PRESENTATION
Known for his intellectual interests in the public, Assoc. Dr. Erol Göka shows an intellectual sensitivity towards the problems of our country and culture. Although he has received medical education and continues his clinical work as a psychiatrist, he continues his research and evaluations in line with this interest. Finally, he published a book called ‘Turkish Group Behavior’ as a result of his questioning about our behavior patterns that we Turks have been maintaining since Central Asia, which he stated that he had been working on for a long time. Since the first day of its publication, the book has attracted the attention of the Turkish intellectual world and created some debates. I think the aim of an enlightened person is to draw attention to the problems he has noticed, to shed light on his own point of view and to contribute to producing solutions.Every step taken to reach accurate information on scientific issues is valuable and an important contribution to the scientific heritage of humanity. This is how thought and science developed. Subjects such as Turkish history, Turkish culture and Turkish behavior are both realities that we are involved in as a party, and are issues that need to be enlightened by the scientific community. Considering the difficulty of researching these issues, we should carefully follow every step taken in this regard as Turkish Nationalist intellectuals within the Turkish Hearths. Every step taken in scientific ethics and sensitivity is valuable to us. Although we have criticisms, it will be on a scientific discussion ground that we believe will contribute to the author as it is out of the concern of reaching the truth. Since Mr. Göka’s book was published in a very unfortunate period, it should be evaluated carefully.When it comes to Turkish, there have been so many publications trying to load whatever negativity there is in the street dialect that we didn’t even need to be in touch with it. We congratulate Mr. Göka for his courage and sensitivity in this matter. He put forward an interdisciplinary study with a method experiment, which cannot be done much in our scientific world, and investigated whether there are some patterns that we can call Turkish behavior that have existed throughout history. Now we present to you the meeting we had with Mr. Göka on this subject. We would like to share with you our wishes that this study will contribute to the concentration of interest on the subject, to increase the efforts to understand ourselves, and to open different horizons for our intellectuals.We congratulate Mr. Göka for his courage and sensitivity in this matter. He put forward an interdisciplinary study with a method experiment that cannot be done much in our scientific world and investigated whether there are some patterns that we can call Turkish behavior that have existed throughout history. Now we present to you the meeting we had with Mr. Göka on this subject. We would like to share with you our wishes that this study will contribute to the concentration of interest on the subject, to increase the efforts to understand ourselves, and to open different horizons for our intellectuals.We congratulate Mr. Göka for his courage and sensitivity in this matter. He put forward an interdisciplinary study with a method experiment that cannot be done much in our scientific world and investigated whether there are some patterns that we can call Turkish behavior that have existed throughout history. Now we present to you the meeting we had with Mr. Göka on this subject. We would like to share with you our wishes that this study will contribute to the concentration of interest on the subject, to increase the efforts to understand ourselves, and to open different horizons for our intellectuals.Now we present to you the meeting we had with Mr. Göka on this subject. We would like to share with you our wishes that this study will contribute to the concentration of interest on the subject, to increase the efforts to understand ourselves, and to open different horizons for our intellectuals.Now we present to you the meeting we had with Mr. Göka on this subject. We would like to share with you our wishes that this study will contribute to the concentration of interest on the subject, to increase the efforts to understand ourselves, and to open different horizons for our intellectuals.
TURKISH YURDU Mr. Göka, you claim that psychological behavior patterns are very resistant to historical change and significantly determine people’s behavior (39). Do you think there are patterns that have not changed and can be observed since ancient times in Turkish history ? How can you test these patterns?
EROL GÖKA First of all, I would like to thank you for your detailed and meticulous effort regarding my work. We are facing a difficult issue. I am also aware that I am both working in a difficult field and standing in a place where the limit can be easily exceeded, like a knife-edge. I always try to make it clear that I notice these difficulties. When the things that I have observed and noticed in Turkish society as a person who has studied spirituality until now, as well as the Turkish studies that I have been interested in in recent years, came together in my mind after a psychological filter, I began to sense that there were some behavioral patterns unique to Turks throughout history. At first, I tried to express them as essays and to write them in different places.Later, I began to receive incentives from the journal “Turkish Culture and Studies” to turn these essays into a scientific format. In this journal, I presented some of my articles to the criticism of the scientific world. The suggestion of our esteemed brother and thinker Durmuş Hocaoğlu made a significant contribution to this issue. Over time, my thoughts became more organized and I decided to collect the accumulated works of these works, which seemed to take a long time, in book form in order to present them to the wider reader’s attention. It was necessary to write the method problems first. What is the situation in the Academy regarding the study of the behavior of large groups? Is there an appropriate method of studying group behavior that has persisted throughout history? First, I began by turning my attention to the problems of method.In this journal, I presented some of my articles to the criticism of the scientific world. The suggestion of our esteemed brother and thinker Durmuş Hocaoğlu made a significant contribution to this issue. Over time, my thoughts became more organized and I decided to collect the accumulated works of these works, which seemed to take a long time, in book form in order to present them to the wider reader’s attention. It was necessary to write the method problems first. What is the situation in the Academy regarding the study of the behavior of large groups? Is there an appropriate method of studying group behavior that has persisted throughout history? I began my work by first turning my attention to the problems of method.In this journal, I presented some of my articles to the criticism of the scientific world. The suggestion of our esteemed brother and thinker Durmuş Hocaoğlu made a significant contribution to this issue. Over time, my thoughts became more organized and I decided to collect the accumulated works of these works, which seemed to take a long time, in book form in order to present them to the wider reader’s attention. It was necessary to write the method problems first. What is the situation in the Academy regarding the study of the behavior of large groups? Is there an appropriate method of studying group behavior that has persisted throughout history? First, I began by turning my attention to the problems of method.Over time, my thoughts became more organized and I decided to collect the accumulated works of these works, which seemed to take a long time, in book form in order to present them to the wider reader’s attention. It was necessary to write the method problems first. What is the situation in the Academy regarding the study of the behavior of large groups? Is there an appropriate method of studying group behavior that has persisted throughout history? I began my work by first turning my attention to the problems of method.Over time, my thoughts became more organized and I decided to collect the accumulated works of these works, which seemed to take longer, in book form in order to present them to the wider reader’s attention. It was necessary to write the method problems first. What is the situation in the Academy regarding the study of the behavior of large groups? Is there an appropriate method of studying group behavior that has persisted throughout history? First, I began by turning my attention to the problems of method.What is the situation in the Academy regarding the study of the behavior of large groups? Is there an appropriate method of studying group behavior that has persisted throughout history? First, I began by turning my attention to the problems of method.What is the situation in the Academy regarding the study of the behavior of large groups? Is there an appropriate method of studying group behavior that has persisted throughout history? First, I began by turning my attention to the problems of method.
