The decadence of local cultural values due to the invasion of cultural homogenization that was echoed by globalization is a theme often raised by cultural writers who base their thinking on the premise that local culture is precious and is currently experiencing a decline in value due to the unstoppable onslaught of globalization.
Maintaining local culture is mandatory, but blaming globalization for granted is also naïve because globalization is currently tricky to stop. Naomi Klein explained that globalization “forces the world to speak your language and absorb your culture.” (Klein, 2000). Francis Fukuyama also emphasized that unstoppable globalization is the end of human history and the victory of capitalism/globalization (Fukuyama, 1992).
So, blaming globalization for the loss of popularity of ketoprak or ludruk to the popularity of the Korean pop (K-Pop) phenomenon will not provide any solution. This will make us struggle in naïve efforts to stem globalization. We should use a different approach to understand the problem of local cultural decadence and the influx of foreign cultural hegemony entering our country, leading to cultural homogenization. The first step to understanding this problem is to study the origins of culture from the perspective of a new scientific discipline called memetics.
The world already knows genes as an abstraction responsible for human biological conditions. Genes are the blueprint for life. They are responsible for making the organs and what our bodies look like. Biology has recognized the existence of this gene for a long time.
Then, a new understanding emerged from biological scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Richard Brodie, Daniel Dennet, and Susan Blackmore, who believed that apart from Genes that regulate human biological conditions, there is another abstraction that is even very important in driving human conditions—nothing but memes. Memes are in the human brain, which regulates the birth of ideas. Memes are complements, genes regulate biology, and memes regulate thinking. Memes give birth to ideas and thoughts. Memetics is a new scientific discipline that studies memes or the formation of human ideas.
Susan Blackmore explains, “Memes are ultimately responsible for us having our homes and possessions, our position in society, and our stocks, shares, and money.” (Blackmore, 1999). This explains how vital memes are for humans because the essential nature of memes is that they are replicators. Memes always try to transmit ideas from one person’s thoughts to others.
Because of the essential nature of memes, Susan Blackmore concludes that culture is born, and language is a meme command that requires replicating or duplicating ideas. This is why we speak, create language, make writing instruments and communication tools, invent the telephone and the internet, and make art. Everything is an effort to make spreading the meme idea easier.
Through this memetic approach, we can understand that globalization is part of efforts to spread memes or ideas. This is per the essential nature of memes to spread themselves. So K-pop, being loved by all levels of Indonesian society (and even the world), previously only started with memes or the idea of an initiator. Over time, the meme replicated itself and spread throughout the world. It is trying to duplicate itself over and over again. Finally, the meme becomes ineffective and is replaced by a new, fresher, and better meme.
Something that can be a reflection: what if it turns out that the decline in local cultural values and our society’s greater recognition of foreign culture is triggered by ourselves? Our cultural thinkers are too busy boasting about the goodness of their culture and accusing globalization of being the culprit, reluctant to give birth to new and fresh memes/ideas that could benefit society.
This can be a boomerang that turns against us when the stagnation of memes/ideas in our culture, which is reluctant to innovate something new, ends up being unable to compete with foreign cultures, which have fresher memes/ideas and are more readily accepted by society (music, fashion, cinema, etc.)
Dwelling in the stagnation of one’s cultural justice and being reluctant to make changes can again be said to be naïve. Because culture is dynamic and continues to develop, as explained by Susan Blackmore through memetics, the process of spreading memes/ideas will continue to occur in the context of competition between memes. Hegel also explained this in his famous dialectical theory.
Sara Salih quotes Hegel’s theory and explains that “Dialectic is the mode of philosophical inquiry most commonly associated with Hegel (although he was not the first to formulate it), in which a thesis is proposed which is subsequently negated by its antithesis and resolved in a synthesis.” (Hegel, in Sara Salih, 2002).
Through the lens of philosophy, Hegel’s dialectics strengthen Blackmore’s theory from the memetic perspective above. Today’s dominant culture is a thesis, which must eventually experience decadence and fade away when an antithesis that negates the thesis or dominant culture appears. Ultimately, the thesis and antithesis will reach a consensus that will give birth to a new culture or synthesis. This synthesis will become a new seed to produce the following thesis. And so on and so on. It is like old memes being replaced by new memes.
The conclusion is that dwelling on pride in the superiority of local culture (thesis) and continuously accusing the globalization of foreign culture (antithesis) as the cause of decline will trap us in stagnation.
So, let us throw away our sad, sullen faces lamenting that globalization has eroded local culture. Accept the presence of globalization with grace. Let us focus on giving birth to new, fresher memes/ideas. Create a new thesis to become an antithesis that negates the current dominant thesis.
However, keep going if our currently dominant theses/memes/ideas/culture are replaced or fade over time. Being big-hearted and willing to accept is indeed difficult to do but not impossible to do. Moreover, in our culture, eastern people are considered noble and prioritize sincerity, which in Javanese terms is called Nerima ing pangdum (sincerely accepted).
PS: Previously featured in Indonesian on Cangkir Magazine in 2012.
Aris Setyawan 