Why Are We Obsessed With Originality
A Reflection on Malaysia's Batik and Vietnam's Áo Dài
The desire, or even obsession, to be culturally distinct and original is not unique to modern Vietnam. Malaysia is one such country.
Last week in Kuala Lumpur, I had the chance to visit the Museum and Art Gallery of Bank Negara, Malaysia’s central bank. Like any other contemporary states, Malaysia’s possession of its own national bank that issues its own currency is a symbol of modernity, attesting to the people’s independence and self-determination. The bank is very important. Anything curated by the bank’s museum arm should be considered as very important as well.
I was interested in the art gallery that showcased various forms of Malaysian batik. To be sure, I didn’t (and still don’t) know much about batik—its technical details, design patterns, philosophy—other than owning a batik shirt given to me by a Malaysian friend. Yet, from my limited experience during a one-day visit to the gallery, I could tell the curators wanted to make sure that visitors know Malaysian batik as the country’s unique, age-old tradition, one that unites this multiethnic nation.
I don’t doubt the power of batik to unite the nation if that’s its purpose. And there is a reason for unity where fragmentation exists. My Chinese Malaysian friends agree that while the country is multiethnic, not all ethnicities are treated equal. But that is an issue beyond what I can write about today.
What I remember most from the art gallery visit is how clearly the curators associated batik with Malaysian national identity. The dyed fabric or artwork wasn’t just batik but Malaysian batik.
Vietnam’s answer to national attire is the áo dài, which literally means “long dress.” If someone wants to be recognized as a Vietnamese, they would wear an áo dài. During an earlier visit to Kuala Lumpur, while riding on the LRT (the city’s light rail), I saw a lady wearing an áo dài. Perhaps she was attending some important function. What was evident was that she stood out as someone different, someone not from Malaysia. Some others might recognize her as Vietnamese.
To be sure, I did not see many people in Kuala Lumpur wearing batik . So, it seems batik does not play as a strong role in everyday life as Vietnam’s áo dài does. In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, however, I did see batik being worn much more often.
Regardless of their cultural borrowings, both Malaysian batik and Vietnamese áo dài claim the values of distinctness and timelessness. Each national garment, beyond its unique designs and types of fabric, purports to express something metaphysical—an essence of its people. While I don’t necessarily deny the uniqueness or age-old claims of these garments, what can be rejected is their privacy.
The claim of originality troubles me because it seems to contain the logic of capital, the governing principle of modern political economy. We desire originality in the products we buy. We also care about their country of origin. Originality is the consumption moral compass. Our modern consumption habits favor authenticity—original Louis Vuitton bags and Rolex watches, not copies, no matter how good the replicas might be.
It seems to me that this logic of capital is so powerful that it frames our understanding of entire groups of people. If a group of humans is considered a copy of another, we don’t value the former as much. In international relations, to be recognized as a modern nation, the country must show proof of its distinctiveness as well originality.
In mainstream economics, students learn early on that for firms to compete successfully, they must engage in “monopolistic competition.” In a market with many producers, an individual company needs to differentiate itself by making its products unique. We commonly refer to this differentiation as branding. Apple phones, for instance, are differentiated by their elegant design and robust software. Importantly, Apple markets itself as a free-thinking artist’s product, suggesting a quality that cannot be simply quantified.
It seems to me that although it’s not clear whether capitalism creates nationalism, but their stories are intertwined. In the global market of nations, each country behaves like a monopolistic firm. Every nation is compelled to bring something unique to the market, resulting in countries striving to develop distinct branding.
For Vietnam, it’s the áo dài. For Malaysia, it’s batik. Of course, these are physical, manufactured products. Each country also needs to imbue that product with an essence. It should possess a unique character or spirit—something metaphysical, beyond what our senses can capture. Just like an Apple iPhone.
I feel uneasy about capital’s logic embedded in modern narratives of tradition, timelessness, and the metaphysics of spirit and character. For any worker who has experienced interviewing for a job, the pressure to “sell yourself” to a prospective employer manifests from the same logic. The hiring manager asks: What unique proposition do you bring to our company? And we call this exchange the labor market—selling our labor power. The act of selling anything, let alone ourselves, feels distressing because we intuitively know that true worth often needs less words, or no words at all. Less is more. Or perhaps putting our character out there in order to be cross-examined violates something personal.
For each individual, each company, and each nation in its respective market, there is a capital imperative to differentiate. In our modern way of life, without differentiation, we might not survive; we won’t get hired, businesses shut down, and countries cannot be free, self-determined.
Capital’s logic goes a bit further. Modern consumption is conspicuous by nature. Consider our earlier examples: the Malaysian batik showcased in the national bank gallery or the Vietnamese áo dài worn in a foreign country’s train. There is perhaps nothing less private than these displays of cultural identity.
It might seem unfair to compare wearing an áo dài or batik to sporting a French luxury bag or Swiss watch. One symbolizes a whole nation, its history and character. The other is a symbol of wealth and social class. Yet in the modern international system, states are equal in theory, but this equality is recognized only if the states are distinct in ethnic or cultural terms.
Perhaps I’m not getting closer to answering why modern people, like the Vietnamese, are obsessed with originality. Hundreds of years ago, in what we refer to as the premodern era, copying was a worthwhile endeavor. Premodern scholar-officials of Đại Việt (premodern Vietnam) lamented their inability to live up to the values of the Central Efflorescence (中華), particularly in writing history and keeping records similar to their northern neighbor. And originality was generally desired as well. People did what they had to do, whether copying or creating something original out of existing stuff, as long as it got the job done, it was deemed good enough. There wasn’t a clear-cut moral distinction between originality and emulation.