Yes, after working for six years, I am saying today that I have come to the conclusion that there are unchanging patterns of behavior throughout Turkish history. I try to express this. Before my study, there were some initiatives in the same field in academia. In sociology, there are studies that try to understand the structures that we can call “repetitive sociological patterns” related to social behavior and social group behavior. But they do not contain a psychological dynamism. In other words, there are serious sociological theories about how the behaviors exhibited by communities should be handled, but as I said, we cannot see the dynamism coming from psychology in them. For example, as Norbert Elias did, how civilization developed in Europe,There are researches that ponder on subjects such as what kind of a transition from the well-known behaviors of the Middle Ages to the behaviors that modern civilization expected from people. The work of Jean Baudrillard, the famous name of French post-modern sociology, is yet another example. Baudrillard also develops a mentality theory based on the work of anthropologist Marcell Mauss for primitive societies, and examines behavioral changes in Europe accordingly. He argues that, in fact, remnants of pre-capitalist culture are still alive in Europe. The knowledge about the slowness of psychological time in academia prior to my study also has something to do with my work. The phenomenon we call “time” can be handled in many different ways. “Time” is political, economic, sociological,psychological, and the slowest of them all is psychological time. For example, we live in Turkey now, and if I were to say to you, “the government will change until Sunday and Friday,” you wouldn’t be surprised. You may hesitate a little about time, you can say “next week for me” but you wouldn’t say impossible. This shows that the political time is very fast here in Turkey. If I say, “The dollar will be 5 million in a month,” you wouldn’t be surprised. You look for ways to develop measures without disbelief, you look for a grain of truth in this. So the economic time is also very fast here. But sociological, social time is slower. For example, we are still trying to modernize, we have a modernization effort that has been going on for 250 years for 200 years, and it cannot be said that we have come a long way.We come back to the same place over and over and have trouble moving forward. Beyond this political, economic and social time, there is also a psychological time, which flows much more slowly. As a sociologist, you can feel the slowness of sociological time. You are aware of the slowness, how is society resisting modernization, why are there reactions? Our sociologists see this and do important studies on the problems of Turkish modernization. My work feeds on these efforts in sociology, but finds them incomplete; He argues that beneath the sociological layer, the main thing that hinders deeper change is a psychological construct. Indeed, when we look at the history of societies with the awareness that psychological time runs very slowly and from a psychological point of view, we see that many things have not changed.I first noticed the first observations that the behavior of the Turks did not change throughout history, in the works of the Turkicist Jean-Paul Roux. Maybe others have said it before him, but I first saw it in his work. Roux says, “I came and started working on Turkmens around Burdur.” He had previously worked on the ancient Turks. “Turkmen are behaving in such a way that it is as if they had just arrived yesterday in Anatolia from the very old times of Central Asia”… This finding was very interesting for me. As a Turkmen child who grew up in a region very close to Burdur, I witnessed the behavioral patterns that he connected with the history of Central Asia in my childhood. The memories were very fresh in my memory. My midwife would act just like Roux described. The people in our village were just like that.“So all this behavior stems from our deep roots in Central Asia?” I couldn’t help but ask, I couldn’t. Those who convinced me that there are unchanging behavior patterns throughout history, Roux and especially Turkicists such as Bahaeddin Ögel, Emel Esin, Abdulkadir Inan, and religious historians such as Fuad Köprülü, Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Ünver Günay, Harun Güngör, folklorists such as Pertev Naili Boratav, Özkul Çobanoğlu, Ziya Gökalp Sociologists like Orhan Türkdoğan and social anthropologists like Yaşar Kalafat. They did due diligence, but limited its theoretical reasons and scope to their field. Again, I realized that the people of my Turkmen village were not just bound by the behavior patterns they brought from Central Asia; these people were also very open to change and innovation.For example, when someone from the village goes to Germany and brings a tape recorder, all the village people can develop a new behavior around a new device. It’s such a civilization receptive and open to change community. They don’t have any resistors. However, some patterns do not change. It took a lot of thought on them. I thought.
TURKISH YORDU Are you deducing the existence of stereotyped behaviors there both from the observations of scientists and from your own observations?
