I've got a system of keeping things that ensures that I never lose them. However, sometimes, I lose the container or bag that's keeping those things, or I forget which compartments I've kept them in.
When I reach into my pocket and find that my keys or my handphone isn't there, I'm usually screwed because my supposedly fool-proof keeping system causes me to not attend to the item's steps, so there isn't any memory whatsoever left to trace.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Saturday, 27 February 2010
The next time you get stuck in a rut and feel so stressed out that life couldn't suck any more than it does right at that very moment, just take a moment to visualize that ideal future you're going to have.
And then next think, that when that point in time where you're living your future and dreams comes, this horrid moment right now would merely be nothing but a speck in a time past, rendering all dwelling on it silly and absurd.
Nothing can get you down once you're acutely aware that the world and time goes on regardless of your petty problems.
And then next think, that when that point in time where you're living your future and dreams comes, this horrid moment right now would merely be nothing but a speck in a time past, rendering all dwelling on it silly and absurd.
Nothing can get you down once you're acutely aware that the world and time goes on regardless of your petty problems.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Peeves
Your peeves may appear to be trivial to you or anybody else, but I think they are important. This is because they are manifestations of principles you hold that have been violated.
I guess that's why learning about someone's peeves is something we naturally do when we get to know new friends or consider romantic potentials. A lot can be discovered about what a person is like based on his or her peeves, and often they are more accurate because peeves are trivial enough to be unconscious, indicating that he/she isn't putting up a conscious front to grandly exhibit it.
I guess that's why learning about someone's peeves is something we naturally do when we get to know new friends or consider romantic potentials. A lot can be discovered about what a person is like based on his or her peeves, and often they are more accurate because peeves are trivial enough to be unconscious, indicating that he/she isn't putting up a conscious front to grandly exhibit it.
Monday, 22 February 2010
First-Borns And Later-Borns
It's time for another generalization, and here it goes. First-borns tend to hang out with first-borns, and later-borns tend to hang out with later-borns. (First-borns meaning the eldest sibling in a family or the only child, and later-borns meaning siblings born later.)
If you're skeptical, just have a look at the social groups you're closer to not merely by virtue of organization, but by virtue of how genuinely well-connected and on good terms you are with them.
Research has found that first-borns tend to be less open (more conforming, traditional and closely identified with parents), more conscientious (more responsible, achievement-oriented, serious, and organized), more antagonistic (less agreeable, approachable, popular and easygoing), and more neurotic (less well-adjusted, more anxious). They are also more assertive and leaderly.
What accounts for the difference? Evolutionary psychology theory proposes that each child develops in a different family ecology, forms a different strategy for surviving childhood and attempts to establish his or her own character given the pressures of living in resource-limited conditions, which are partly developmental and partly political where siblings compete for the affection and attention of parents.
First-borns attain the attention of parents by virtue of simply being alive first, and therefore see newcomers as usurpers to their thrones of existence. First-borns thus identify more with parents and should resist changes to the status quo, which has served them well so far, making them conservatives and bullies. Second-born children have to cope in a world that has this obvious obstruction to the attention of parents, and thus would cultivate opposite strategies, becoming appeasers and cooperators. With less at stake at the status quo game, they should thus be receptive to change too.
In this sense, it might appear that first-borns tend to be more independent, while later-borns tend to be more community-oriented.
Interestingly, it was found that in all sorts of shake-ups (such as the Copernican revolution, Darwinism, the French National Convention, the Protestant Reformation and the American reform movement), later-borns were more likely to lend support, while first-borns were more likely to be reactionary and opposed. Later-born scientists are also less specialized, indicating that they are more willing to try their hand in a greater number of scientific fields.
With such fundamental differences (not in terms of hobbies and interests but in terms of principles, outlooks in life and moral values), it is no surprise if it is the case that first-borns tend to associate more naturally with first-borns.
-----------------------------------------
If you find yourself an exception to the case presented above, it is likely that the effect is mitigated by gender and age-gap. Say, for example, that you are a first-born who has more later-born friends. It is likely that your later-born friends have elder siblings of opposite gender, and/or their elder siblings are considerably much older, so they actually behave in a manner that is less affected by the presence of other siblings (and thus appear to be more first-born-like).
The effect of one's birth order in the family on one's character is particularly due to the nature of competition. By that logic, then, one needs to compete with a sibling more if the sibling is of the same gender (where there are more similarly relevant things to compete about) or if the sibling is close in age.
If you're skeptical, just have a look at the social groups you're closer to not merely by virtue of organization, but by virtue of how genuinely well-connected and on good terms you are with them.
Research has found that first-borns tend to be less open (more conforming, traditional and closely identified with parents), more conscientious (more responsible, achievement-oriented, serious, and organized), more antagonistic (less agreeable, approachable, popular and easygoing), and more neurotic (less well-adjusted, more anxious). They are also more assertive and leaderly.
What accounts for the difference? Evolutionary psychology theory proposes that each child develops in a different family ecology, forms a different strategy for surviving childhood and attempts to establish his or her own character given the pressures of living in resource-limited conditions, which are partly developmental and partly political where siblings compete for the affection and attention of parents.
First-borns attain the attention of parents by virtue of simply being alive first, and therefore see newcomers as usurpers to their thrones of existence. First-borns thus identify more with parents and should resist changes to the status quo, which has served them well so far, making them conservatives and bullies. Second-born children have to cope in a world that has this obvious obstruction to the attention of parents, and thus would cultivate opposite strategies, becoming appeasers and cooperators. With less at stake at the status quo game, they should thus be receptive to change too.
