On the 10th of October 2021, the Malaysian Philosophy Society (“MyPhilSoc”) held its International Big Think Summit (“ITBS”). The theme for the summit was, “Breaking the Silence: Of Taboos and Pantang Larangs”.
‘Taboos’ are informal prohibitions, typically on speech but also on actions, that, for whatever reason, are practiced by a given society.
Some Malaysian taboos may serve a certain purpose – such as preserving a person’s right to privacy – but some taboos, or indeed those very same taboos, may be overall detrimental. For instance, asking someone about their salary. You might get responses ranging from, “None of your business” to “Actually, improving transparency might improve the bargaining position of employees” with everyone still generally acknowledging that questions on a person’s income is taboo.
Taboos Can Hinder Progress
Taboos exist for a reason. We should not outright dismiss any long-held belief but rather ask the context in which they formed and persisted. But it is also not controversial to believe that taboos can be a problem for a given society, especially if they prevent critical issues from being discussed, or important attitudes from surfacing.
In this article, I want to describe one potential consequence of a given taboo – a deference to authority – and how its removal and preservation impacted a crucial event in global history, namely, the Industrial Revolution.
How the Industrial Revolution Came About
To be sure, any form of extended economic growth, let alone an event such as the Industrial Revolution is the result of a very complex web of factors, many of which are interlinked and have feedback loops with one another. Rick Scoztak, an economic historian, draws up a flowchart (see chart below) that attempts to systematically describe this necessarily complex process.
Within this web of factors, the role of cultural beliefs or cultural attitudes play a significant part. Consider what it would take for someone to believe, in, say, the 1400s, that an Industrial Revolution can actually occur. Everyday life was essentially the same; there was barely any form of economic growth, and the numbers bear this out. So, if life was ever-unchanging, why would you assume that the future would be any different? Would we ever imagine the sun ever rising in the west?
Changes in Cultural Attitudes as the Motivator of Industrial Revolution
Joel Mokyr, a leading economic historian, argues that one of the chief contributors to the Industrial Revolution was through changes in cultural attitudes. In particular, he highlights that there was a shift towards “…the belief in progress itself and the capability of science and technology of bringing it about.” We may, in the present day, take progress as a given, but it may not have been true in history. And if we do not believe that tomorrow might be better than today, why would we even bother doing things differently?
Taboo Hinders Industrial Revolution in China
Mokyr contends that because of the Enlightenment, there was a shift in cultural attitudes towards a belief in progress and that progress itself was desirable. In other words, no Enlightenment, no Industrial Revolution. This is precisely the question posed by Joseph Needham, a prominent historian of science and technology in China, which goes, “Why did Chinese science and technology, after first pulling ahead of Europe, fail to keep pace with Europe’s?” In other words, why did the Industrial Revolution happen first in Europe and not in China?
This is not to say that China was not ‘enlightened’ or did not possess exceptional inventors or intellectuals. They certainly did. But what was different about European Enlightenment? The answer, Mokyr posits (or at least my interpretation of Mokyr’s position), is taboo, or rather, the willingness to break it.
The Birth of “Cultural Entrepreneurs”
In “A Culture of Growth”, Mokyr describes the achievements of two “cultural entrepreneurs” – Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. Bacon is widely known now as the father of empiricism, calling for a science or natural philosophy as it was called then, that was based on observation and experiment rather than authority. Newton’s role was to show how nature can be understood in mechanical terms, most notably via his Principia publication.
Bacon’s role is crucial as it shifted natural philosophy away from the beliefs of Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle who believed in the five elements of nature – Earth, Water, Air, Fire and the mysterious and divine Aether. But think about what that meant. Aristotle was a towering figurehead in philosophical and intellectual history, amongst other Greek philosophers; going against their teachings and beliefs was effectively going against centuries of entrenched conventional wisdom.
Thinkers in the Enlightenment had to be willing to overcome the taboo of questioning the authority of the Greeks and, indeed, the Bible. Of course, not all Enlightenment thinkers of the period were as progressive; some attempted to marry Aristotle’s principles with modern thinking on natural philosophy. But, as Mokyr puts it, thinkers in Europe showed
“…disrespectful skepticism towards the formerly sacrosanct knowledge of earlier generations that awoke in Europe when more and more beliefs of ancient authorities were questioned, tested and found wanting by European scientists and physicians…”
Joel Mokyr
Breaking Away from Deference to Authority as the Key to Enlightenment
This was not true in China. Confucian philosophy and teaching, spread and institutionalised via civil service examinations, remained unassailable. There were thinkers such as Li Zhi, Dai Zhen, and Wang Yangming, who attempted some form of progressiveness in China’s intellectual landscape, but ultimately ended up unable to break away from the shackles of ancient classical learning, be it due to political and societal pressures of even their own methods of intellectual inquiry. In short, as Mokyr, so eloquently puts it, “What Europe did to Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen, Chinese intellectuals could not do onto Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi.”
As such, innocuous as it may seem, it was the breaking of taboos in questioning authorities of the past – entrenched conventional wisdom – that was key in initiating and sustaining the Enlightenment. From the Enlightenment, modern attitudes on progress and useful knowledge became key ingredients into the Industrial Revolution.
Had taboos not been broken so comprehensively at the societal level, who knows where the world may be today.
How Should We Deal with Malaysian taboos?
As we think of Malaysia, we should think about our Malaysian cultural taboos on questioning elders and questioning authority.
We are the world number one in power distance – a cultural indicator by Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede – which measures the extent to which less powerful members in a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. If we continue to expect and accept appeals to authority, or authority as a source of unquestioned power, then any arguments or statements against those of the folks in authority will remain taboo.
And from what we know of the role of taboo in the Enlightenment, what does that mean for us? Well, while I think tradition survives for a reason, we need to regularly question these traditions and the authorities that propagate those traditions accordingly.
We need to break Malaysian taboos and have a “disrespectful skepticism towards the formerly sacrosanct.” So the next time you perceive a form of authority or tradition, go ahead and question its usefulness – who knows, you might be a crucial part of a Malaysian Enlightenment.