EROL GÖKA Of course, of course… these came together. In the same way, we witnessed how our unique modernization went through difficulties in our lifetimes in our country. While some of our behaviors changed rapidly during the modernization process, some of them did not move at all. Where is the changing and unchanging place, he had the chance to see and observe it, as a member of this society. Our own historical knowledge and historical method studies – which during the 1990s I studied “hermeneutics” in the history of the individual and society, focused on problems of meaning and interpretation – followed by community behavior and mentality studies. I had published these in the form of articles and books at that time. I was already seeing what modernity did to us, how it changed our behavior,Historical information (academy) presented that a similar situation existed during the encounter and Islamization of the Turks with Islam, that is, while Islam changed some of our behaviors, it could not change others. What did Islamization change, what did modernization change. No matter what we answer these questions, we will eventually realize that some of our behavior patterns have remained unchanged despite Islam and modernity. Academic readings and observations indicated that many things have not changed here throughout history.Despite Islam and modernity, some of our behavior patterns have remained unchanged. Academic readings and observations indicated that many things have not changed here throughout history.Despite Islam and modernity, some of our behavior patterns have remained unchanged. Academic readings and observations indicated that many things have not changed here throughout history.
TURKISH YORDU Are you claiming that there was a transformation during these periods and that some unchanging behavioral patterns were preserved during this transformation? Or are you testing the existence of such behavior?
EROL GÖKA Yes… I’m trying to say it. There are many studies on these periods. As a Turkish intellectual, we had the chance to read and observe them. For example, in studies on Alevism, I noticed this: -many intellectuals and scientists have no doubt noticed this- The characteristics that were reserved for Alevis and described as the continuation of old Turkish beliefs were actually valid for Sunni Turkish communities, albeit in different forms. These determinations were made by many researchers from many disciplines, but they remained only as findings, they could not be developed yet. Someone had to ponder over the behavioral patterns and causes seen in these Alevi and Sunni Turkish communities, which are not found in Arabs and other Islamic societies. For example, my midwife -died at the age of 113- had an afterlife.However, the concept of ‘ahretlik’ is known as one of the basic concepts of Alevi culture. Likewise, the “best man” held by boys in Sunni communities during their puberty is very similar to the “companionship” in Alawites. You know, Alevi Turks condemn Sunnis for their Arab-like behavior in the name of Islam. Companionship is one of them. The behavior of “maintenance of the best man” and “having comrades”, which has been seen throughout history as a sign of stepping into masculinity and femininity in Turkish communities, seems to be dressed in an Islamic and Arabic guise under the name of “companionism” in Alevism. Until now, we have always looked at the Alawite and Sunni communities in terms of the differences they show, and if we look at the similarities they show.Who knows what else we will see. What we see is probably the behavior patterns of Turks that have remained unchanged throughout their history.
TURKISH YORDU I think you have entered a very difficult point. Wasn’t it difficult to identify behavioral patterns in the historical process? In other words, there are some points that I observed in the book in terms of method. At this stage, I don’t want to go into the method too much, but how did you solve or try to solve the method issue? 13.13
EROL GÖKA I just tried to pay attention to these gaps or realizations in academia. There is something in the academy that compels me to enter this field, almost saying study here. It remained to establish a framework and I used my psychology education and psychiatry knowledge here. There are certain behavioral patterns that do not change in humans. There are unchanging aspects of our lives that make us say that a person is what he is at seven, he is at seventy. This is what Freud really discovered, found. Sex isn’t that important. What is important in psychoanalysis is the determination that human development is completed in the first years and then repeated. The real discovery that psychoanalysis has made is this iteration in our lives; In our childhood, the construction of our psychology is completed, in our adult life we repeat the patterns of childhood.But a person cannot consciously perceive that the behaviors he exhibits now are actually settled in his childhood and that they are repeated throughout our lives; We can never realize ourselves that the patterns that make up our psychology in childhood repeat throughout adulthood. In other words, as a profession, I have a natural inclination to do the archeology of repetitive behaviors that are deep in history. While I am practicing my profession, I try to see the seventy-year-old grandfather as he was at seven. While researching Turkish group behavior, trying to look at the main patterns of Turkish behavior in history does not seem strange to me, on the contrary, a professional habit makes my job easier. When I look carefully at a seventy-year-old grandfather, I can guess how he was brought up, what kind of family he came from; what kind of man was his father,I can tell you more or less what kind of woman his mother was. This is not my qualification, all my colleagues who have received a good psychodynamic development training and who do their job well can make such predictions. Of course, the first ones are speculative, but we can turn the facts we find into more scientific data by transferring them to the person in front of you, getting them approved, and working with them. Thus, we can pave the way for him to change his behavior by tracing his current behaviors back to childhood and showing them to the person who came to us to get to know himself, by making the origins of his current problems aware. There is this method in my training that other scholars in the humanities are not very familiar with. Therefore, how we can see the seven-year-old state of a seventy-year-old grandfather thanks to the psychodynamic method,Just as we can divide a human lifespan into seven slices and look at the first slice of the ten-fold slice in the life of a seventy-year-old, when we take the communities as a basis, we can see the cores of the current state of the communities in their ancestors ten or twenty generations ago. This psychodynamic view may seem strange to you, but it already exists in our education and scientific methods. We can use the psychodynamic method in Turkish studies. In Turkic studies, we see that the so-called Turks can be studied indisputably since the Gokturks, about 550 AD. Turkish history, which is known and on which the academy has indisputably agreed, is almost as old as the history of Islam. (Here we should underline the injustice done to the Turks by the current scientific world.In fact, who can deny that the Huns are Turks, but unfortunately, they treat Turks badly in the scientific world. They do this in the name of pseudo-scientific rigor, but they do not do the same to the Pharisees. For example, they can say that the Scythians are Persians, but if the findings about an ancient community indicate that they are Turks, they do their best not to call this community Turkish.) We nevertheless continue our work based on the material data and proven knowledge of Turkiyat, based on the knowledge and even if we did it from the documents, 1500 years have passed since 550. So, I mean, with Turkish group behavior research, I’m investigating how our current behaviors appeared in our ancestors 15 to 20 generations ago. It’s actually not a huge amount of time. When we look at it like this, it is easier to understand what I have done,I guess that’s what I want to do, right?
