Recently I have been painstakingly reading two philosophy books written in Indonesian by two Indonesians. One is Postmodernisme, Tantangan Bagi Filsafat by Bambang Soegiharto, and the other is a newer book Derrida, on the philosopher's thoughts and his position in philosophy, by a younger writer Muhammad Al-Fayyadl. The vast knowledge on the subject matter and tenacity of both writers are highly admirable. As among the first books written on Postmodernism by Indonesians, they deserve commendation and have won my respect and admiration. But I must also say each of them has been a disappointment. I had to put them down for awhile. To my very limited mind, these two books have failed in imparting better understanding. After going almost half of each, I was able neither to make a coherent sense nor grasp the gist of it. The pages seemed to concurrently contain descriptions of ceaseless concepts that yet called for other explanations in order to understand them. Then this question faced me: is it about me or them?
I am an adult, quite an experienced reader, especially in my own mothertongue. I generally know sort of the limits of my understanding and would be able to tell if texts fail me and when I am required more careful reading.
So finally I was forced to arrive at some personal conclusions: of the greatest problems with philosophy may be that it is a problem to itself and how it is conveyed. In this case, something must have been wrong about the way these books were presented to the general audience.
By saying this I don't mean to say I have given up on these books, though. Yesterday, I did some Internet research to assist me with my reading, and was brought by Google to some much friendlier sites. Frankly speaking, I felt more illuminated by the sites than by the books, and this fact I find quite regrettable.
More questions remain unanswered. Have it to do with a writer's personality or the sophistry of a subject? Can difficult subjects not be presented in a simple way ? What good is it to write something turgid that most people don't understand? Why the additional complexities fir things with complexities in themselves?
See, this all had been personal--until today, when I found an article written by Noam Chomsky (one prominent linguist) on the problem similar to the one I encountered. On Rationality/Science Chomsky wrote:
"… I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of--those condemned here as "science," "rationality," "logic," and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference."He proceeds…
"In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed. Perhaps the explanation lies in some personal inadequacy, like tone-deafness. Or there may be other reasons. …"As some subject matters are, no doubt, difficult. Some writers are difficult, too. Some snobbishly confuse size with clarity, and the longer such writers write, the more they perplex their readers.
I still hope that some day I can make more sense out of these books. If that day never comes, I should accept that philosophy is for me too much of a challenge.
