(This interview text has been translated into English from the second issue of EskiYeni, a quarterly journal of thought, published in 2006.)
Interviewer: Today we see a regression and shallowness in humanitarian values. How were human values viewed in the past?
Ibrahim Kalın: A meaningful and humane society can only be possible when it is built upon certain values. Conversely, what we call social dissolution has always resulted from decay at the level of values. It seems obvious, but it is necessary to remember this truth today. Because with modernity, humanity took on a new direction. We shifted from a value-centered universe and understanding of humanity to a worldview where other elements that could replace values were accepted. In the past, the way to be happy was to be morally good and right. That is, being morally good and right was the first condition of happiness. Today, being good and right is not required to be happy. We can define happiness independently of these concepts. Modern thought and lifestyle offer us this understanding. The ultimate purpose of the idea of value is to demonstrate how a person can be happy—and this was a topic persistently emphasized in classical thought. From Plato to Farabi, from Ghazali to Ibn‑Khaldun, in all major schools of thought, the question “What is it that makes a person happy?” was asked. Philosophical and political responses were given to this question. The philosophical answer is the idea that happiness can only be achieved based on a principle or foundation that is not temporary. In this sense, material pleasures, sensations, and delights are obstacles to happiness: because they are temporary. They are things that are continuously consumed and diminish as they are shared. Meanwhile, that principle—or set of principles—is not something that constantly changes. Moreover, these do not decrease when shared; rather, a set of principles that increases when shared can bring us enduring happiness. A famous example given by Ibn Arabi is knowledge. Knowledge is not something that diminishes when shared; rather, it increases. And God’s blessing is something that grows as it is shared. Kierkegaard would apply this thought in the modern era to everything non-material. That is, material things are things that diminish when shared. Therefore they create a ground for conflict; because material resources are limited. But non-material things, which we call spiritual—basic values such as love, tolerance, generosity—are things that increase and enrich when shared. This is the concept of happiness described by Farabi in Tahsīlu’s‑sa‘ādah and Madīnat al‑faḍīlah. According to Farabi, the whole of society—from philosopher to ordinary person—must be based on such a principle: a society of virtuous people. Also, in connection with this, Farabi tries to establish a relationship in which power (or the desire for power) is subordinate to the principle, that is, to values. A political structure in which authority is subject to principle is at the same time a social structure built on values.
This was the philosophical answer to the question of happiness. When we look at the political answer, we see the idea that a rational and happy individual life is only possible through common values shared by the whole society. That is, the idea “Let society go wherever it wants, but as an individual I will remain faithful to these principles and values,” is not realistic once. One of the places where liberalism fails to provide a solution is here. Because liberalism operates from the assumption that everyone in the world is liberal (or will be) and therefore will act based on liberal principles.
Interviewer: So is this past approach outdated? Is the human now different than in the past? Could humanity stop asking the questions it asked in earlier times?
Ibrahim Kalın: The question that classical thought tried to answer—“On which principles can people be happy?”—remains valid today. Modern times have offered different answers to this question, and we continue to do so. Thus, it is useful to remember something that comes from Plato. Plato says the most important questions in human history do not change; their answers change. For example, the question “What is good?” has been asked in all known periods of human history. It has been asked in China, ancient Egypt, Greece, everywhere. Its answers may vary. But Plato goes one step further and says that actually the answers to these vital questions do not change, either. Today, we proceed from the assumption that not only have answers changed, but questions have changed as well. Therefore, we cannot situate that whole meaningfulness we call value anywhere. We constantly become alienated from classical thought, as well; because the questions they asked are different. Since we are alien to those questions and their answers, we cannot penetrate those discourses and the texts that carry them. This is not a difficulty caused by our lack of linguistic or technical ability. On the contrary, it is a difficulty because we cannot penetrate that conceptual world; because even when we read the same text in translation, we still do not understand it.
Interviewer: If we focus on Turkey?
