The Dilema of Modern Society

Is there still a conscience in modern human beings who view the cosmos as part of their existence? Is there still hope for future generations to enjoy this nature to lead their lives towards fulfilling both their worldly and spiritual needs?

If we flashback to the Enlightenment era, where mankind worshipped reason or rationality. With confidence, humans believed that reason was a new God that would solve all the problems of human life.

Since the Enlightenment era, it has marked the entry of mankind into an era often referred to as the modern society era, or more popularly known as the modernity era, an era where humans are so enthusiastic and optimistic that all their life's problems will be solved by knowledge, technology, information, and digitization.

The question is: can all the life's problems of this modern society be solved? The reality is not so. Modern life born from the Enlightenment era has instead brought new problems for human life today.

I am interested in the expression conveyed by a German sociologist named Ulrich Beck (1944-2015), because he said: "modern life leads us to a risk society." This expression by Ulrich Beck describes the definition that all human activities, be it production or consumption, always carry risks.

Instant food, for example, or fast food, ready-to-eat food, and other derivative terms, which seemingly pose no risk or are safe for the body, actually have adverse effects on human health. Quoted from Kompas, the latest study report on fast food is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a spectrum of diseases characterized by liver steatosis that can lead to cancer or liver failure (Fast Food Associated with Liver Disease, Kompas.id, January 11, 2023). From this example, it illustrates how modern cultural culture has given rise to an instant culture, which eventually also gave birth to instant food for the daily lives of modern society.

Another example is the use of air conditioning, which is risky for human health, and then bottled water also contains microplastics-nanoplastics, as recently discovered by researchers (Bottled Water May Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Nanoplastics, Kompas.id, January 17, 2024). When we leave the house, we are exposed to vehicle smoke full of lead, which is also risky, using laptops, smartphones, and other electronic devices there is radiation. In essence, life in all its aspects carries many risks, so modern life has produced many risks for modern society today.

Ulrich Beck expressed his concerns about modern society's life with the term "risk society," then another figure, Anthony Giddens (1938-), a sociologist from England, saw the dilemma of modern society's life with the term "high risk." Giddens said: "how factories built by modern life eventually create pollution, greenhouse effects or Global Warming, which makes the ozone layer thinning. When the ozone layer leaks, it will threaten human life, and even can cause extinction for all human life on earth."

In this modern era, the development of science and technology in the field of weaponry has given birth to nuclear power, which in the end threatens human life, and it is highly likely to cause extinction. Then the development of science and technology in the field of food, where modern agricultural instruments such as chemical fertilizers or pesticides, actually make farmers lose money because they are threatened with crop failure due to chemical compounds that are actually not good for the environment.

In the practical realm, modern life has also given birth to bureaucracy, which is the offspring of modernity's womb. Simply put, bureaucracy is defined as an organization formed by the state to facilitate the role and function of governance. The main characteristic of this bureaucracy is high efficiency or effectiveness.

Unfortunately, the way bureaucracy works has been applied in almost all human activities. How could it not be, those who work in an institution, government institution, factory, and the like start from 8 in the morning and go home at 4 in the afternoon. Then if we want to be accepted in promising workplaces, we must graduate from elementary school, junior high school, high school, and even graduate. Not to mention, when we want to graduate from college, we must fulfill many courses, mandatory community service, make a thesis, and so on. All of these are a reflection of how modern life has been bureaucratized.

It's not surprising if someone graduates from college, economically stable, but they turn into radical individuals, or at least join one of the radical religious organizations. Why does this happen? Because this barren and dry modern life has caused modern society to experience soullessness (alienation) and thirst for spirituality, so they turn to such things as a means of escape. This is what Erich Fromm (1900-1980), a German national philosopher, termed as "escape from freedom."

In fact, modern society is trying to escape from freedom. However, the freedom they long for as this optimistic modern life is actually very disappointing for themselves and their lives.

The various problems of modern society's life mentioned above, then give rise to sharp criticism which ultimately gives birth to a new stream for philosophy, namely existentialism, a philosophy born as a response to dissatisfaction with the problems that arise in modern society's life. For existentialism, how modern life is very absurd and strange. Modern humans are nothing more than numbers or statistics, as humans have been used as a means to achieve economic goals outside of themselves.

Precisely, existentialist philosophy views modern life as an absurd life, a confusing and nauseating life, or a life that makes us want to vomit in the true sense. Because in reality, the dilemma of modern society's life on the one hand has brought various new problems for mankind, but on the other hand has brought society to meaningful conveniences.[]

Gus Dur and Liberation Theology

Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid. Photo: Shutterstock/Toto Santiko Budi

Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur is a complex figure. Besides being a cleric who turned politician, Gus Dur was a thinker and intellectual, a democracy advocate, statesman, defender of minority rights, and also a national teacher. His thoughts remain timeless, even though he passed away nearly 14 years ago; yet his name, struggles, and footsteps continue to inspire and serve as exemplary.

Gus Dur's consistency in his struggle lies in his courage to uphold truth with clean and righteous principles, based on the alignment between the nation's noble values and Islamic principles. It is through his exemplary model that he becomes an inspiration to society, aiding in resolving various national issues such as poverty, injustice, intergroup sentiments, and other national problems.

Delving into the depths of his thoughts, Gus Dur actually had views that almost referred to the term liberation theology, although he didn't explicitly mention it as such. However, on several occasions, Gus Dur provided definitions, such as a populist orientation towards the function of Islam, or Islam as a social ethic juxtaposed with capitalist hegemony. In practice, Gus Dur directed religious movements towards liberation, whether through protesting against capitalism or defending the oppressed poor through the basis of Islamic boarding schools.

