IN social psychology, it is taught that every human being needs private, personal and also social public spaces to experience dignity and integrity of life. The choices we make clarify, determine, and define our destiny.

Such intensively personal but private spaces define how we think about significant and important issues or concerns and about life and death; and meaning, significance, and purposes of each of our lives.

The recently infamous JAKIM preacher got sacked for expressing what he thinks and believes privately, in what should have been a private personal space. His mistake is he taught it as “gospel truth” publicly, when many significant others do not agree with such specific views.

The more important question, for me, is; can and should any public servant, i.e. those employed and paid for with the Federal Government funds, be not free to express such views publicly? If not, what then is their alternative model of communicating their convictions, if not truthfully, within a closed group of people or organisation?

If it is one’s personal and convictional worldview for a faithful life in destiny; is it then not right, good, and appropriate that such views are expressed publicly too? The alternative is simply keeping quiet or pretending that they do not exist. My previous column on agreeing to disagree; agreeably sought to highlight and address that very issue of concern.

Therefore, am I wrong in now arguing that true democracy is not about reducing personal public spaces but rather increasing or even expanding it; within the ambit of the Federal Constitution? Is that not the more serious issue: What is that common public space values which we all share?

Therefore, is there no freedom of speech in Malaysia? Do we, as Malaysians, actually feel any real sense that our personal social space is now actually shrinking in Malaysia? If you do, I would also argue that it befalls upon all defenders of UN Human Rights to therefore speak up and out to support our common and universal human agenda; so, we can remain human beings who appreciate and know our sense of dignity and destiny!

The contention between players in any group, or organisation, or in any country with different groups contending for leadership in the public space, through their voicing up for democratic rights and wrongs; it cannot be viewed merely as a political sphere or contest for victory.

Such a serious dialogue often overlaps between the so-called “organisational imperative” and those of the individual’s personal sense of dignity and integrity as expressed through his different voice of dissent.

Such an overlapping space of authority and personal power was the focus of my “workplace dignity study” at the George Washington University. I looked into two specific workplaces of the same power producing company. One was an older coal-fired power plant in Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania and the other was a newer and younger plant in Thames, Connecticut! That data collection was done in 1991.

What I found and finally recorded was that when these two spaces (personal and organisational spaces) overlap there is always a real and practical contention for, who or what has real authority and full responsibility for “potential actions,” or, even if in the case of inaction, who was to still be held responsible?

My rhetorical research question therefore remains how any ordinary worker in any such workplace, or even a citizen in any lived space of any country, can learn to speak up and out to realise and live out their personal sense of dignity and integrity.

Moral authority with public responsibility

What and who decides what is one’s moral authority, and how that sense of personal responsibility is assumed and how we (as individuals in public roles) are or can be publicly held accountable for the consequential public office choices we do make?

To develop these contended spaces and places, we need some new and different definitions. First is the concept of “face.” Every human being has a face, as defined from the image of their creator. Every human face therefore has both a private and a public dimension to the inner meanings held for those spaces and places.

The second concept is “space.” Space is the inner human thoughts and feelings related to serious issues related to life and purposes of life. Such inner space too has both a public and private dimension. The public dimension is what the specific religion believes and teaches about such matters. The private dimension is the more personal and internal convictions one holds about that same set of issues.

When we collapse these concepts into a two by two matrix, we can refine them to understand this concept of dignity; whether in workplaces or lived places. We get a four quadrant map of both concepts of public and private spaces, and personal and group spaces. Group spaces are usually common public spaces, and are usually defined by the principle of the Rule of Law.

Public space is all spaces shared that is common to all members of any public group. Private space is personal interpretive space of any human being from any group; whether of a public membership group or even a private membership one! Face is always one’s personal experience space and one’s sense of dignity in both; public or private spaces. Private face defines one’s experience of personal dignity.

All public spaces (including private personal space as defined by Universal Human Rights principles) are legal space within which any system of Local Governance is defined in all its geographical localities.

Private Face is what I have called any human’s personal experience which defines one’s sense of dignity (or indignity) and destiny.

Any such sense of dignity and destiny is always defined by one’s worldviews. In any culture or within any defined worldview, that sense of dignity and destiny is clearly framed by one’s worldview. – October 23, 2017.

* KJ John worked in public service for 32 years, retired, and started a civil group for which he is chairman of the board. He writes to inform and educate, arguing for integration with integrity in Malaysia. He believes such a transformation has to start with the mind before it sinks into the heart!

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.