Postmodern Attitude in Garut

Mbah Irosentono (1960) by Trubus Soedarsono

For ordinary people like me, postmodern thought could be harmful if taken too quickly as an ethical position.

I’ve been following lectures and discussions on topics that have postmodern tendencies. Cak Nun and his Maiyah, for example, have been advocating for religious and cultural tolerance. Their basic tenet is that one shouldn’t dismiss others’ beliefs as one’s belief isn’t necessarily true, or the Truth. Cak Nun’s son Sabrang Panuluhーan avid “AI” enthusiastーfollows his father. He believes that each individual’s comprehension of something is unique, is phenomena, detached from something like noumena (source: trust me, but you can watch few of his “lectures” and you’ll get his general thinking).

If I could be crazy, I could say that the common pattern of Nahdatul Ulama-leaning (or crazier: Indonesian in general, the Geist of Indonesian Islam) school of thought is this kind of postmodern tolerance.

Random Friday prayer sermons outside pure theology or aqidah, i.e. that are imbued with cultural and political discourse, will tend to follow the same pattern. It persists. It’s not too important whether the imams have previously read Derrida, attended Maiyah, or just grew up in a Gusdurian-Sufistic masjid.

Please go back to the first paragraph. What I think harmful is when one adopts this way of thinking as an ethical position too quickly.

This seemingly peace-advocating tolerance may be good at first glance. However, it fails to address what to do if tolerance is no longer an option. Can it suspend our innermost and intimate aggresiveness during the recent presidential election? Well, okay, perhaps to some extent. Can it temporarily hide our inherent antagonism when Hitler, Stalin, Mahdi, a maou, or whoever suddenly rise from the soil of Garut?