Historically, Gus Dur was indeed one of the pioneers in the emergence of Islamic thought renewal, particularly within NU (Nahdlatul Ulama) and Islamic boarding schools. Various ideas such as Islam's indigenization, usul fiqh as the methodology of thought, Islam's acceptance of Pancasila principles, rationalization of traditional Islamic texts, and religious tolerance have opened up avenues for the expansion of thought towards liberation movements, especially in rural areas, through the transformative potential of Islamic boarding schools.

Gus Dur also played a significant role in shaping the strategic framework for the realization of substantive Islamic values towards the establishment of democracy in the nation. This is evident in his advocacy for a form of democracy not modeled on Western political systems but as a democratization process where society gains its rights maximally. This tendency became more prominent when Gus Dur indigenized (localized) these values into a fresh and rich Islamic scholarly mindset. For instance, when Gus Dur equated the concepts of humanism and human rights with Islamic concepts of al-kulliyat al-khams, the five basic principles of Islamic law.

Through this indigenization of Islam, Gus Dur made it an absolute prerequisite for social transformation to occur. Without the resolution of religious and cultural tensions, Islam would merely engage in symbolic struggles rather than a humanitarian struggle for justice. Even in the context of modernizing Islamic thought, often associated with capitalist modernization, Gus Dur prioritized structural transformation as its primary goal.

Regarding Islam's openness to other civilizations, according to Gus Dur, it should not necessarily imply the destruction of Islamic tradition but rather serve as a prerequisite for the realization of universal Islamic values. In line with this, Gus Dur referred to five guarantees (al-ushul al-khams) of basic human rights, all of which converge towards the establishment of power structures devoid of oppression.

It is evident that Gus Dur's intellectualism reflects a transformative character in structural, cultural, and social domains, where his endeavors focus on social change by elevating human dignity as its main objective.

Aligned with this, Gus Dur's intellectualism is also utilized to critique the state and the knowledge politics surrounding it. The injustice inherent in development legitimatized by the modern knowledge system is under critique, leading towards changes in superstructures, both political governance and the ideologies that underpin it. Alongside this, Gus Dur's transformation is driven through ideological critiques of the de-ideologization of Islam and empowering communities through participatory activities within Islamic boarding schools to dismantle structural oppression.

With such transformative ideas, Gus Dur's thinking and intellectualism can be considered an adaptation of ideas leading towards liberation theology. Because the birth of liberation theology (in Latin America) is a form of social-moral indictment and resistance against developmentalism. For its adherents (Gustavo Gutierrez, Segundo, etc.), liberation theology is not only understood as a speculative theological concept aimed at spiritual satisfaction but also a paradigm of struggle inspired by faith to mobilize and organize for the realization of a more just and humane social order.

From this perspective, it is not an exaggeration to refer to Gus Dur as a liberator, who makes liberation the basis of his beliefs and actions. Because Gus Dur, as an interpreter of Islam, is capable of steering religious movements towards liberating marginalized groups, by using Islam as both an institutionalized medium and a reflection turned into action.

As for liberation within Islam, Gus Dur bases it on the tradition of Muslim submission to the behavior of the Prophet, placing Muslims between two points of tension: the zero point of surrender (Islam) to serve Allah, and the one hundredth point of earthly stewardship as His representatives obligated to strive for the welfare of all mankind (rahmatan lil ‘alamin). From here, the basis of liberation within Islam can be unearthed, which is the moral-ethical boundary of religion that every Muslim must adhere to.

Regarding liberation within Islam, according to Gus Dur, it refers to a political goal that doesn't assume the existence of a competing political structure from the system to be changed. Because if there is competition, the nature of religious movements, according to Gus Dur, becomes ideological. As long as religion cannot free itself from ideological constraints, it will not be able to create societal liberation, but quite the opposite. Therefore, Gus Dur positions the ethical morality of religion more towards a transformative function, as a critique of hegemonic oppression, while engaging in practical efforts to address "structural pain" resulting from development orientations and strategies that oppress.

So, Gus Dur's idea of liberation theology is seen more in the light of the ethical morality of religion used as a structural critique, rather than being used as a competing political structure to create a new order, because the most important function of religion is to engage in concrete actions to realize human values and struggles, which are explicitly stated in existing structural programs.

As for the movement of liberation from religion, in Gus Dur's view, it should not be seen from a particular perspective, whether revolutionary or anti-revolutionary, because religion has its own liberation nature, which unfolds slowly and far-reaching, so religion is not a shaper or determiner of social change, as the world changes according to its own mechanisms. According to Gus Dur, the role of religion is supplementary, providing means and motives for the creation of social change.

If religion exceeds this function, according to Gus Dur, it becomes worldly, and because of that nature, religion then requires the repressiveness of power to maintain its existence. Gus Dur's interpretation of religious liberation is more meaningful in a more revolutionary perspective, that is, liberation without any basis or foundation except human beings themselves. So, it is very existential.

 

Bibliography:

Arif, Syaiful. (2009). Gus Dur dan Ilmu Sosial Transformatif. Depok: Koekoesan.

Löwy, Michael. (2013). Marxisme et Thèologie de la Libèration, terj. Topatimasang, Roem, Teologi Pembebasan; Kritik Marxisme & Marxisme Kritis. Yogyakarta: INSISTPress.

Wahid, Abdurrahman. (2011). Tuhan Tidak Perlu Dibela. Yogyakarta: LKiS.