In this sense, it might appear that first-borns tend to be more independent, while later-borns tend to be more community-oriented.
Interestingly, it was found that in all sorts of shake-ups (such as the Copernican revolution, Darwinism, the French National Convention, the Protestant Reformation and the American reform movement), later-borns were more likely to lend support, while first-borns were more likely to be reactionary and opposed. Later-born scientists are also less specialized, indicating that they are more willing to try their hand in a greater number of scientific fields.
With such fundamental differences (not in terms of hobbies and interests but in terms of principles, outlooks in life and moral values), it is no surprise if it is the case that first-borns tend to associate more naturally with first-borns.
-----------------------------------------
If you find yourself an exception to the case presented above, it is likely that the effect is mitigated by gender and age-gap. Say, for example, that you are a first-born who has more later-born friends. It is likely that your later-born friends have elder siblings of opposite gender, and/or their elder siblings are considerably much older, so they actually behave in a manner that is less affected by the presence of other siblings (and thus appear to be more first-born-like).
The effect of one's birth order in the family on one's character is particularly due to the nature of competition. By that logic, then, one needs to compete with a sibling more if the sibling is of the same gender (where there are more similarly relevant things to compete about) or if the sibling is close in age.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Society Of Artists
A society of artists deeply intrigues me. It must be pretty close to the kind of public sphere I'd want to be. Knowing the generally stereotypical but pretty much accurate personality of genuine artists (not those who are merely superficially engaging in their art) - introverted, quirky, weird, reclusive, anti-social, profound, quiet, reserved, removed, detached - the kind of community made up of such people will be so far removed from social formalities that it will be a sort of utopia for me.
I might be naive in hoping that such a fantasy place will be the furthest removed away from the clutches of gross human nature, because most artists are quacks and weirdos anyway who have chosen not to subscribe to a 'normal' world for whatever reason - an inability to fit in, or the refusal to do so. In such a fantasy place, the things most worth living for are the artworks each individual entrusts his or her soul and truth to, while the individual himself or herself fades into the insignificant backdrop.
I might be naive in hoping that such a fantasy place will be the furthest removed away from the clutches of gross human nature, because most artists are quacks and weirdos anyway who have chosen not to subscribe to a 'normal' world for whatever reason - an inability to fit in, or the refusal to do so. In such a fantasy place, the things most worth living for are the artworks each individual entrusts his or her soul and truth to, while the individual himself or herself fades into the insignificant backdrop.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Aiya One Year To Go Only!
My family had our Chinese New Year reunion dinner a whole week earlier because of crowd aversion. Also, we are well aware of the skyrocketed prices and potentially poor service during the maddening frenzy of CNY's eve, so everyone was in agreement to celebrate in advance.
One of the lingering conversation topics circled around university graduation. Whenever I reply to some aunt or uncle that I have a year left to go when asked of my graduation, I'm 'consoled' with something along the lines of "oh, aiya one year to go only, just hang in there lah, soon you'll finally be done with studying and then you'll be able to find a job and start work. Besides, the economy is picking up so it's good."
I am grateful for their good intentions because I believe that they truly mean well for me. But it is interesting how reflective this is of my family's socioeconomic background and class, and even further, how our particular socioeconomic background and class is especially embedded in very Singaporean attitudes.
For one, to my largely middle class family, education is a good to have, but work and money still walks the talk at the end of the day. The fees of tertiary education is something to be grappled with, sometimes even toeing the limits of tolerance. Now that I've even had a university education, it's time to cash in on the 'luck' of being endowed with some-whatever degree. Even more implicit is the idea that tertiary education is a bonus, because I'm not expected to enjoy my time studying. The common consensus is - who on earth likes to study this stuff anyway? The four years in university is most importantly a means to another end, not an end in itself.
This is corroborated by my other same-age cousins who talk about university in modest (or even deprecative) fashion, and can't wait to get it done with to embark on the real world out there, with the very honest intention of finally being able to prove one's worth (which has nothing to do with being academically inclined), support the family and repay what one has owed to the folks for so long.
In particular, I can sense the pride one of my uncles has, because his son and daughter have both finally graduated and are earning their own keep, even if their jobs aren't particularly very high-flying or promising in terms of wages or advancement.
I think this is a strongly Singaporean attitude because most of it can be found in our booming middle class. This seems like a circular argument where the issue often ends up being chicken-egg - did the booming middle class lead to Singaporean attitudes or vice versa - but whatever it is, education in our meritocratic society is regarded largely in very pragmatic terms by most of us. The middle class/the most Singaporean of the lot doesn't study to further causes, knowledge or ideas, he does so to ensure a 'decent' job, to keep himself safely away from the bottom of the competitve heap, and to avoid unnecessary troubles in life. This is, of course, a generalization. People do care sometimes if their jobs are prestigious, especially as one rises in social class. But once more, what the education was isn't quite the real deal ultimately.
With this in mind, I never let them in on my desire to further my education, because I can imagine the gasps of horror when this fella here states his psychotic intention of adding four more years of studying after finally graduating. What on earth could I possibly be thinking? Who in his right mind would want to repeat that school nonsense all over again? Explanation would be futile because no one would understand, and they'd gleefully team up to beat me into pulp and wake me up to my senses.