Ibrahim Kalın: The fundamental problem we experience in Turkey regarding values stems from not being able to ask the most fundamental questions correctly. Today, in Turkish society in general, answers you could find to the question “What are the values we care about most?” are not encouraging. Look around at the forms these values take, the norms, behaviors, and mechanisms. Look at the resources allocated and energy expended by society, the state, the private sector, universities, bureaucracy for these values to survive. We are experiencing serious problems. Our wise architect Turgut Cansever had a project: we need to ask again in Turkey, “What is important?”
Here is the fundamental problem: the idea that a society can only create a meaningful social structure when it rises on solid values does not go beyond moralizing discourse. Because this acceptance has no systemic or structural counterpart. We live in a system where no matter how moral you are, no matter how much you emphasize the importance of virtue, honesty, truthfulness, brotherhood, generosity, the system continuously empties the substance of these values. You are not just deprived of the freedom to live them through the system’s opportunities; you have to live and sustain them despite the system. In such a system, those who do not believe in values or care about them are the majority, whereas because you care and defend these values, you become an exception and are marginalized by the system.
Interviewer: Enlightenment—what did it bring, what did it take away in this context?
Ibrahim Kalın: The promise of Enlightenment—of a free and rational individual (and therefore society)—has become meaningless after such a process. If I had to summarize Enlightenment in one sentence, Kant said, “Have the courage to use your own understanding!” The prerequisite for freedom and rationality is to have this courage. Muslim thinkers who heard Kant’s motto were not excited, because they knew what Kant pointed to. They knew that the secular-humanist conception of man and cosmos would lead not to freedom and rationality, but to individualism, reductionism, in short, a mind that negates and destroys itself.
Now let us assume for a moment we take this principle as basic. Accordingly, individuals, when directing their lives, without harming others, will try to build a meaningful life with rational decisions. A rational society will emerge from the union of rational individuals. And from their union, a rational global order will emerge. Now the first place this faltered was Europe; because with the Industrial Revolution, the notion of the individual disappeared. A type of human who is meaningful only by the amount of labor they can offer to industry emerged. In the latter half of the 19th century, especially in the 1870s and ’80s, Marx best read the situation in England. Marx saw that a system based on exploitation of labor had been established. Today, the prerequisite for capitalist growth is cheap labor. Accordingly, production of economic value requires the suppression of other human values. Already in the 19th century, the thing we call individual disappeared. Instead, there are masses whose labor has become a commodity. With the spread of consumer economies, the type of human who consumes will be added to the type who produces. Today’s global political-economic system continuously alienates the individual. Because the system has ceased to be something we, meaning all people, can control. From a decision by the World Bank in Washington to a stock-market crash in East Asia, it is a system beyond your control. That is where alienation begins. We must remember Marx. Marx defined alienation as the state in which a person cannot control what they produce with their own hands. We are experiencing this alienation now. We have become unable to control the tools, machines, systems, rules we ourselves have made, and we grow alienated.
Interviewer: Returning to us then?
Ibrahim Kalın: When we come to Turkey, there is an urgent need for a reflection on the meaning and value of the thing we call value. The most fundamental concepts of our tradition—tolerance, justice, peace, honesty, brotherhood, hospitality, altruism—all of these are being hollowed out. Beyond individual virtue, structural barriers are making these values increasingly dysfunctional and meaningless. When people see that values have no counterpart in life, they begin to lose their belief in values. The system is what causes the corruption of values. Because after instilling desire, selfishness, theft, nepotism in people through TV series, ads, political debates, newspaper headlines, scandals, stock speculation, saying “we must be moral” means nothing.
Then: in today’s rapidly changing world, what set of values will Turkey regard as its basis? When answering “What is important?”, what sources will we draw from? I think there are two attitudes emerging as extremes. One is living in historical nostalgia, going back to a period in history, a geography or a city to create a zone of confidence for ourselves. It could be the Age of Bliss (Asr‑ı Saadet), newly conquered Istanbul, or Andalusia. Historical abstractions or idealizations are important for a broad vision, but they must be connected to the reality we live in. Otherwise, we fall into the trap of always living in the past.
