

Second MOQ recites the historical evolution of the world as follows: in the
beginning there was chaos. Dynamic forces of chaos induced the first anorga-
nic structures, which in turn give rise to the miracle of life - the biologi-
cal structures. Biological structures evoluated to the first man. Men joined
into societies and finally society nurtures the intellect. Pirsig himself is
eager to jump into the next realm, which is the domain of the mystic. But I
myself am not ready yet to buy that. This picture of history establishes a
hierchy of morals. The major point MOQ is making is that higher stages of
development takes precedence over the lower ones(!).

Third MOQ distinguishes to forces in each stadium of Moral Evolution: the so
called Static Quality and Dynamic Quality. Static Quality is the neccessary
precondition for survival - without a sound body man is not functional as a
man as we know from coma patients -, but the cultivation of sound Dynamic
Quality is the neccessary precondition for progress. Without the possibility
of change everything will remain the same and the evolution process stops or
even degenerates. In short, a precarious balance over all stadia of develop-
ment have to be made between the Static and Dynamic forces. 

That's the whole theory.

                                  /* */

Nothing revolutionary you might argue. But wait a minute. Let's now turn to a
real pathological case. Not long ago I have seen a PRC movie named "Five
Girls and a Rope". (I forgot the name of its director, but its photography is
hauntingly beautiful and it breathes an atmosphere of intimacy that is rare
for a Chinese movie). The film is an impeachement against the oppression of
women in traditional China. The drama is realistically taken from daily rural
life. The most compelling scene was of the choice a mother in law had to make
about the life of either the mother in labour or the baby that was still in
the belly refusing to come out. The midwife involved did not posses the
techniques nor the instruments to save both lifes. She could only safe one
and it is up to the head of the family to decide which life to continue. As
we have agreed above, the Golden Rule does not help us. Lots of people would
not be able to decide and just pray to God by which they send both mother and
her child to heaven. Not so this woman clinging to her tradition and family.
As you might expect, the newborn was saved at the expense of his mother. 

Why is this case pathological? It nowadays very trendy to be a Cultural
Relativist, meaning: one cannot make a judgment on cultural phenomena with
criteria stemming from another Culture. The terror of this principle is that
in the extreme case of freedom of selfrealization and selfdetermination, each
individual can create his or her or even its (with the means of transsexual
surgery) culture with noncompatible personal cultural values such that we
cannot pass a value judgement on who or whatsoever. We are living in a moral
chaos. And unfortunately that depicts our current situation rather accurate-
ly. 

You only have to browse into *.culture.* newsgroups to notice that quite a
few people hate to get a counter argument that is coming out some 'cultural
bag' because it is such a put off in debates. 

Now, using MOQ we clearly see that the mother is in higher stage of develop-
ment both as a member of the species of human beings, and as a member of
society and presumably also as a intellectual thinking being. The mother
takes precedence over the child. In other words the mother is morally more
valuable than the child who has yet to prove itself the society he tries to
enter. But MOQ is like a close finish photo. It does not take account what
might be. It discards the potential of the germ in the same manner we discard
miriads of our semen in our wet dreams. A typical Chinese family believer
might argue that the mother might not be suitable anymore for child bearing.
But using that argumentation men should castrate themselves when discovering
themselves being infertile. The analogy is that the society of the body is
entitled to punish the penis for its malfunction - some action of course
nobody will perform. The mother wins and we judge this Chinese practise
simply as plain murder. Unfortunately this kind of argumentation is still
something a lot of people will not accept. Otherwise, and I am pretty sure of
that, this sad tale would not have been included in the film, and some
Chinese would not for other reasons still kill their female baby infants this
present day.

This is the liberating power of MOQ when stranded in cultural dillema's. But
as many powerfull things, there is always danger of abuse. So I just notify
its existence and keep its application mostly to myself or to your discreti-
on. But by allowing its mechanics to reside at the back of our minds it gives
a consistent system for validating arguments in our meditations on culture.

                                  /* */

I'd like to dedicate the song below to Indonesian foreign students who have a
sweetheart waiting back in Indonesia. You might want to send your version on
tape to them on Valentine's Day. I've heard that Indonesian enterpreneurs are
most eager to establish this American activity within contemporary Indonesian
trends. Not everybody seems to be pleased with these developments though.
Valentine's Day is generally not celebrated in Europe. Well, at least you
have plenty of time to practise your vocal chords (till Feb. 14.).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  oOo  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

UNTUK MU                            FOR YOU 

ciptaan: Tito Soemarsono/           (free translation; do try out singing!)
         Rhina Barin S.             (this should be another winning song  )
                                    (for si Uthe                          )

                                    (the title song of a classic album of )
                                    (the kroncong singer Hetty Koes Endang)


Kupersembahkan lagu ini             I'm giving to you this melody
Sebagai tanda cinta kasihku         As sign of my care and sympathy
Padamu setulus hati ini, untukmu    Just for you is this heart of purity, for
Kau permata hati                    you, who carries a pearl inside

Adakah rindu kian melanda           Is there an emotion of this kind of blue
Di saat jauh dari sisiku            While I am being so far away from you
Cintaku, ku ingin slalu bersamamu   O my love I want us to be together
Sampai roda dunia tak berputar      Until it stops turning the wheel of earth

Diantara kita tlah terjalin sudah   Between you and me we've already braided
Benang benang asmara                An intertwining web of love
Tak mungkin lagi kan terpisah       There's never again a chance of parting
Smoga tuhan mendengar pinta kita    Hope that God is there above
                                                            hearing my plead

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" acknowledgement """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Buku Lagu-lagu Indonesia kecil - A small Indonesian songbook is a serial
drafted at the ends of odd weeks by a lover of Indonesian songs as a vehicle
for thoughts on culture, either Indonesian or in a more general context. 

Questions, requests, actions or reactions on related topics should be posted
on this newsgroup rather than mailed to yours truly and responded or handled
by other knowledgeable active users of alt.culture.indonesia in the first
place. Much factual knowledge about Indonesians or their songs are beyond me.

The formula as defined within these lines you may use at your own discretion.

This close door and rather one sided approach I must adopt to protect myself
from a too great involvement; writing a serial is a commitment by itself.

I am a Sumbaborn descendant of the Chinese with a few drops of Javanese blood
in my veins currently living and studying in Europe as a Dutch citizen.

""""""""""""""""""""" see you again two weeks from now """"""""""""""""""""""