Comment on Wee Shu Min and etc
I came across a CNN article on income disparity in Singapore. Some thoughts...
"When Wee Shu Min, the teenage daughter of a Singapore member of parliament stumbled across the blog of a Singaporean who wrote that he was worried about losing his job, she thought she'd give him a piece of her mind.
She called him "one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country" on her own blog and signed off with "please, get out of my elite uncaring face".
What WSM - or , Woman of Shallow Mind - has obviously failed to consider is that 'undermotivation' is just one of the many causes of job loss. There are also a host of other factors such as bigotry and the lack of the requisite cultural and financial resources that disables many from occupying that comfortable position which WSM has obviously taken as a natural and self-acquired right. She obviously is low in empathy, ill-educated in sociological and psychological realities and, well, lacks the essentials of basic humanity. WSM ought to keep in mind that for every motivated person who 'makes it', there are thousands, if not millions more, motivated persons who did not. It is the sign of an intelligent mind where one is led to query after the causes of the latter.
From a sociological perspective, motivation, within a class-based system, can go as far as it can go in improving a person's lot in life - provided it leaves the class-based system intact. That simply means that the system has an in-built protective function - effected via a myriad of psychological, social and institutional means - that ensures that there will always be enough people to maintain the (im)balance.
People like WSM further validate the perspective that the ability to 'blog' is not evidence of intelligence. It is the content that we have to look at. The quality of an opinion, the likes of WSM ought to be reminded, is not derived from the ability to forward an opinion, but the ability to logically justify it.
Another myth that this incident helps in dispelling is that of the 'first class' status of singapore's education system. Yes, the people here might get great marks in maths, etc. But besides proving that they are good at memorising formulas whilst exhibiting a modicum of analytical ability in a specific area, it illustrates little else. Since there really isn't a test here for generic analytical intelligence other than those tested for in specific areas, we cannot say that singapore has a state of the art education system, or, that the minds that it churns out is 'state of the art'. I, personally, have met 19 year olds of average intelligence in the UK who can hold a far more intelligent debate/conversation in areas outside of their field of study, whilst exhibiting knowledge and appreciation of profound sociological and philosophical precepts than people of any age in singapore. Now, they may not get top marks in maths, science, etc, but they are obviously far more intelligent than any person from a 'premium'-level school or University graduate that I've met in singapore. Of course, this would beg the question, 'what then is the purpose of education', or, 'what ought to be the purpose of education'? But that is another matter which i will get into at another time as it goes far beyond the scope of this article.
"We have treated welfare as a dirty word. The opposition, I think the Workers' Party, has called for a 'permanent unconditional needs-based welfare system'. I think that is an even dirtier five words," he(lee kwan yew) said in a speech on November 13.
What the opposition is seeking, I believe, is that the workers are protected against the inevitable consequences that arise from a system which the elite profits immensely and continuously from. In other words, you take from me when times are good, so you must take care of me when times are bad. We expect that from any child in her relationship towards a parent or any beneficiary towards a benefactor. If the child or beneficiary gives in return, we don't say that s/he is good but that s/he is doing her duty for s/he is paying back for what she has received. Should this not be more the case especially where no government is the 'first giver' - unlike a benefactor or a parent - since it is the people who do the giving first? If we consider this point, the people are in fact the 'parents' and the government in question, a grossly ungrateful child who has adopted the convenient belief that the parent is there to be taken advantage of for his own benefit when times are good and left to starve when times are bad.
Finally,
for the information of all, while singapore might rank quite highly when it comes to 'per capita income', the truth of the matter, according to CNN, is, that when income disparity is considered, singapore ranks between Kenya and Burundi.
I always thought that the majority of singaporeans were getting exceedingly poor when compared to the 60s through to the present. The existence of flexible debt repayment schemes only serves to diffuse the impression that we are greatly in debt and that the overall disposal income we might have in a lifetime is significantly lower than the times of our parents and grandparents. But, of course, it requires an increasingly myopic and intellectually docile population to not realise that. I suppose that's 'progress' as far as singapore goes.
