Cultures in Freedom and Democracy: From Napoleon to Ocean Sunfish
Cultures in Freedom and Democracy: From Napoleon to Ocean Sunfish
escrito por Dini Harmita
Napoleon Fish and Ocean Sunfish
Who would have thought that napoleon fish is so huge and ocean sunfish is so ugly in real life. Who would have thought that freedom and democracy are so dreamed of yet so difficult to achieve. It’s in the way we see things that tends to determine our perspectives. Arts are indeed the true daughter of sciences, nonetheless cultures are not only about arts. This essay is written to understand cultures within freedom and democracy with different perspectives. The methodology used to write this essay is pure literature review.
Gross and Wilson (2020) discussed cultural democracy with cultural capabilities where we could reproduce knowledge. Like Bourdieu (1986) defined cultural capital as institutionalised in the forms of education. Since sciences are institutionalised in the forms of education and knowledge constitutes perspectives thus it is worth understanding different perspectives in freedom and democracy.
Napoleon Bonaparte might be almighty nonetheless Napoleon fishes don’t have such power because their areas are limited to spaces consisting of water. When chefs want to cook them or it is about the time for the trader to sell them they will be very fragile trying to stay alive with their limited breath.
Ocean sunfish under the sunlight also look much more beautiful than in the deep sea. Such freedom to enjoy the sun is actually gifted by the creator of the universe to all of us. Nevertheless some people choose to occupy more than they should be.
Freedom in Democracy
Freedom in democracy could be represented by any means including those Napoleon and Ocean Sunfish analogy. Evans (2002) analysed Amartya Sen’s equality concept as part of freedom in development. Development is part of democracy. It represents at least deliberative democracy.
In a review for democracy, learning from the cases of Hungary, Poland, India, and Turkey Casal Bértoa (2024) mentioned citizens’ satisfaction as one of indicators in democracy. He said they were voted as representatives from fully democratic parties yet turned the countries into illiberal democracy because they decided to. It resonates with Gross and Wilson (2020) in mentioning decision making as part of cultural capabilities in cultural democracy.
The terms citizens’ satisfaction and cultural capabilities themselves represent co-creation of capitals that interact with each other (Harmita, 2007). Inglehart and Welzel (2018)concluded from their cross-level linkage study that individual satisfaction towards democracy has a weak relationship with societal democracy. It happens because the inhabitants haven’t felt the benefits of democracy itself. Their freedom is still limited in engraved spaces written by the authoritarians and populism.
What kind of benefits do we expect from our freedom and democracy? Ideally each of us has different perspectives on what we need. Nonetheless, the interactions between at least capitals themselves have shaped what kind of life we should have to be accepted in the society. Which directions at least development as cultural or fully democratic freedom and democracy should take? Both, like pendulums.
Every wise human would say ‘set targets as high as possible never goes wrong, nonetheless don’t forget to put our feet on the ground’. Cultures are often described as abstracts as superstructures, like democracy that rarely feels real. Nevertheless freedom has clear indicators to identify.
The current Bangladeshi politics awakening is a perfect example to explain such indicators. The power of people has made a very typical leader who spent her 15 years satisfying her people but trapped in corruption, collusion, cartelisation, and nepotism instead resigned and fled herself; giving opportunity to a poor people fighter to make changes. The indicators are as crystal clear as people are still poor.
Like other concepts, poverty has many dimensions. Harmita (2007) explained that to understand the dimensions we need to feel the interactions between capitals and systems. Spanish vegetable sellers will have different challenges with Indonesian farmers. One of them is because of the rule of laws. The rule of laws represents democracy at least representative and deliberative ones. We try to involve the cultural and participatory democracy into the systems but the current system is still not allowing it to materialise.
The Current System
We need to admit we live in a world where our children watch Korean dramas, series, YouTube contexts that shape their minds to have a perfect beauty as their skins. We need to admit we live in a space where the higher our education level the more opportunity for us to be accepted in our society. We need to admit we live in a universe where quantitative research tends to be accepted more. We need to admit we live in a reality where a normal life is indicated as de facto not having options to voice out our different perspectives e. g. our freedom in implementing religious values.
Religion-based democracy is rarely discussed but it has significant implications. Enyedi (2018) mentioned that the Hungarian party system tends to be relative and fragile. One of the causes is the bipolar nature between the Christian democrats and the non-Christian democrats. Like in Indonesia, the polarised nature of politics happens between Islamic democrats and the non-Islamic democrats. In wider contexts it creates conflicts because for some of us religions should be something private thus it is embedded in our mind. Like sea fireflies, they are small yet they lighten our hearts when everything is dark. Why? Because when humans disappoint us we tend to go back to something greater and eventually as the greatest as the creator. The way we worship God becomes a problem when it should be a remedy.
The Israelis and Palestinians conflict is a clear example, nonetheless the Russians and Ukrainians war is also representing the imbalance of freedom and democracy. Harmita (2022)discusses democracy in Ukraine as still being built upon their independence from Russia. It doesn’t happen only in Ukraine. Russia oppresses almost all of their post USSR countries but Ukraine is the factual one because it is not hidden.
She suggested that rootedness as part of party and party system institutionalisation tends to be forgotten. Each of us tends to forget that every religion or belief has values of freedom and democracy. The Jews values allow us to study whatever we want to learn. The Islamic values forbid us to force anything including the religion itself.
Conclusion: The Different Perspectives
Harmita (2009) suggested mutual trust and respect to different perspectives in managing natural resources. Rao and Mansuri (2012) called it as part of localised development. Ostrom (1990)terms it as the power of the people in governing the commons. Casal Bértoa, Enyedi, and Mölder (2024) call the different perspectives in party systems as the logic of their own. Nothing wrong about following dreams set by the current systems. Nevertheless to respect different perspectives is essential and suggested not only to reduce conflicts but also to understand freedom and democracy as a culture a bit more. So we would understand that although Napoleon fish is big, it could be fragile too. So we would note that from certain points of view Ocean Sunfish is beautiful too. So we would notice that indeed there are many fishes in the sea and they all need to eat at least to survive.