TURKISH YORDU Maybe because it is the first, maybe because of the difficulty of detecting human behaviors in history, you have such a problem. You also say that you used a “negative dialectic” about the method you followed. Is it possible for us to open this negative dialectic? What do you mean by that?
EROL GÖKA First of all, I mean the negative dialectic as a method directly. And as an intellectual position, to emphasize my bias. I am on my side in this research, my side is on the side of the Turks. Just as some people in science exclude Turks, I try to look for places that will cause Turks to develop and make a move. In order to get to know the Turks better and to guide them in the face of modernity, I am looking for their behavior patterns throughout their history; I claim that we can trace the current behavior of the Turks in history. If someone else shows that these issues need to be handled differently, or that the behavior patterns I’m addressing aren’t quite real, I’ll back out. The scientific method also requires it. My intuitions so far, my observations,My sociology and Turkic studies, group therapy studies show that some behavior patterns can be traced back to history. I think my work has a scientific orientation, but I can admit that the scientific quality of my statements is not high enough yet. But I keep working. I think that some researchers will soon participate in Turkish group behavior studies not only with their criticisms but also with the facts they have discovered, and our research will be enriched. Moreover, both the criticism and the new facts that I have seen during my own work will cause me to reconsider my views, I can change my views immediately when I am convinced. For example, at the beginning I thought that “hospitality” was among the elements of Turkish group behavior, partly due to prejudices.But I realized that hospitality is not a pattern unique to Turks, it is widely seen, it is a temporary situation that arises depending on the conditions of ancient societies, and I did not include it in Turkish behavior patterns. He hasn’t verified my readings yet, but I do have catalogs on hospitality, I’ll look again if appropriate. This is what I mean by negative dialectic, my method and bias. I mean this: I look at the behavior of the Turks, which date back to history, in order to bring them into a modern transformation, and therefore I work more on the negative features. Never “Turks, who are satisfied with the behavior in my work,I am not saying that it is a community that never goes beyond and beyond”. If it is understood like this, I will be very sorry, both because I was misunderstood and because I did not show the skill to explain my problem.
TURKISH YORDU I observed him very clearly in the book. I’ll even admit that I’m uncomfortable at times. Of course, I interpreted this as sticking the needle into ourselves. But at times I was disturbed.
EROL GÖKA Exactly. I was also disturbed. I felt uncomfortable while typing. Because the book was also published in such a period that the Turks were turned into a clown. There are some nonsense books written by some mascaras. These mascaras are trying to make fun of the so-called Turks, Turkishness. However, what they are making fun of is the behavior of our people, which we can completely explain in terms of socio-economic or historical conditions. Our people have been destroyed. You migrated to big cities in a very short time like twenty years, people living in the patterns of tradition in Anatolia. The urbanites lost their old traditional behavior patterns before they could gain new behavior patterns. It was unfortunate that this work of mine came out at the time when books that made fun of people trying to hold on to life came out. However, in terms of addressing the negativities of group behavior of Turks,I had no other choice, as a Turkish intellectual. Because it was not very useful for us to emphasize the positive characteristics of the Turks. It gave the work a very right-wing and heroic image. However, I – that’s why I say I am biased – I am in favor of the modernization of the Turks, and I do not think that modernity will “make us out of ourselves”. Just as we have Islamized ourselves, we will modernize ourselves. This will happen whether we want it or not. I am in favor of the modernization of the Turks because modernity now determines the basic orientation of humanity. Societies will modernize. I want the Turks to make their own modernization rapidly. I want the Turks to be able to establish their own civilization thanks to modernity. (From here, of course, we come to a thesis of the book,Let’s not go into the relations of the Turks with civilization, but now.) This is an attitude in favor of the Turks. We want to modernize, but there are ties in our feet that prevent us and the message that we should get rid of them as soon as possible is what I want to convey. It is also a call for intense reflection on seeing what our negative sides are and how they can change and transform.
TURKISH LAND Before I go into the subject of civilization, I have one more question at this point. Do you act as a method of getting better, based on negative examples and negative behaviors – you don’t mean we are Turkish, we are like that too?
EROL GÖKA Yeah yeah. In addition, the positive behavior patterns of the Turks may come to the fore in future studies without being hostile. Recently, we were together with our great scientist Oktay Sinanoğlu in a TV show. Oktay also sensed something. I have been following Oktay’s work for 20 years. What Oktay has sensed is this: The Turkish language gives people their identity – and our Turkists are not racist either. His mother tongue is Turkish. This gives the Turks an incredible advantage. Because Turkish language structure is superior to other languages, it is mathematical and computer prone. Therefore, he says that he sees a special situation in Turkish due to the predisposition to this symbolism. Everyone who works in Turkey realizes this. So there is something in Turkish. This is what defines the Turk, and that is what defines the mentality, namely language. This is what I see.I could only write a book about the possibilities provided by the Turkish language and say that we are different and even superior for this reason, but this would not help much in seeing the reasons for our current behavior and making them more modern. I emphasize the importance of language. If you want to stay Turkish, you will keep Turkish. I say there is no other way. I refer to the importance of language as the determinant of our behavior and mentality, and that’s enough for my purposes for now.I refer to it as the determinant of our mentalities, and for my purposes this is enough for now.I refer to it as the determinant of our mentalities, and for my purposes this is enough for now.