Hopefully the reality of the path I've chosen can speak for itself in a year's time. It does make me feel sheepish or guilty somewhat at times when I look at my aspirations in relation to others. But in the end, I do know what I really want at the end of the tunnel.
One of the lingering conversation topics circled around university graduation. Whenever I reply to some aunt or uncle that I have a year left to go when asked of my graduation, I'm 'consoled' with something along the lines of "oh, aiya one year to go only, just hang in there lah, soon you'll finally be done with studying and then you'll be able to find a job and start work. Besides, the economy is picking up so it's good."
I am grateful for their good intentions because I believe that they truly mean well for me. But it is interesting how reflective this is of my family's socioeconomic background and class, and even further, how our particular socioeconomic background and class is especially embedded in very Singaporean attitudes.
For one, to my largely middle class family, education is a good to have, but work and money still walks the talk at the end of the day. The fees of tertiary education is something to be grappled with, sometimes even toeing the limits of tolerance. Now that I've even had a university education, it's time to cash in on the 'luck' of being endowed with some-whatever degree. Even more implicit is the idea that tertiary education is a bonus, because I'm not expected to enjoy my time studying. The common consensus is - who on earth likes to study this stuff anyway? The four years in university is most importantly a means to another end, not an end in itself.
This is corroborated by my other same-age cousins who talk about university in modest (or even deprecative) fashion, and can't wait to get it done with to embark on the real world out there, with the very honest intention of finally being able to prove one's worth (which has nothing to do with being academically inclined), support the family and repay what one has owed to the folks for so long.
In particular, I can sense the pride one of my uncles has, because his son and daughter have both finally graduated and are earning their own keep, even if their jobs aren't particularly very high-flying or promising in terms of wages or advancement.
I think this is a strongly Singaporean attitude because most of it can be found in our booming middle class. This seems like a circular argument where the issue often ends up being chicken-egg - did the booming middle class lead to Singaporean attitudes or vice versa - but whatever it is, education in our meritocratic society is regarded largely in very pragmatic terms by most of us. The middle class/the most Singaporean of the lot doesn't study to further causes, knowledge or ideas, he does so to ensure a 'decent' job, to keep himself safely away from the bottom of the competitve heap, and to avoid unnecessary troubles in life. This is, of course, a generalization. People do care sometimes if their jobs are prestigious, especially as one rises in social class. But once more, what the education was isn't quite the real deal ultimately.
With this in mind, I never let them in on my desire to further my education, because I can imagine the gasps of horror when this fella here states his psychotic intention of adding four more years of studying after finally graduating. What on earth could I possibly be thinking? Who in his right mind would want to repeat that school nonsense all over again? Explanation would be futile because no one would understand, and they'd gleefully team up to beat me into pulp and wake me up to my senses.
Hopefully the reality of the path I've chosen can speak for itself in a year's time. It does make me feel sheepish or guilty somewhat at times when I look at my aspirations in relation to others. But in the end, I do know what I really want at the end of the tunnel.
The Conflicted Nature Of Rural Development
Six weeks of Political Science Study Mission (PSSM) research, articles, readings and analyses has taken me through the dynasties of China to the founding struggles of modern China to today's contemporary China, which is grappling with being both the country with the fastest economic growth of the world and the country with its rural areas housing some of the world's most impoverished populations.
With regards to poverty and underdevelopment, what has consistently appeared is the trade off between economic development and dedicated social welfare, which I think corroborates at least somewhat with my opinions about charity and poverty.
If one dedicates government budget to public spending, such as health and education, there is a social safety net where minimum levels of welfare are met. However, it rarely stops here, because this is seen as stagnation in the eyes of a country that wants to press forward economically. Welfare eventually has to switch hands from public to private, and before long decentralization, where government transfers the reins of hospitals and schools to the market, leads to social welfare institutions competing on the market for their own resources and capital in order to stay afloat.
In a nutshell, when welfare becomes a privatised issue, the costs are always transfered to the consumers (in accordance with economic math). This is because non-private ventures are at odds with profit-driven aims, which are fundamental to efficient economics of firms in the private sector. Before long, even the smallest social inequalities of the poor in these rural villages are magnified, as the poorest of the lot benefit the least from market reform and economic development because they are too poor to participate.
What has always happened is that those hospitals that once guaranteed health care services become too expensive or inaccessible to the poorest (ironically the ones who need the services the most) whenever those hospitals are forced to fend for themselves on the market.
And I think China is worth giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not the government is honest about its efforts to take care of the poor. If we look at, perhaps, Sub-saharan Africa, one can rightfully accuse corrupt governments of conceited efforts towards poverty reduction. But because China's policies are quite possibly an honest attempt at dealing with the issues of its rural poor, the intentions of the government does not confound with this issue of the trade off between economic development and social welfare dedication.
Once again, it appears that any meaningful attempt at targeting poverty should leave the market - the corporations, the economy, the private bank loans - out of the picture. Based on the historical evidence, public/social/welfare doesn't mix well with private endeavours (which I would believe is why even private firms that announce their wish to be socially responsible have to engage in an activity as perverse and convoluted as Corporate Social Responsibility, which still has profits as the bottom-line).
With regards to poverty and underdevelopment, what has consistently appeared is the trade off between economic development and dedicated social welfare, which I think corroborates at least somewhat with my opinions about charity and poverty.
