Three years ago, I learned that the multi-racial coalition PUTERA-AMCJA, comprising a broad base of left-wing parties, youth and women’s groups, and trade unions, proposed a People’s Constitution of Malaya in 1947. This draft was proposed as a progressive, bottom-up alternative to the British-approved Federation of Malaya Constitution. Among other things, the People’s Constitution proposed that the independent state of Malaya would grant equal rights to all citizens “who made Malaya their home and the object of their undivided loyalty,” with all citizens being granted the equal title of “Melayu”.
My initial reaction to this was “why wasn’t I taught this in school?” But more importantly, I started to think of the alternative paths our history could have taken: in an alternate universe where the PUTERA-AMCJA draft was accepted by the British, I would hold an entirely different view of national identity and race entirely. Given that I could have easily held different beliefs on race had history played out differently, how could I accept that my beliefs are true?
Where Do Our Values Come From?
Karl Marx and Nietzsche’s Takes on Origin of Values
Beliefs that form our worldview are purely ideological–they are not strictly ‘true’ or valid, and they simply come from the dominant ideas of a ruling class that is adopted by the lower classes.
Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology
To answer this question, we have to firstly consider where our values come from and how we came to believe in them. Two notable interpretations from modern Western philosophy come to mind: firstly, Karl Marx argues that the beliefs that form our worldview are purely ideological–they are not strictly ‘true’ or valid, and they simply come from the dominant ideas of a ruling class that is adopted by the lower classes. For Marx, then, the belief x simply comes from an ideological imposition that serves the interests of a ruling class, which I have accepted as valid and true.
Our beliefs have nothing to do with truth, and have their origin in the evolution of inner psychological drives that change over time depending on the state of our culture.
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
On the other hand, Friedrich Nietzsche argues that our beliefs have nothing to do with truth, and have their origin in the evolution of inner psychological drives that change over time depending on the state of our culture. Thus, belief x originates from my natural psychological impulses that have their own contingent development. He would argue further that belief x serves the function of allowing me to express some of these strong psychological drives in the most potent way possible.
Where Does the Belief in “Ketuanan Melayu” Come From?
Let’s apply these interpretations to a concrete example: the belief in ‘ketuanan Melayu’. This belief could have easily emerged from both ideological and psychological devices. Indeed, the belief ticks both these boxes: it is imposed from people in power to protect the status quo that benefits the Malay ruling class, but it could also come from the drives of resentment, envy, and vengefulness that the Malays have to other races that are not part of our in-group.
Regardless of which is true, Marx and Nietzsche’s interpretations highlight the fact that our values have a contingent development and evolution of their own, and cannot be understood independently from these contingencies. Thus, for Marx and Nietzsche, our values originate from a contingent historical process; to some degree, we inherit them from previous generations in a process that is independent from our own free choice.
Contingency, Doubt and Genealogical Anxiety
Realising the contingency of our values in this way can be a disorienting process. After all, our values help situate us within the world by building a story about the world around us and defining our relation to it, giving us a coherent worldview. These values subsequently allow us to build a sense of personal identity – my identity as a straight Malaysian-Muslim male is built on Islamic values, national values, and patriarchal, cisheteronormative gender norms, which I accept and internalise as part of my worldview. This worldview in turn helps me define my relationships and interactions with others, for instance by helping me identify an ‘in-group’ that shares similar parts of my identity.
Subsequently, we tend to feel disoriented when the foundations of this worldview is questioned. According to philosopher Amia Srinivasan (2011, 2015), this process of questioning leads to what she calls ‘genealogical anxiety’.
This anxiety refers to the prevailing sense of doubt and uncertainty towards the validity of our values once we reveal their causal origins. We feel this anxiety because not only do we need to hold on to the beliefs that make up our identity and worldview, but we also need to provide a believable narrative about why holding belief x is justified over belief y.
Srinivasan’s concept of ‘genealogical anxiety’ is precisely what is invoked in my introductory example. It is empirically true that there was a group of progressive activists from the PUTERA-AMCJA coalition who envisioned a Malaya built on equality amongst the races. Subsequently, this piece of history risks undermining the narrative that justifies my belief in ideas like ‘ketuanan Melayu’, which is in part justified through Article 153 in our Constitution. The fact that an alternative Constitution exists that could have possibly succeeded in forming the basis of our nationality, to some extent, casts the validity of this belief into question.
Thus, genealogical anxiety can be a disorienting but natural consequence of scrutinising where my beliefs come from. By interrogating their history, I am forced to reckon with the possibility that I may have adopted them because of a historical coincidence rather than because they are epistemically valid or true.
Should the Origin of Our Values Matter?
Of course, not everyone is willing or able to cast doubt on the origin of our values in this way.
After all, it’s much easier to just accept that my beliefs are as they are, and have nothing to do with whether they have a ‘good’ or ‘absolute’ point of origin. It’s my right to believe, for example, that white rice is a better carb source than pasta without having to expose the ‘Asian bias’ that comes with this belief.
Similarly, I could simply accept that we ended up with the Constitution as it is today, and ignore the possibility that it could have been different.
Victim of Genetic Fallacy
This line of questioning expresses the idea behind the ‘genetic fallacy’: a logical fallacy we commit when we think that an origin of a belief x has any bearing on whether x is true or false. A common example of this fallacy is the idea that I should not read any of the works of an author because they have problematic political commitments. This is a fallacy because it confuses matters of origin (e.g. in the problematic political views or personality of the author) with the separate matter of the value of the work itself.
The genetic fallacy means we can perhaps still justify holding on to our beliefs in spite of their origins. Even if a reading of Malaysian history reveals that my belief in ‘ketuanan Melayu’ is the product of a coincidence, this does not immediately mean that this belief has no value whatsoever. Since matters of origin are separate from that of value or purpose, it may be enough for me to justify believing in ‘ketuanan Melayu’ because it serves a purpose that is important to me. In our case, we commonly hear this justification being used by people in power: ketuanan Melayu, it is claimed, is important because it maintains social cohesion, or because it preserves peace within and between communities.
However, the genetic fallacy does not mean that it is unimportant or unproductive to scrutinise my values. While I might not have the responsibility to justify why I believe that white rice is better than pasta, it is a different matter entirely when it comes to beliefs and values that concern the wellbeing of an entire community such as ‘ketuanan Melayu’. Even if their contingent origin does not affect their validity, they still serve a particular interest and could also potentially harm minority groups. Thus, interrogating the source of the beliefs could simply be a way of accepting responsibility over our biases and the way it affects the wellbeing of communities around us.
Conclusion
This article shows how our values may originate in an entirely contingent historical process that is independent from our own agency. As each of us finds ourselves born into a particular world, and within a particular time in history, the fact that we hold the values that we do is highly dependent on processes that took place generations prior to our coming into the world. While we need a stable and coherent narrative to justify our beliefs, we are also equipped with the rational capacities to question their validity and their origin. Ultimately, we are free to decide how much we want to exercise this capacity and to interrogate the biases that inform our understanding of the world.