Thought and its problems in Turkey, and a self-reckoning

Amid all the turmoil that our country and our world are passing through, a reflection on the state, quality and future of thought in Turkey may seem a bit of a luxury. Yet reflecting on ourselves is a way of getting out of this turmoil with less harm to our principles, our human stance and our visions, and if possible while advancing ourselves. Reflecting on our actions and thoughts, constantly questioning ourselves.

Western social scientists call this self-reflexivity, but we named it long ago self-reckoning. Of course there is an individual self-reckoning and a social one. Knowing, observing, questioning and judging ourselves. Pricking ourselves with the needle before sticking others with the bodkin. Understanding whether a gap has opened between what we do and what we believe, and if so, the reasons for this gap. Knowing the real motives behind our own actions…

Being able to feel the evil of our own selves, being able to see the wrongs of our actions and seizing the opportunities to retreat from them… Whatever situation we may be in, in worldly cares or positions, we must not neglect these.

At the weekend, on the occasion of the Workshop on Thought and Its Problems in Turkey organized by the Association for Academy, Culture and Political Studies (AKSED), we were together in Ankara-Ayaş with academics and thinkers who make Turkey, thought, and the honor of thought their concern. In light of the questions sent in advance by Öner Buçukçu, president of AKSED and also editor-in-chief of the journal Tezkire, we discussed throughout the day the factors that affect Turkish intellectual life today, the extent of the influence of newspapers, journals, televisions, social media, the academy and politics on thought and the shaping effect of these factors on thought, the relationship between literature and thought, and the place of translations in Turkish thought. In addition, the notions of West and East in Turkish intellectual life, what they correspond to, and the fate of the issue of identity, which has recently become the most important matter in both thought and politics, were also among the topics addressed. Having touched on this context, questions that could not be passed over without being asked were asked: Are the three styles of politics still meaningful today?

Is it a necessity for thought to touch society? Can we speak of a disconnection or of a naturalness? Can it be said that intellectual life in Turkey answers to, or corresponds to, the needs of practical social life?

And the vital question: Why does no intellectual-thinker-intelligentsia figure emerge today who renews thought, the "paradigm"?

The workshop, held in two sessions, was moderated by Murat Yılmaz and Hamit Emrah Beriş. Kurtuluş Kayalı, Cevat Özkaya, Yücel Bulut, Mehmet Karakaş, Osman Konuk, A. Kemal Bayram, M. Hakkı Akın, Ercan Yıldırım, Abdülazim Şimşek, M. Nurettin Kalkan, Asım Öz, Yunus Şahbaz and Maşallah Nar made important assessments on the sociology and politics of Turkish thought.

Of course, each of the problems taken up would on its own fill the subject of a workshop, and more.

Kurtuluş Kayalı said that for a long time now no solid texts that could serve as references and sketch a theoretical framework have been written in Turkey. As an example he referred to the role that Doğan Avcıoğlu's book Türkiye'nin Düzeni played in its own time in the sixties and seventies. Indeed, compared with the way Avcıoğlu's book was referenced in its time, it is obvious that there are no such texts today. But should one attribute this to the good, or should one rather see the good in the fact that a case of textual violence, which ultimately tried to impose a top-down program of change on Turkey in a Jacobin way, has been withdrawn?

Öner Buçukçu pointed to two more books in those very years in Turkey, similar to Avcıoğlu's book. These are İdris Küçükömer's Düzenin Yabancılaşması and Bülent Ecevit's Bu Düzen Değişmelidir.

That the theme of all three of these books, accepted as foundational texts, was "order" could of course not be a coincidence. That the concept at the center of the thought of a period that is taken as a model and made the subject of nostalgia in Turkey was "order" requires us to pay anew the attention it deserves to the relationship between Turkish thought and the political arena in Turkey. But one must also not ignore that all of these texts were at the same time leftist thought. In the same period in Islamist circles, Sezai Karakoç was writing Yitik Cennet, Necip Fazıl Kısakürek İdeologya Örgüsü and Babı Ali, and Nurettin Topçu İsyan Ahlakı.

In academic circles, the texts of Islamist circles were of course not taught. They were read precisely in the milieus called the periphery, among high school and university students, but were not taken as references for academic production. Avcıoğlu's students were in a position of power in the academy where they could determine the entire agenda and decide which subjects would be discussed or not discussed, and they were trying to establish the social science and intellectual foundation of an order, indeed a program that would necessarily be imposed from top to bottom, from the state to society.

Of course, in light of today's realities, there is a comparative situation that must be noted first about that day. In the sixties there were a total of 8-9 universities in all of Turkey, and the total number of students in these universities was no more than fifty thousand. The share of the social sciences among them was also very low. In contrast, universities were given an important share of tutelage by the government, and universities were an important actor in all transformation movements.

Did the effectiveness of the university and the academy really stem from the influence of thought, or did it appear effective because the way was specially opened by governments for certain ideas? This too is a question that should not be overlooked.

Today, however, our universities, whose number approaches two hundred, our millions of university students and hundreds of social science departments are spread across every part of Turkey. This produces an entirely different sociology, of course. The production of thought and its relationship with society and politics have created a completely different reality. Analyzing these is an important task to be performed in following the fate of thought in Turkey. We will continue this…