If one dedicates government budget to public spending, such as health and education, there is a social safety net where minimum levels of welfare are met. However, it rarely stops here, because this is seen as stagnation in the eyes of a country that wants to press forward economically. Welfare eventually has to switch hands from public to private, and before long decentralization, where government transfers the reins of hospitals and schools to the market, leads to social welfare institutions competing on the market for their own resources and capital in order to stay afloat.
In a nutshell, when welfare becomes a privatised issue, the costs are always transfered to the consumers (in accordance with economic math). This is because non-private ventures are at odds with profit-driven aims, which are fundamental to efficient economics of firms in the private sector. Before long, even the smallest social inequalities of the poor in these rural villages are magnified, as the poorest of the lot benefit the least from market reform and economic development because they are too poor to participate.
What has always happened is that those hospitals that once guaranteed health care services become too expensive or inaccessible to the poorest (ironically the ones who need the services the most) whenever those hospitals are forced to fend for themselves on the market.
And I think China is worth giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not the government is honest about its efforts to take care of the poor. If we look at, perhaps, Sub-saharan Africa, one can rightfully accuse corrupt governments of conceited efforts towards poverty reduction. But because China's policies are quite possibly an honest attempt at dealing with the issues of its rural poor, the intentions of the government does not confound with this issue of the trade off between economic development and social welfare dedication.
Once again, it appears that any meaningful attempt at targeting poverty should leave the market - the corporations, the economy, the private bank loans - out of the picture. Based on the historical evidence, public/social/welfare doesn't mix well with private endeavours (which I would believe is why even private firms that announce their wish to be socially responsible have to engage in an activity as perverse and convoluted as Corporate Social Responsibility, which still has profits as the bottom-line).
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Capitalism Vs Family
As we 'modernize' more and more, I think we're coming closer to defining the family more so in terms of its technical, biological function rather than an integrated social unit where children are raised, values are inculcated, and parents, siblings and relatives love one another.
I put 'modernize' in inverted commas because I'm only using 'modernize' in terms of what is commonly accepted nowadays as positive development and progression. It says nothing about whether we are better off now than in the past, when we were not so 'modern'.
It is important to note that modernization is implicitly linked with economic development, which is the result of the adoption of capitalism at either high or moderate levels. Contemporary theories regard being economically developed and GDP-rich as modernized.
As a result of modernization in this sense, the traditional functions of the family are outsourced to various institutions external to the family. Education is served by schools, employment is served by corporations, community is served by social groups, welfare is served by the government and justice is served by the law.
The human connection that came about as relatives interacted within the traditional family system to help each other satisfy these needs get compromised, as institutions take over important roles that people once held in the traditional family system. It is really not surprising why people feel alienated and dissatisfied in modern times, because we are social creatures. Institutions may be more specialized and efficient, but at the end of the day nothing can substitute for the joy and deep human connection from interacting with another person. We evolved to be that way for thousands of years.
Additionally, externalizing the duties of the family to institutions simply makes the family more dysfunctional as a purposeful social unit.
Next, the great emphasis on money, especially money maximization in our modern liberal/capitalist context, strongly undermined the importance of the woman's role in the family. I actually don't think that feminists would be so worked up about how discontented they are about being 'relegated' to domestic roles if these domestic roles were regarded as respectable. Money-making has become such a preoccupation that domestic jobs are considered for the 'lesser' of the sexes to carry out. In fact, in Singapore where females have relatively favourable access to employment and salary, women have increasingly abandoned the role of being domestic wives, juggling wage-earning and child-bearing at the same time. When it comes to the crunch of choosing between these two responsibilities, women are even increasingly prioritizing wage-earning. So, we get the extremely low birth rate of Singapore.
As families increasingly lose their traditions to a liberal system that sees human connection as unimportant and inefficient, to the point where traditions are completely obsolete, can we really still call that a family?
I put 'modernize' in inverted commas because I'm only using 'modernize' in terms of what is commonly accepted nowadays as positive development and progression. It says nothing about whether we are better off now than in the past, when we were not so 'modern'.
It is important to note that modernization is implicitly linked with economic development, which is the result of the adoption of capitalism at either high or moderate levels. Contemporary theories regard being economically developed and GDP-rich as modernized.
As a result of modernization in this sense, the traditional functions of the family are outsourced to various institutions external to the family. Education is served by schools, employment is served by corporations, community is served by social groups, welfare is served by the government and justice is served by the law.
The human connection that came about as relatives interacted within the traditional family system to help each other satisfy these needs get compromised, as institutions take over important roles that people once held in the traditional family system. It is really not surprising why people feel alienated and dissatisfied in modern times, because we are social creatures. Institutions may be more specialized and efficient, but at the end of the day nothing can substitute for the joy and deep human connection from interacting with another person. We evolved to be that way for thousands of years.
Additionally, externalizing the duties of the family to institutions simply makes the family more dysfunctional as a purposeful social unit.
Next, the great emphasis on money, especially money maximization in our modern liberal/capitalist context, strongly undermined the importance of the woman's role in the family. I actually don't think that feminists would be so worked up about how discontented they are about being 'relegated' to domestic roles if these domestic roles were regarded as respectable. Money-making has become such a preoccupation that domestic jobs are considered for the 'lesser' of the sexes to carry out. In fact, in Singapore where females have relatively favourable access to employment and salary, women have increasingly abandoned the role of being domestic wives, juggling wage-earning and child-bearing at the same time. When it comes to the crunch of choosing between these two responsibilities, women are even increasingly prioritizing wage-earning. So, we get the extremely low birth rate of Singapore.
