[บทความเรื่องนี้แปลจากบทความของ ศจ. ดร. นิธิ เอียวศรีวงศ์ เรื่อง “เสรีภาพในวัฒนธรรมไทย” เป็นภาษาอังกฤษ ท่านสามารถดาวน์โหลดต้นฉบับภาษาไทยของบทความนี้ รวมทั้งบทความอื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้อง ที่รวบรวมในหนังสือเรื่อง “วัฒนธรรมความจน?” ทั้งเล่ม ในรูป PDF (54 หน้า) ได้โดย คลิ้กที่นี่ ขอขอบคุณอาจารย์นิธิ เป็นอย่างสูง ที่อนุญาตให้ผู้เขียนเผยแพร่หนังสือเล่มนี้ผ่านอินเตอร์เน็ต]
I’m planning to write a long series of blog entries about modern Buddhism, Thai culture, and Thai politics. Since foreign visitors to this blog may be unfamiliar with a lot of concepts the way they are used by Thai intellectuals, I think it’s best to first translate a few pertinent articles from Thai to English before beginning this series. Enjoy 🙂
The Concept of Freedom in Thai Culture
Prof. Dr. Nidhi Eoseewong
During one election season, I heard a broadcaster on Radio Thailand talk about freedom. He said that individual freedom in democracy is limited by other people’s freedom: we cannot freely exercise our freedom because that would affect other people’s freedom. He then continued with the formulaic speech about rights and responsibilities, i.e. we cannot have rights without the burden of responsibility, because they are inseparable.
I’m sure that this speech wouldn’t surprise anyone because, as I said, this speech is like a “formula” in the Thai society: we all have heard it, we all have said it since we were kids. So whenever someone starts to talk about this subject, we can always accurately guess what he is going to say.
This speech is so predictable we can say that this is the meaning of “freedom” in Thai culture.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with saying that individual freedom is limited by other people’s freedom. In fact, the concept has even been copied from a Western thinker. But I can’t help feeling that the people who say this are quite suspicious and distrustful of human freedom: they accept that everyone has freedom, but feel it necessary to temper it, lest other people abuse their freedom.
It’s a pity that these people talk of personal freedom in Thailand, but don’t talk about how the state frequently violates that freedom – sometimes by state officials, and sometimes by policy. I think the view that people shouldn’t use their freedom because they might violate other people’s freedom is a one-sided view of someone who doesn’t really have faith in freedom.
[บทความเรื่องนี้แปลจากบทความของ ศจ. ดร. นิธิ เอียวศรีวงศ์ เรื่อง “เสรีภาพในวัฒนธรรมไทย” เป็นภาษาอังกฤษ ท่านสามารถดาวน์โหลดต้นฉบับภาษาไทยของบทความนี้ รวมทั้งบทความอื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้อง ที่รวบรวมในหนังสือเรื่อง “วัฒนธรรมความจน?” ทั้งเล่ม ในรูป PDF (54 หน้า) ได้โดย คลิ้กที่นี่ ขอขอบคุณอาจารย์นิธิ เป็นอย่างสูง ที่อนุญาตให้ผู้เขียนเผยแพร่หนังสือเล่มนี้ผ่านอินเตอร์เน็ต]
I’m planning to write a long series of blog entries about modern Buddhism, Thai culture, and Thai politics. Since foreign visitors to this blog may be unfamiliar with a lot of concepts the way they are used by Thai intellectuals, I think it’s best to first translate a few pertinent articles from Thai to English before beginning this series. Enjoy 🙂
The Concept of Freedom in Thai Culture
Prof. Dr. Nidhi Eoseewong
During one election season, I heard a broadcaster on Radio Thailand talk about freedom. He said that individual freedom in democracy is limited by other people’s freedom: we cannot freely exercise our freedom because that would affect other people’s freedom. He then continued with the formulaic speech about rights and responsibilities, i.e. we cannot have rights without the burden of responsibility, because they are inseparable.
I’m sure that this speech wouldn’t surprise anyone because, as I said, this speech is like a “formula” in the Thai society: we all have heard it, we all have said it since we were kids. So whenever someone starts to talk about this subject, we can always accurately guess what he is going to say.
This speech is so predictable we can say that this is the meaning of “freedom” in Thai culture.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with saying that individual freedom is limited by other people’s freedom. In fact, the concept has even been copied from a Western thinker. But I can’t help feeling that the people who say this are quite suspicious and distrustful of human freedom: they accept that everyone has freedom, but feel it necessary to temper it, lest other people abuse their freedom.
It’s a pity that these people talk of personal freedom in Thailand, but don’t talk about how the state frequently violates that freedom – sometimes by state officials, and sometimes by policy. I think the view that people shouldn’t use their freedom because they might violate other people’s freedom is a one-sided view of someone who doesn’t really have faith in freedom.