"When Wee Shu Min, the teenage daughter of a Singapore member of parliament stumbled across the blog of a Singaporean who wrote that he was worried about losing his job, she thought she'd give him a piece of her mind.
She called him "one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country" on her own blog and signed off with "please, get out of my elite uncaring face".
What WSM - or , Woman of Shallow Mind - has obviously failed to consider is that 'undermotivation' is just one of the many causes of job loss. There are also a host of other factors such as bigotry and the lack of the requisite cultural and financial resources that disables many from occupying that comfortable position which WSM has obviously taken as a natural and self-acquired right. She obviously is low in empathy, ill-educated in sociological and psychological realities and, well, lacks the essentials of basic humanity. WSM ought to keep in mind that for every motivated person who 'makes it', there are thousands, if not millions more, motivated persons who did not. It is the sign of an intelligent mind where one is led to query after the causes of the latter.
From a sociological perspective, motivation, within a class-based system, can go as far as it can go in improving a person's lot in life - provided it leaves the class-based system intact. That simply means that the system has an in-built protective function - effected via a myriad of psychological, social and institutional means - that ensures that there will always be enough people to maintain the (im)balance.
People like WSM further validate the perspective that the ability to 'blog' is not evidence of intelligence. It is the content that we have to look at. The quality of an opinion, the likes of WSM ought to be reminded, is not derived from the ability to forward an opinion, but the ability to logically justify it.
Another myth that this incident helps in dispelling is that of the 'first class' status of singapore's education system. Yes, the people here might get great marks in maths, etc. But besides proving that they are good at memorising formulas whilst exhibiting a modicum of analytical ability in a specific area, it illustrates little else. Since there really isn't a test here for generic analytical intelligence other than those tested for in specific areas, we cannot say that singapore has a state of the art education system, or, that the minds that it churns out is 'state of the art'. I, personally, have met 19 year olds of average intelligence in the UK who can hold a far more intelligent debate/conversation in areas outside of their field of study, whilst exhibiting knowledge and appreciation of profound sociological and philosophical precepts than people of any age in singapore. Now, they may not get top marks in maths, science, etc, but they are obviously far more intelligent than any person from a 'premium'-level school or University graduate that I've met in singapore. Of course, this would beg the question, 'what then is the purpose of education', or, 'what ought to be the purpose of education'? But that is another matter which i will get into at another time as it goes far beyond the scope of this article.
"We have treated welfare as a dirty word. The opposition, I think the Workers' Party, has called for a 'permanent unconditional needs-based welfare system'. I think that is an even dirtier five words," he(lee kwan yew) said in a speech on November 13.
What the opposition is seeking, I believe, is that the workers are protected against the inevitable consequences that arise from a system which the elite profits immensely and continuously from. In other words, you take from me when times are good, so you must take care of me when times are bad. We expect that from any child in her relationship towards a parent or any beneficiary towards a benefactor. If the child or beneficiary gives in return, we don't say that s/he is good but that s/he is doing her duty for s/he is paying back for what she has received. Should this not be more the case especially where no government is the 'first giver' - unlike a benefactor or a parent - since it is the people who do the giving first? If we consider this point, the people are in fact the 'parents' and the government in question, a grossly ungrateful child who has adopted the convenient belief that the parent is there to be taken advantage of for his own benefit when times are good and left to starve when times are bad.
Finally,
for the information of all, while singapore might rank quite highly when it comes to 'per capita income', the truth of the matter, according to CNN, is, that when income disparity is considered, singapore ranks between Kenya and Burundi.
I always thought that the majority of singaporeans were getting exceedingly poor when compared to the 60s through to the present. The existence of flexible debt repayment schemes only serves to diffuse the impression that we are greatly in debt and that the overall disposal income we might have in a lifetime is significantly lower than the times of our parents and grandparents. But, of course, it requires an increasingly myopic and intellectually docile population to not realise that. I suppose that's 'progress' as far as singapore goes.
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1 comments:
I had overlooked posting the link to the CNN article in question. The link follows.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/12/19/singapore.inequalities.reut/index.html
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