As families increasingly lose their traditions to a liberal system that sees human connection as unimportant and inefficient, to the point where traditions are completely obsolete, can we really still call that a family?
Monday, 1 February 2010
My Issue With Statistics
My friend tells me that there is a 99% chance he will turn up for our meeting.
He doesn't come.
Was he lying?
He doesn't come.
Was he lying?
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy
That's quite a bit of insight on the reality that when the time for change is upon us, we'd be better off figuring out how best to adapt than to oppose. Although this doesn't say anything about the moral content of the resultant change.
- John F. Kennedy
That's quite a bit of insight on the reality that when the time for change is upon us, we'd be better off figuring out how best to adapt than to oppose. Although this doesn't say anything about the moral content of the resultant change.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
ROME - An Italian man who argued with his son over Sony PlayStation tactics was recovering in hospital on Monday after the teenager stabbed him in the neck with a 15-inch kitchen knife, police and hospital officials said.
The man, identified as Fabrizio R., suffered a deep cut to the throat after his 16-year-old son, Mario, attacked him during an argument on Sunday over the soccer video game FIFA 2009.
Police said the argument broke out when the 46-year-old storekeeper offered his son advice on tactics to improve his play, and then turned the television off in response to his son's behavior.
Fetching a knife from the kitchen, Mario stabbed his father in the neck before returning to clean the weapon at the kitchen sink in front of his mother and leaving it to dry on the draining-board. Forty-six year-old housewife Monica B,. told Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera that she had no idea what had happened until her husband stumbled into the room, clutching his throat.
"I saw Mario come back into the room, he seemed calm, he went to the sink and I noticed him washing a knife," Monica told the newspaper. "Then my husband came into the room with a hand round his neck, dripping blood."
The teenager shut himself in his bedroom after the attack and made no attempt to resist arrest, police said.
The game had been given to Mario a few days earlier, as a birthday present.
"Mario is obsessed. He's forever playing on his PlayStation, and we bought him FIFA 2009 because we didn't want him playing violent games," his mother told Il Corriere.
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That is exactly the reason why my mum let my brother get Winning Eleven - to stop him from getting more violent games. He's all about Grand Theft Auto and other first person shooter games. Luckily I haven't lectured him on how to improve his play.
The man, identified as Fabrizio R., suffered a deep cut to the throat after his 16-year-old son, Mario, attacked him during an argument on Sunday over the soccer video game FIFA 2009.
Police said the argument broke out when the 46-year-old storekeeper offered his son advice on tactics to improve his play, and then turned the television off in response to his son's behavior.
Fetching a knife from the kitchen, Mario stabbed his father in the neck before returning to clean the weapon at the kitchen sink in front of his mother and leaving it to dry on the draining-board. Forty-six year-old housewife Monica B,. told Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera that she had no idea what had happened until her husband stumbled into the room, clutching his throat.
"I saw Mario come back into the room, he seemed calm, he went to the sink and I noticed him washing a knife," Monica told the newspaper. "Then my husband came into the room with a hand round his neck, dripping blood."
The teenager shut himself in his bedroom after the attack and made no attempt to resist arrest, police said.
The game had been given to Mario a few days earlier, as a birthday present.
"Mario is obsessed. He's forever playing on his PlayStation, and we bought him FIFA 2009 because we didn't want him playing violent games," his mother told Il Corriere.
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That is exactly the reason why my mum let my brother get Winning Eleven - to stop him from getting more violent games. He's all about Grand Theft Auto and other first person shooter games. Luckily I haven't lectured him on how to improve his play.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Of Virtue And Self-Interest
In Section 3 - Thrasymachus and the Rejection of Conventional Morality - of Part I of The Republic, Socrates is faced with a fierce (albeit petty) advocate of "justice as the interest of the stronger" in the form of Thrasymachus.
It is noteworthy that Socrates, a proponent of virtue and objective morality, never really deals convincingly with this postulation that the more powerful person determines what justice is. Such thinking is embedded in the realist school of thought, with its subsequent and significant catchphrases like 'history is written by the winners', 'those in power determine everything' and 'might is right'. When one thinks of justice as essentially a system of fairness and the restoration of equity, one realizes that 'justice' is really a plaything in the hands of realists.
That is not to say that Socrates' idealism is worthless. Socrates appeals to the idea that there is a fundamental good, and although it is difficult for mere human mortals to pinpoint what it is, we can all agree that it all stems from life itself. Throw a baby in a swimming pool and it struggles to survive. Another is possibly social relationships. We cannot do without our parents, and we often cannot do without friends. There are certain tendencies that are part of our nature qua human beings. That is why I think it is morally correct to respect life, which relevantly makes any issues dealing with life, especially the termination of it, difficult ones. The fact that most of us can agree that humanity flourishes when there are things like love, justice, harmony and goodness instead of hate, injustice, disunity and evil is indicative of some objective good, morality or truth.
On the other hand, Thrasymachus is a realist who believes that injustice pays more - obviously the just man is going to come off worse in a transaction with an unjust man who is going to undercut him. Thrasymachus postulates from a position that is fundamentally competitive and subjective - justice is served by whoever has the power to wield it.
Essentially, Socrates posits an argument of justice based on objective morals, while Thrasymachus posits an argument of justice based on competition for profit.