TURKISH YORDU Can we say this: Is the basis of Turkish group behavior Turkish? There is no such claim as the ancestry factor, racial factor or genetic factor as the primary determinant? However, even in psychology, behaviors originating from genes are analyzed. Social life is similar to this, nations are associated with each other racially.
EROL GÖKA Yes, there is. There are scientific approaches, such as socio-biology and behavioral genetics, that look for the causes of social behavior in our biological structure, in genes. Research is being done that examines large groups of people from these points as well. But these are not yet well-justified scientific proposals, and even our study of Turkish group behavior is methodologically more robust. So a genetic basis for the behavior of large groups can undoubtedly be found, if searched. But my work is not like that. I respect that work. I’m trying to move forward from a different point. This is an effort to consume a reality from different domains. One does not eliminate the reality of the other… I see language and Turkish as the basis of our behavior.If our behaviors have become some unchanging patterns throughout history, and if these patterns seem difficult to change after that, and we Turks show similar psychological characteristics in every period, it is because of our language and child-rearing practices. It is the language that transfers our behaviors to generations and enables them to be carried through history. I can show many examples about the importance of Turkish and language. The famous linguist and philosopher Wittgenstein says that while the mother teaches the child language, she does not just teach him to speak. It also invites him to a lifestyle… In other words, your lifestyle, behavior patterns are registered in his mentality, and it is registered in the capacity of his language, possibilities and limitations. I have a feeling that by looking at the dictionary of a language, we can get an idea about the behavior patterns of that society. Because every vocabulary is a behavior,indicates a mentality. This is an area that needs much more detailed and much more work. In addition, there should be a limit by which we can methodically identify the “Turkish” sample. “Who is the Turk?” When we say it, it should be a general feature that everyone can agree on. This feature is nothing but speaking and thinking in Turkish.
TURKISH DORMITORY You accept that language carries a society’s way of life and a world of mentality. While reading your book – this may also be due to the difference in literature – I saw mentality studies on social behavior in history in my previous works. In particular, Ülgener’s analyzes on the Ottoman Moral World during the Dissolution Period caught my attention. Can you make a connection between your “group behavior” and the concept of mindset?
EROL GÖKA Of course I’m setting up. Studies that we can call the sociology of mentality shed a lot of light on my analysis. The mentality analysis and even the efforts that you can call the sociology of culture contributed a lot to the formation of my point of view. I live here, I’ve seen this, I’ve identified this, not just this… Of course, there can be many other reading styles. Many people are trying to do this. I’m just saying that it is easier and more scientific to define mentality from psychology. Culture is a very controversial concept. Culture has many definitions. The concept of culture does not give you much opportunity for behavioral research. Race, as it is, is never a concept suitable for scientific study. I recently read a book that claimed that almost all of the Jews were of the Hazara remnant Turkish race. If we dive in here, we can’t get out.Speculation chases speculation. If we are to study the Turk, he must have a concrete, empirical sign. For now, we do not have a solid framework other than language. The concepts of culture and race are criticized a lot, they are not accepted rightly, but the concept of “group behavior” has a stronger place in the scientific world. Studies with small groups have a serious literature both theoretically and empirically. Can we extend the knowledge gained from studies conducted with small groups for over a century to large groups such as Turkishness and Turkish speakers? I’m saying it’s possible. Whichever way we look at it, group behavior is a more appropriate concept for scientific study.It is not accepted rightly, but the concept of “group behavior” has a stronger place in the scientific world. Studies with small groups have a serious literature both theoretically and empirically. Can we extend the knowledge gained from studies conducted with small groups for over a century to large groups such as Turkishness and Turkish speakers? I’m saying it’s possible. Whichever way we look at it, group behavior is a more appropriate concept for scientific study.It is not accepted rightly, but the concept of “group behavior” has a stronger place in the scientific world. Studies with small groups have a serious literature both theoretically and empirically. Can we extend the knowledge gained from studies conducted with small groups for over a century to large groups such as Turkishness or Turkish speakers? I’m saying it’s possible. Whichever way we look at it, group behavior is a more appropriate concept for scientific study.Whichever way we look at it, group behavior is a more appropriate concept for scientific study.Whichever way we look at it, group behavior is a more appropriate concept for scientific study.
TURKISH YURDU Did your professional attitude play a role in this election?
EROL GÖKA I studied group psychotherapy. I studied how a group would follow the path of small groups, group processes, group dynamics. So I saw that the concepts of group psychotherapy can be extended to large groups as well. The concept of group behavior already belongs to Wilfred Bion, a British group psychotherapist and theorist. He uses this concept for small groups, treatment groups, but I think he was also making a discovery by saying that man is an entity that exhibits group behavior apart from his individual behavior. In other words, when we form a group, we also exhibit group behavior apart from our individuality. You Fahri, I as Erol, my friend is there as himself, but we also do something as a group. So when we say Turkish group behavior and I am Turkish,If I speak Turkish, regardless of my individual identity, I am in a structure in which my behavior is fermented and I act accordingly. I call this behavior that I have shown independently of my own will and which is out of my control, stemming from my being Turkish, “Turkish group behavior”.
TURKISH YURDU I know from your previous articles that you are also interested in philosophy. It reminded me of your speech. Of course he did when I read it. Can we compare group behavior to the category concept used in philosophy? Is there anything similar to the Kantian concept of a priori that determines and directs our behavior in groups?