The same objection can be raised about rights. Thai people’s basic rights are denied even in the constitution (which always includes the caveat in affirming the rights of Thai citizens that those rights cannot infringe upon the laws, instead of saying that any law that infringes upon the citizens’ basic rights should be automatically void, and that citizens have a duty to oppose that kind of law). Yet, people who speak about rights don’t normally talk about this; they just constantly warn us not to forget our responsibilities. So I can only guess that these people don’t really have faith in citizen’s rights either.
So, after some thought, I can’t help but conclude that Thai culture detests, or is at least suspicious of, freedom in the democratic system.
But later I realized that the word “freedom” (seripaab) in Thai didn’t exist until recently. It was coined to coincide with the English word “liberty” or “liberté.” Therefore, it was impossible for ancient Thai culture to be suspicious of personal freedom; this impression is part of the modern Thai culture, not a deep-rooted construct from ancient times.
I then tried to think whether Thais ever had the concept of freedom, even though they may not have used this word.
I found the ideas about personal freedom in the following proverb and Buddhist terms. First, Thais like to say “narrow space is livable; narrow heart is not” (kub tee yoo dai, kub jai yoo yaak) This reflects the idea that Thais’ concept of freedom is more a spiritual matter than a physical one.
I should also mention that according to an English dictionary I have, one definition of “liberty” is “the condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor.”
The West’s concept of freedom is largely physical, while the Thais’ concept is spiritual. Part of the proverb that says “narrow space is livable” means that Thais view physical constraint on freedom as a small matter – they will tolerate physical discomfort or even kowtow to others, but not coercion on their feelings because that is a more important kind of freedom.
Another concept that relates to Thais’ idea of freedom is nirvana or final liberation in Buddhism. Nirvana means reaching a state in which one is no longer enslaved to anything, from one’s own cravings to the circle of life; in other words, nirvana means reaching the ultimate freedom.
Therefore, Thai culture traditionally was not suspicious of freedom. On the contrary, Thais accepted freedom as the most important concept, and/or the ultimate spiritual goal in life.
Therefore, it is unnecessary to teach enlightened saints not to infringe upon other people’s freedom, or obstructing them from reaching the ultimate freedom too.
If this is true, then where did Thais’ suspicion of freedom today come from? I suspect that we got it from the West.
Here’s how it goes: because the Western concept of freedom is largely physical, it is viewed as dangerous – similar to selling our souls to Satan in return merely for worldly pleasures.
One reason Westerners think of freedom as a physical matter is that the concept of spiritual liberation (deliverance) in Christianity requires God’s heavenly “help,” and therefore a separate issue from personal freedom. This is opposite to Buddhism. Therefore, Western-style freedom is unadulterated by religious thought.
Those in the West who advocated the idea of freedom in the past were radicals who were often opposed to religion like Satan’s youngest brother, because freedom means physical freedom (for self-indulgence), and therefore is deeply at odds with religion.
Western thinkers who promoted the idea of natural state (i.e. natural government) said that humans had full freedom until they consented to hand over their freedom for the state to manage, either to ensure that they could exercise that freedom to the maximum, or to maintain order in the state (this difference gave rise to different political schools of thought). These thinkers were radicals who were born during times when the Church’s influence had already waned.
This is why Western thinkers had to elaborate at length on the issue of limitation on freedom: if freedom is so desirable and advantageous, why, then, must the state place limitations on it? The usual explanation is as Thais accepted from the West: freedom is restricted to maximize freedom, i.e. to ensure that people do not infringe upon each other’s freedom. Therefore, freedom is borne out of legislation; in other words, it is borne out of a set of restrictions not to have it (which are together called “laws”).
I should also mention that not all Western thinkers uphold this strange logic. More recent thinkers had a similar view as Thais, i.e. explaining freedom in terms of religion or ethics or reason. For example, some thinkers say that true freedom can only be exercised by people who are righteous, or completely rational. The reason these free individuals refrain from hurting others is not because their freedom is obstructed by laws or the police, but because their conscience forbids them to do so. Their freedom is therefore absolute because they willingly “stop” themselves from hurting others.
Because moral people can stop themselves, they cannot be said to be “stopped” by outside means; this means they have absolute freedom. It’s similar to saying that enlightened monks who refrain from killing animals because they don’t want to aren’t really “stopped” from doing so.
However, I think the idea of freedom as a physical freedom that is unrelated to religion is the concept that Thais accepted from the West, and this concept makes us suspicious of freedom.
If the Thai concept of freedom had evolved from the traditional idea in Thai culture, i.e. focusing on the spiritual kind of freedom that relates to nirvana, we probably would have a different kind of idea about personal freedom, and wouldn’t be suspicious of it either. Besides, Thai thinkers in that case would probably praise freedom, because freedom in that case would be related to nirvana, which is the ultimate goal in Buddhism.