In reality it is extremely impractical to follow through on Socrates' recommendation. Anybody who wants to right the wrongs of a few thousand years by setting an example of himself based on Socrates' virtues as a just man is bound to perish, because the system we live in provides no sympathy or room for a heart of gold. However, Socrates appeals very deeply to me because of the very romantic idea that there is the possibility of ideal goodness. In this daydream, one sees how rotten to the core we are, as we exist so far away from that ideal today.
What's the prescription for utopia, one might ask. Ideally, we should rely less on the government, because the legal system simply cannot cover every dispute. In other words, there can't be rules on the right thing to do for everything. Teach kids well about what makes a good man of virtue and excellence, and let that be the guiding light that fills in the gaps of the legal system, and that lead him or her to go through life with other people well.
Singapore is easily the country with the most rules and laws on this planet. Singaporeans have internalized the rules accordingly, and parents teach their kids from young to be competitive and that it is good to be better than others and make more money than everyone else. What results is a rigidity and inflexibility captured well in kiasu-ism that is unparalleled anywhere else. But what else can we expect from being run by possibly the best practitioner of realism and the most exemplary student of Macchiavellianism?
It is noteworthy that Socrates, a proponent of virtue and objective morality, never really deals convincingly with this postulation that the more powerful person determines what justice is. Such thinking is embedded in the realist school of thought, with its subsequent and significant catchphrases like 'history is written by the winners', 'those in power determine everything' and 'might is right'. When one thinks of justice as essentially a system of fairness and the restoration of equity, one realizes that 'justice' is really a plaything in the hands of realists.
That is not to say that Socrates' idealism is worthless. Socrates appeals to the idea that there is a fundamental good, and although it is difficult for mere human mortals to pinpoint what it is, we can all agree that it all stems from life itself. Throw a baby in a swimming pool and it struggles to survive. Another is possibly social relationships. We cannot do without our parents, and we often cannot do without friends. There are certain tendencies that are part of our nature qua human beings. That is why I think it is morally correct to respect life, which relevantly makes any issues dealing with life, especially the termination of it, difficult ones. The fact that most of us can agree that humanity flourishes when there are things like love, justice, harmony and goodness instead of hate, injustice, disunity and evil is indicative of some objective good, morality or truth.
On the other hand, Thrasymachus is a realist who believes that injustice pays more - obviously the just man is going to come off worse in a transaction with an unjust man who is going to undercut him. Thrasymachus postulates from a position that is fundamentally competitive and subjective - justice is served by whoever has the power to wield it.
Essentially, Socrates posits an argument of justice based on objective morals, while Thrasymachus posits an argument of justice based on competition for profit.
In reality it is extremely impractical to follow through on Socrates' recommendation. Anybody who wants to right the wrongs of a few thousand years by setting an example of himself based on Socrates' virtues as a just man is bound to perish, because the system we live in provides no sympathy or room for a heart of gold. However, Socrates appeals very deeply to me because of the very romantic idea that there is the possibility of ideal goodness. In this daydream, one sees how rotten to the core we are, as we exist so far away from that ideal today.
What's the prescription for utopia, one might ask. Ideally, we should rely less on the government, because the legal system simply cannot cover every dispute. In other words, there can't be rules on the right thing to do for everything. Teach kids well about what makes a good man of virtue and excellence, and let that be the guiding light that fills in the gaps of the legal system, and that lead him or her to go through life with other people well.
Singapore is easily the country with the most rules and laws on this planet. Singaporeans have internalized the rules accordingly, and parents teach their kids from young to be competitive and that it is good to be better than others and make more money than everyone else. What results is a rigidity and inflexibility captured well in kiasu-ism that is unparalleled anywhere else. But what else can we expect from being run by possibly the best practitioner of realism and the most exemplary student of Macchiavellianism?
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Thanatos
I squinted under the glare of the hot midday sun as I impatiently waited with about a dozen other people for the red man to turn green at a junction near Bugis Street. My eyes were starting to hurt a little as my contact lenses got drier. I wrote a mental note to self: No more overusing these damned things.
I fidgeted under the heat, shifted a little, and stared around my feet to avoid the sun's rays. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping to get rid of the irritating feeling of abrasion between eye and lens.
It all seemed to happened in an instant: the loud extended blaring of a car horn, the sickening screech of tires, and the sensation of flying through the air, all before I could reopen my eyes - too fast for me to even feel the ceremonial pain that should have coursed through my body after being hit straight on by a 90 mph car that has lost all control. I might have even felt the crunch of my neck hugging the traffic light next to me like one of those slow motion videos where you watch a baseball altering its shape after being struck by a bat in mid-flight, as I ricocheted off like a ragdoll. But look who's counting. Everything was in the surreal realm of being neither fast nor slow, or loud nor silent. It lends credit to Einstein's view that time as a dimension is indeed relative.
I must have settled in a heap face up a few metres away, because it was moments before I saw the blur of a crowd gathering around and heard the drowning commotion of noise and chatter. The heat from the asphalt was cooking my skin.
I was frozen; I simply couldn't process what was going on and my body felt paralyzed. I recall that freezing is an evolutionary mechanism much like panicking or fainting, because the body involuntarily locks up and doesn't move to prevent predators from spotting you in a potentially dangerous situation. I guess the shock must've triggered the wrong survival mechanisms here, or I was simply paralyzed because my bones were smashed or something. It's funny how the words from a professor took precedence over thinking about the dire situation I was in, but these thoughts dysfunctionally poured out along with what I figured must be blood, as I gradually felt surrounded by an unmistakably thick fluid that flowed down my temples, legs and arms.