EROL GÖKA I think there is. We see this similarity more clearly in Neo-Kantian people like Ernst Cassirer, from whom I learned a lot. We are born into a language, we are born into a culture, we are born into a group. No matter what we do, we can’t get out of there. They ask İsmet Özel: -You know, he said that after a communist past he converted to Islam and became a Muslim- “When did you switch?” they say, “I was a Muslim before, that is, when I was a communist,” he gives a strange answer. That’s exactly what I said. İsmet Bey also noticed the group behavior he was born into, he was trying to express it. Regardless of our name, whether we are communist, right-wing or left-wing, if we are a ship, there is a body of water in the ocean on which we all swim, and that is group behavior.Whatever behavior you show as an individual, it is something related to your individuality. But there are also behaviors that come from being included in that big group. That’s why İsmet Özel says that he was a Muslim even when he was a communist. Moreover, it is not contrary to Islamic terminology, to say it like that. The “fitrah” in Islamic terminology may be describing the elements outside our will that determine what we are trying to describe, the human we were born into. We humans are born as Islams, and at the moment of guidance, we suddenly remember it. In reality, it does not change, we recourse to our origin. Group behavior has some references here as well. In other words, we carry the characteristics of the group we were born in. We gain these features while learning the language of that group. I associate group behavior more with speaking the same language.I don’t want to use the word culture too much. Turks who migrated from the north of the Caspian to the west in our history lost their Turkishness. The only reason for this is that they lost their language. Those who preserve their language, such as the Gagauz, still display the behavioral characteristics that we can call Turkish group behavior. I can explain why I care about Turkish, not race, right?
TURKISH HORLD If I think that the main element that carries the behaviors, the language shows itself there. Now you care about modernity. Again, I remember from your articles, I remember from the literature you used. I know that you are also very interested in post-modernity. On the one hand, I would like to come to the subject that we said let’s talk a little later. You want and expect the modernization of the Turks and you claim that some behavior patterns from the past are an obstacle in front of you. I didn’t misunderstand, did I? I want to convey what I understand. Isn’t there a contradiction here? On the one hand, there is an opinion that the West has surpassed modernism, and post-modernism has provided more positive developments. For a time there was an interest that post-modernity was better. What do you think about it.
EROL GÖKA As a defender of modernity, of course, I am more critical of post-modernity. But we must admit that post-modern theorists in the sense of knowledge theory can help us a lot in breaking the Enlightenment fanaticism of modernity. Modernity has brought many gains in terms of putting the human mind and freedom into action. But especially positivism and scientism remove people’s spiritual and historical depth. It makes man a very mechanical being. Like these, modernity also has many problems and dilemmas. There are many aspects of modernity to be criticized in this sense, and I think that these problems and dilemmas stem from the Western origin of modernity. What needs to be done is not to oppose modernity altogether, but to try to overcome its dilemmas arising from its Western origin.Modern human criticisms expressed in post-modern theory and especially epistemological theories, modern human criticisms provide an opportunity that we can enter because of our religion, because of our beliefs. But post-modernism also has serious weaknesses. First of all, it is a theory that serves liberals who plunder the world under the name of globalization. With globalization, post-modernism leaves no truth, no value, no ideal of humanity in the name of rejecting grand narratives. In this sense, post-modernity becomes negative modernity. We can call post-modernity the regression of modernity. This is how I look. What we need to take from modernity are aspects that are more rational, based on the individual, and set the individual free.When we look at the civilizational adventures of the Turks, I can clearly say that they have not been able to create a civilization of their own until now. All civilization historians say this. As a Turk, this is a claim that I don’t like at all, but like this… There are formations in our history that can be the core of a very serious civilization, especially in architecture, poetry, music… For example, the Turkish tent, the Turkish urbanism approach has really carried over to recent times and contributed to the Islamic civilization. The Turkish people’s aptitude for poetry and musical instruments are very unique. They may indeed be the core of a great civilization. They are other things. But there are also periods in our history when we had our civilizational moves. When we look at Turkish history, with the Uighurs’ acceptance of Manichaeism and during our first encounter with Islam in Transoxiana, we have to fight our warrior traits.When we can put aside a little bit, both with the Chinese and with nature, you will see what we can do for civilization in a very short time. An interesting community of history is the Turks and they always have to fight. According to Bilge Tonyukuk, there are 100 times more Chinese than Turks. You are trying to survive against an enemy who is 100 times more than you, in very difficult natural conditions. How are you going to make a civilization move in a constant war?How are you going to make a civilization move in a constant war?How are you going to make a civilization move in a constant war?
TURKISH HORLD Do you attribute a special meaning to civilization, or do you use it as a borrowed concept?
EROL GÖKA Civilization historians, such as Braudel, look at the concept of civilization as I do. Culture or civilization debates constitute a serious corpus. For example, our Freud does not see any difference between the two. However, I think there is. For example, our Ziya Gökalp makes this distinction and has made important contributions. It is an issue that we must address and discuss. What I mean by civilization is this: every community can create a culture, create an ethnic feature, create folkloric features. As humans, we have to give meaning to birth, puberty, death, marriage and create their rituals. There is no community life otherwise. Now every community has such ethnic, folkloric features. These are the subjects that ethnology deals with, anthropology and folklore. But in civilization, these features become more humanized, refined and aesthetic.There is an increase in the organizational ability and spiritual depth of the society.
TURKISH YURDU It is possible to exemplify this in the works in Turkish history, what do you think?