The opposite extreme is acting as if history never happened, turning our back on a great heritage. But that is impossible epistemically and culturally. Because, as Gadamer pointed out, history lives with us whether we want it or not. It survives in the language we use, in words, in references. Every word, every parable, every exemplary event we use has at least a 200–300 year history. Therefore, we must view history with the right tools. If there is such a thing as a history of values, it should be understood not as the change of their core meaning—when that happens they lose their binding character—but as the history of societies’ relationships with these values.
Interviewer: What can you say about the nature of human values?
Ibrahim Kalın: In the language of classical philosophy, when speaking of values, one must well grasp the relationship between a thing’s matter and its form (sūra). The matter of a substance may change—even be something else—but its form remains. Here form is not shape. The form is what makes the substance what it is—it is its definition. The matter of this table may change: the material may not be wood but metal. Or not metal but glass. Its shape may also change: instead of rectangular, it could be round; low or high. But since despite all these material and formal changes the form remains the same, the table remains a table. It preserves its essence, its substance. Why? Because all those are external qualities—they are accidents of the substance. What makes a substance a substance is its form. Values are substances in that sense. The corrosion of values is not the change of matter and form but the disappearance of the substance. The matter and form of values can manifest differently in different periods and societies. But as long as the substance remains, we can sustain those values. Moreover, values can be sustainable reference points only when they gain vitality as a whole.
The mental and moral division we experience today comes from losing this wholeness. After establishing a political-social system based on colonialism and slavery, telling people to be moral and love each other is simply extending new invitations to conflict.
Interviewer: So how can we keep values alive in our society today?
Ibrahim Kalın: We avoid naming it, but what is happening in Turkey is an expression of such a divided and schizophrenic condition. We want to be a great state, but for that we do not give up tracking our own people. We want to be rich, but we are not uncomfortable with someone becoming poor for that. Divorce rates in Turkey are increasing. Young people don’t want to marry. The age at marriage continues to rise. Snatch theft incidents have become routine. Many studies show that Turkish people are unhappy for various reasons. Most of our people are not satisfied with their current state. Unhappiness and tension are increasing. To escape this trauma, we see celebrity-culture (televole) as a way out. Turkey is one of the countries where television is watched the most. Our people have come to speak with 400–500 words. No one reads, but we all want to be world champions on every subject.
A system cannot carry so much contradiction for long. This is true locally, nationally, and globally. There are dozens of examples. After the two Gulf Wars and the invasion of Iraq, the global immorality is clear. On one side are rhetoric of stability, democracy, civil society; on the other side tens of thousands are killed with the push of a button. The destruction was so great and indiscriminate that most of the dead can’t be found. Tens of thousands of children are orphaned. Hundreds of thousands of children die because they cannot access their most natural right—milk. We see the latest example in the attack started by Israel. Under the claim of “self defense,” Israel bombards an independent country from the air for weeks, kills hundreds, displaces hundreds of thousands—and then world leaders say, “We must tolerate this much damage for stability in the Middle East.” Is it possible to endorse a system where humanitarian values are so easily sacrificed and rendered meaningless?
But let us immediately add: two wrongs cannot make a right. Despite all this, both individuals and societies must show the resilience and nobility to live these principles. We must preserve that moral superiority. Because if someone unleashes Frankensteins upon us, we cannot become Frankenstein‑makers ourselves. This would mean the elimination of every moral ground. History’s end would come at that moment.
How will we preserve this moral ground? That is the fundamental question for Turkey and the world. To fight systematic immorality, alienation, nihilism, Turkish intelligentsia must make a major move and ask again, “What is of value?” We must produce our own answers, taking into account existing answers and drawing on our tradition. People can deceive others but cannot deceive themselves. The most correct answer to this question will come not from politics or philosophy, but from our conscience.
Interviewer: Thank you very much, Mr. Ibrahim.