-
I'm really fine; my sincere apologies for the false alarm to those who got worried and I'm grateful for the concern! This post really was inspired (the irony) by wondering about what would really happen if a car had indeed spun out of control into the crowd waiting to cross the road at Bugis Street. I was in that crowd too bearing the heated wrath of the sun.
Incidentally, 'thanatos', the daemon personification of death in Greek mythology, is the post-freudian name given to the 'death instinct', which Freud describes as a force that is not essential to the life of an organism and tends to denature it or make it behave in ways that are sometimes counter-intuitive.
I fidgeted under the heat, shifted a little, and stared around my feet to avoid the sun's rays. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping to get rid of the irritating feeling of abrasion between eye and lens.
It all seemed to happened in an instant: the loud extended blaring of a car horn, the sickening screech of tires, and the sensation of flying through the air, all before I could reopen my eyes - too fast for me to even feel the ceremonial pain that should have coursed through my body after being hit straight on by a 90 mph car that has lost all control. I might have even felt the crunch of my neck hugging the traffic light next to me like one of those slow motion videos where you watch a baseball altering its shape after being struck by a bat in mid-flight, as I ricocheted off like a ragdoll. But look who's counting. Everything was in the surreal realm of being neither fast nor slow, or loud nor silent. It lends credit to Einstein's view that time as a dimension is indeed relative.
I must have settled in a heap face up a few metres away, because it was moments before I saw the blur of a crowd gathering around and heard the drowning commotion of noise and chatter. The heat from the asphalt was cooking my skin.
I was frozen; I simply couldn't process what was going on and my body felt paralyzed. I recall that freezing is an evolutionary mechanism much like panicking or fainting, because the body involuntarily locks up and doesn't move to prevent predators from spotting you in a potentially dangerous situation. I guess the shock must've triggered the wrong survival mechanisms here, or I was simply paralyzed because my bones were smashed or something. It's funny how the words from a professor took precedence over thinking about the dire situation I was in, but these thoughts dysfunctionally poured out along with what I figured must be blood, as I gradually felt surrounded by an unmistakably thick fluid that flowed down my temples, legs and arms.
-
I'm really fine; my sincere apologies for the false alarm to those who got worried and I'm grateful for the concern! This post really was inspired (the irony) by wondering about what would really happen if a car had indeed spun out of control into the crowd waiting to cross the road at Bugis Street. I was in that crowd too bearing the heated wrath of the sun.
Incidentally, 'thanatos', the daemon personification of death in Greek mythology, is the post-freudian name given to the 'death instinct', which Freud describes as a force that is not essential to the life of an organism and tends to denature it or make it behave in ways that are sometimes counter-intuitive.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
I was reading up about Chinese intellectuals in popular culture, such as Confucius and Zhuge Liang, when I chanced upon a pictoral depiction of what Zhuge Liang would look like if he was female:
My search digressed, and before long the rest of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms cast came up on the internet. From one particular artist, here are the characters popularized by Red Cliff as ladies:
Guan Yu
Zhang Fei
Sima Yi
My search digressed, and before long the rest of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms cast came up on the internet. From one particular artist, here are the characters popularized by Red Cliff as ladies:
Zhuge Liang
Liu Bei
Guan YuZhang Fei
Zhou Yu
Cao Cao
Sun Quan
Cao Cao
Sun Quan Lu Bu
Sima Yi
What is fascinating about this is that for many male characters that can be positively popularized, there appears to be the desire to portray those characters as a female as well. The thing about this 'positive popularity' is that what makes the male character special is often something alpha - good looks, intelligence, class, power and charisma. Moving away from anime, we have Marvel and DC superheroes with their gender opposites - Supergirl, Batgirl and Spidergirl. Even more recently, we've crossed the species divide with the Chippettes. Even if these portrayals don't make it to the mass media, a scan over the internet will uncover artists who have attempted to find out if there is a viable alternative gender for various male heroes.
What makes it even more interesting is that the reverse hardly holds up - it appears like most people aren't interested to know if a female character can be portrayed as male. Would there be a market for a male Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Well maybe it's just that most of these artists happen to be men and we know what the male mind is capable of when idle. And maybe people find it attractive when a female can hold her own. But that latter consideration runs the risk of being somewhat counterintuitively chauvinistic.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Greek Political Philosophy Ranting
One should forgive me for my constant and perhaps almost irritable pining for the intellectual past when one understands how I, in specifically my own capacity, learn that 'academy' comes from the Greek root words of aka-demos, which means away from the people.
Anyone training for intellectual profession in the pure sense as defined in the past did so in small clusters isolated away from big city areas and common folk. And it wasn't elitism that came along with it but instead a very deep and profound respect for wisdom.
How wonderfully ideal!
The modern layman may wonder why anyone should care so much about the training of these wisequacks; in fact our faculties in Singapore dabbling with wisdom along these lines - philosophy, politics, religion - struggle to get funding if they don't bundle such forms of education with some other economically-viable packages with the appeal to other 'more important' institutions, such as corporations and the government.