EROL GÖKA Of course it is possible. But I say we are not the source. Turks have established incredibly beautiful civilizations. It is not original. Turks are very prone to civilization. They are literally ambassadors of civilization. But he is not the owner of the creation of civilization. For example, our Seljuk and Ottoman ancestors created an excellent situation with the interaction of Islam, Sassanid and Byzantine. Of course my ancestors were civilized. This is something else. What I want to say is that we transfer civilizations to each other, we synthesize them, but we are not the source.
TURKISH YORDU Can I ask one more thing? You also emphasize between the lines that we are a society that is very open to interaction. I think it’s true. For example, one of the aspects that we can criticize Huntington is, when Huntington says clash of civilizations, he assumes that there are definite lines between cultures that are closed to interaction. He develops a thesis that there is no transition to each other. However, as you pointed out, we can see the intercultural interaction especially in terms of our nation. Just as a concrete example, when we go to Edirne, Bursa or Istanbul, we see that an architectural work bears the Ottoman stamp. When we go to Kayseri, Sivas or Konya, one of the works we come across says, I am a Seljuk. Isn’t this a civilization?
EROL GÖKA Civilization, of course. The Seljuks and the Ottomans were civilizations, but they are synthesis civilizations as Braudel calls them. It brings two different things together to create something else. For example, Emel Esin, one of our important Turkicists, sees the line coming from Central Asia, the old Turkish line in these works, namely the minaret and the dome, until the construction of the Topkapı Palace. He says it contributed. I also say that the Turks were capable of being the core of a civilization in architecture, urbanism, poetry and music. They brought them with them from Asia, along with what they learned from China and India, Persia. The reason why Islamic works are so beautiful is the Turks. They put all Asian civilizations at the service of Islam. They almost swept the east. They became Islamized and became the head of Islam and established a new synthesis civilization.They also interacted with the West, and by their nature they were very open to this. Therefore, the role of the Turks in the beautification of Islam and its becoming a civilization is indisputable. I still say that we cannot see these civilizations as civilizations of their own. Civilization historians say so. Civilization must be original and present its messages to all humanity. Every great community must go to the people for the purpose of civilization. When the order of the Turks is realized, all humanity will benefit and be happy. A civilization should be able to offer its own values to humanity. Civilization is a good news, a message that a society will convey to other societies. This is why you exist as a community; is to show your fellow human beings the way of the good life and salvation. Therefore, civilization“What can we do for humanity?” originates from his answer to the question. If we want to be civilized, we must constantly ask ourselves this question. We stopped fighting for a while during the time of the Uighurs, what did we do? The more we know about the Uyghurs, the better we see this. When Islam was encountered in Transoxiana – the Turks were incredibly influenced by Islam – great thinkers emerged among us who steered Islam. Actually, we feel sorry for ourselves for limiting our history to Seljuk and Ottoman. While we were in Central Asia, we did amazing things. Some people refer to our Republic as “Turkish enlightenment” and of course it is, but we had an enlightenment before in Transoxiana. That enlightenment really did great works. For example, one of the most basic of these products is Maturidiism, which is one of the main creeds.The Turks brought the tolerant view and way of thinking to Islam in Central Asia. I see the Karakhanids, Seljuks and Ottomans as the continuation of Transoxiana-unnehir Islamic enlightenment. In the last period of the Ottoman Empire, we encountered another civilization. It was more of a challenge than a confrontation. The challenge we faced was modernity, Western modernity. Modernity was the most positive thing the West has ever done in human history. Modernity was both a Western thing and a human condition at the same time. If not in the West, it would have appeared elsewhere. But it emerged in the West due to historical conditions, and the representative of Islamic civilization, which was in decline at that time, stood against the Ottomans.I see the Ottomans as the continuation of Transoxiana-ünnehir Islamic enlightenment. In the last period of the Ottoman Empire, we encountered another civilization. It was more of a challenge than a confrontation. The challenge we faced was modernity, Western modernity. Modernity was the most positive thing the West has ever done in human history. Modernity was both a Western thing and a human condition at the same time. If not in the West, it would have appeared elsewhere. But it emerged in the West due to historical conditions, and the representative of Islamic civilization, which was in decline at that time, stood against the Ottomans.I see the Ottomans as the continuation of Transoxiana-ünnehir Islamic enlightenment. In the last period of the Ottoman Empire, we encountered another civilization. It was more of a challenge than a confrontation. The challenge we faced was modernity, Western modernity. Modernity was the most positive thing the West has ever done in human history. Modernity was both a Western thing and a human condition at the same time. If not in the West, it would have appeared elsewhere. But it emerged in the West due to historical circumstances, and the representative of Islamic civilization, which was in decline at that time, stood against the Ottomans.Modernity was the most positive thing in human history. Modernity was both a Western thing and a human condition at the same time. If not in the West, it would have appeared elsewhere. But it emerged in the West due to historical circumstances, and the representative of Islamic civilization, which was in decline at that time, stood against the Ottomans.Modernity was the most positive thing in human history. Modernity was both a Western thing and a human condition at the same time. If not in the West, it would have appeared elsewhere. But it emerged in the West due to historical circumstances, and the representative of Islamic civilization, which was in decline at that time, stood against the Ottomans.
TURKISH HORLD In a sense, can we interpret Western modernism as an infiltration from the common heritage of humanity? We see many examples of Western culture being influenced by the Islamic world as well.