But therein lies the answer. Knowledge and wisdom in the ideal past was a valuable resource worth investing in, because knowledge ensured that society gets its due back from the investment placed in these scholars and intellectuals and their years of mastering wisdom. With that kind of respect for wisdom, you'd expect to find a society that wants to live in harmony, because that is what the best wisdom provides. But we don't get that anymore because in our modern world, knowledge and objective truth is irrelevant. Money and power is the be all end all. Intentionally or not, this is the kind of world capitalism gives rise to. There is no justice - laws as we see them today across the globe are not meant to restore equity in the balance but are instead enacted to preserve the power of the ruling elite.
-
It is also fascinating to learn that the modern English word 'enthusiasm' comes from the Greek word 'enthusiasmos', which refers to a state of being 'infused with the gods'. To comprehend why there is an important distinction between the modern 'enthusiasm' as we know it and the 'enthusiasm' as the ancient Greeks understood it, one must realize that they believed that there was a deep connection between themselves and the gods. There is a relationship between oneself and the kosmos, and one can either rupture it by severing oneself from divine order, or respect it and participate within it. When an artist produces a grand work of art, he often attributes it to having been taken over by divine inspiration; the work did not come from him alone. This wasn't a blind and mindless faith to religion, but rather an enlightened understanding that there is something greater than the self. It was a great respect for the divine which pervades into all other great things, such as nature and order.
-
In many ways, political systems are all reflections of the hierarchical relationship between man and God - the hierarchy of the ruler down to the smallest man is a replication of the cosmological (divine) order and the existence of political order is a reflection of our participation in the divine order.
That's why Lee Kuan Yew's quip that in any political system, it is the quality of the ruler that is the most important, is so importantly true. The king is supposed to be the figure of God on Earth, and only from his goodness can the rest of society under his political system be in harmony.
It then seems less puzzling why there's the universal traditional notion of the divine right of kings, or the mandate of heaven.
Anyone training for intellectual profession in the pure sense as defined in the past did so in small clusters isolated away from big city areas and common folk. And it wasn't elitism that came along with it but instead a very deep and profound respect for wisdom.
How wonderfully ideal!
The modern layman may wonder why anyone should care so much about the training of these wisequacks; in fact our faculties in Singapore dabbling with wisdom along these lines - philosophy, politics, religion - struggle to get funding if they don't bundle such forms of education with some other economically-viable packages with the appeal to other 'more important' institutions, such as corporations and the government.
But therein lies the answer. Knowledge and wisdom in the ideal past was a valuable resource worth investing in, because knowledge ensured that society gets its due back from the investment placed in these scholars and intellectuals and their years of mastering wisdom. With that kind of respect for wisdom, you'd expect to find a society that wants to live in harmony, because that is what the best wisdom provides. But we don't get that anymore because in our modern world, knowledge and objective truth is irrelevant. Money and power is the be all end all. Intentionally or not, this is the kind of world capitalism gives rise to. There is no justice - laws as we see them today across the globe are not meant to restore equity in the balance but are instead enacted to preserve the power of the ruling elite.
-
It is also fascinating to learn that the modern English word 'enthusiasm' comes from the Greek word 'enthusiasmos', which refers to a state of being 'infused with the gods'. To comprehend why there is an important distinction between the modern 'enthusiasm' as we know it and the 'enthusiasm' as the ancient Greeks understood it, one must realize that they believed that there was a deep connection between themselves and the gods. There is a relationship between oneself and the kosmos, and one can either rupture it by severing oneself from divine order, or respect it and participate within it. When an artist produces a grand work of art, he often attributes it to having been taken over by divine inspiration; the work did not come from him alone. This wasn't a blind and mindless faith to religion, but rather an enlightened understanding that there is something greater than the self. It was a great respect for the divine which pervades into all other great things, such as nature and order.
-
In many ways, political systems are all reflections of the hierarchical relationship between man and God - the hierarchy of the ruler down to the smallest man is a replication of the cosmological (divine) order and the existence of political order is a reflection of our participation in the divine order.
That's why Lee Kuan Yew's quip that in any political system, it is the quality of the ruler that is the most important, is so importantly true. The king is supposed to be the figure of God on Earth, and only from his goodness can the rest of society under his political system be in harmony.
It then seems less puzzling why there's the universal traditional notion of the divine right of kings, or the mandate of heaven.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
This Is Old, But
There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth - call it America - where such a thing happens.
- Ethan Bronner, New York Times, 2008
- Ethan Bronner, New York Times, 2008
In composing op-eds, Chomsky is taking advantage of the fact that our society is still perhaps the freest in the world: openings still exist to challenge the White House, the Pentagon, and the corporations enriched by them. Chomsky believes that the freedom to challenge power is not just an opportunity, it's a responsibility...
Despite the profound inequities in this country and the nightmare of being a nation at war, Chomsky reminds us that ordinary people still have power to drive change. "One of the clearest lessons of history," he writes, "including recent history, is that rights are not granted; they are won." The purpose of the Open Media Series, and of Chomsky's work, is to encourage readers to use their rights for creating greater justice, human rights, democracy, and to insist on a media system which supports them.
- Greg Ruggiero, Editor of Interventions by Noam Chomsky
Despite the profound inequities in this country and the nightmare of being a nation at war, Chomsky reminds us that ordinary people still have power to drive change. "One of the clearest lessons of history," he writes, "including recent history, is that rights are not granted; they are won." The purpose of the Open Media Series, and of Chomsky's work, is to encourage readers to use their rights for creating greater justice, human rights, democracy, and to insist on a media system which supports them.
- Greg Ruggiero, Editor of Interventions by Noam Chomsky
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