EROL GÖKA Of course… The mind and the individual already existed in both the East and the West. But it formed the basic component of a civilization in the West, together with modernity. With the West succeeding in producing modernity, we were defeated in this encounter. As a representative of Islamic civilization, we were defeated. This does not mean that Islam has been defeated. We are talking about the meeting of two different historical situations. From now on, it seems that the course of humanity will be on the axis of the individual and the mind. The Turks realized this too and were already prone to it. They were fond of reason and the individual, and even democracy. So our leaders pointed in the direction of development. They said that from now on, our direction will be modernity, we will be modern by preserving our own historical and spiritual characteristics. This is how Atatürk determined the level of modern civilization as a target. Here, too, we are experiencing an enlightenment.I am also in favor of this enlightenment.
TURKISH YORDU When we look at the determinations you made in your book, it does not seem possible for the current Turkish society to succeed. You see many factors preventing it from achieving modernization. If there are behavioral patterns that have not changed since the depths of Turkish history and their negative ones prevent modernization, how can this be overcome? Then, based on your findings, it is not possible for us to modernize, can it not be concluded?
EROL GÖKA No, it doesn’t, so why should we bother? Right here we come to the theories of modernity. It is recognized that modernity is not uniform. I am talking about Turkish type modernization. I am talking about the peculiar modernization of the Turks. We take what we take from modernity. We have already seen their basic aspect: the mind and the individual. But we do not give up on our own history or our beliefs. We must bring a Turkish flavor to modernity. Modernity allows this by virtue of its nature, which is also the human condition. Today, whoever can overcome the dilemmas and troubles of modernity will again give the good news of a new civilization to humanity. The West will not be able to overcome the difficulties of modernity. Western modernity brings cruelty to humanity instead of gospel. It was blocked in ideas, it was blocked in spirituality, it was blocked in politics. Turks, with their historical potential,they can unlock this with their role as civilization synthesizer. If we started the conversation from here, I would be very Turkish. This is what I call the distinctive modernization of the Turks. Our modernization depends on the success of both recognizing our own shackles and eliminating them and getting rid of them. We as Turks can and should do this. I believe that Turkish modernization can bring new initiatives where the West is blocked. Let’s take democracy, for example. Let’s take the male-female relationship. For example, freedom from the slogans of modernity has become so terrible now! Western modernization has made freedom borderless, made this great value the scourge of humanity, and created a great chaos. Western modernity has begun to dig its own grave in this sense. We can redefine freedom.There are potentials and forces in our history that we can redefine. There are messages we can add to humanity. For example, it is a well-known fact that the administrators of Turks about democracy always do business in consultation and form assemblies. If we think about them well, what we see as a hindrance to our modernization can become our strength. For example, even our obedience culture can provide significant advantages in this regard. If we can demonstrate and defeat the slavish form of obedience to another, perhaps we can lay the foundations for a new merit-based system of respect. For example, structures that worked well in our history, such as the council of elders and the advisory board, can be an alternative to the deceptions of the current democracy, to worshiping the leader. We can establish a “democratic meritocracy” of our own.The group of deserving people that the society will agree on may be the group of the wise. Leaders can make decisions by getting their approval.
TURKISH YURDU Mr. Göka, I see that there are many topics to talk about. In this limited conversation, my questions are not over, I guess you have not finished what you have to say either. It was an exciting and useful meeting. Finally, is there anything you would like to add?
EROL GÖKA As you mentioned, Turkish group behavior is a fun but very difficult field to study. I am aware of these difficulties. For example, my dear teacher Oğuz Adanır says, “The behavior patterns that you attribute to these Turks exist in all pre-capitalist (pre-capitalist) societies.” This of course can happen. But to examine what is unique to Turks, to examine the ties between Turkish and Turkish behavior, is a good thing despite some methodological problems. Even if I make a mistake, we will receive a reward from this study. I think it is important to do such a study with the title of “Turkish”. In the future, there will be new researchers who will explain it better than I can, explain it better and investigate it. The title “Turkish Group Behavior” is quite provocative and it’s good to be provoked in the scientific world.So while I respect the criticism that this book is premature, I would like to say that it’s not really harmful to rush it. The reactions after the book was published reinforced my belief. Good thing I rushed. Thanks to my concerns about being scientific, I can now present the topics of “Turkish group behavior or the psychology of Turks”, which you could never talk about before, at scientific congresses. Now I have the opportunity to present my ideas in an organized way with the book. If we have a mistake and we have a life, we will fix it, the doomsday will not come, as long as our intentions are pure.Thanks to my concerns about being scientific, I can now present the topics of “Turkish group behavior or the psychology of Turks”, which you could never talk about before, at scientific congresses. Now I have the opportunity to present my ideas in an organized way with the book. If we have a mistake and we have a life, we will fix it, the doomsday will not come, as long as our intentions are pure.Thanks to my concerns about being scientific, I can now present the topics of “Turkish group behavior or the psychology of Turks”, which you could never talk about before, at scientific congresses. Now I have the opportunity to present my ideas in an organized way with the book. If we have a mistake and we have a life, we will fix it, the doomsday will not come, as long as our intentions are pure.
TURKISH HORLD I think that your work will play a stimulating role in the Turkish intellectual public opinion. I hope readers and writers of Türk Yurdu will show interest. Perhaps you will receive criticism on this speech. The subject will continue to be discussed. I guess you see it as a win. On behalf of Türk Yurdu magazine, we thank you for your time.
INTERVIEW DATE: 4 June 2006
Interview: Dr. Fahri ATASOY
Journal of Turkish Homeland, Volume 26, Issue 228, August 2006, Pages 39 – 48
http://www.erolgoka.net/turk-grup-davranisi-kitabi-uzerine/
