Padd Solutions

Converted by Falcon Hive


I'm not the only one amongst the people I know to have opined that Singaporeans are easily offended. I'm also not the only one to have been on the receiving end of their knife-in-the-dark kind of wrath. Nor am I the only person to have been frustrated trying to work something out with them, whether it's a project or just a get-together, and failing due to their lack of commitment, only to have them play victim in the aftermath. At the same time, we quite frequently observe farcical outbursts and quarrels amongst strangers in the street.

All this seems to be a curious mixture. Actually, this bubbling cauldron may be a regular feature amongst urban populations living in high-stress environments. But I think there's a special dimension to this amongst Singaporeans, so let me offer a uniquely Singaporean analysis of how I think this condition comes to be.

I think by now you're not a stranger to the fact that Singapore is an authoritarian society. Dissent faces disapproval at best and sometimes even open persecution. Certainly, it's not very difficult to be obfuscatory about this in legal language. But, when it comes down to it, Singaporeans who care to defend the system would defend it on the basis that that's how things are done over there and that it works.

But we're not exactly interested in the politics of the country now. I'm going to talk about how that translates into the people's behaviour.

And not only is dissent not politically tolerated, there is a consciousness that, as a multicultural society, speech needs to be regulated. Besides the prevalence of censorship backed by the legal stick (as three guys found out recently), I think the indoctrination is so successful that people actively censor themselves from openly saying things that might provoke conflict.

Added to the mixture is a twist of Asian reserve, engendering a dislike for confrontation. The result is a people who tend to be 'quietly' unhappy. Resolving problems with open, honest communication is frequently eschewed for fear of unpleasant emotional encounters. After all, the latter are not the kind of stuff responsible members of the community should engage in.

Hence, we tend to bottle our feelings up, letting them out only behind the backs of the people with whom we are unhappy. But that's not enough sometimes. With all the pressure we are under, we might really need to let off steam. So we take it out on strangers, people that we don't have to see every day and don't have a personal relationship with—bus drivers, public servants, salespeople and etcetera. Hence the quarrels in the street.

Moreover, in such a competitive and authoritarian environment, where the stick is ready to hit and people are ever ready to take your place should you slip, we hate to be wrong. Out of concern for our own good, we will try to push the blame or at least minimise our culpability. In fact, we often want to seem to be the victims because, otherwise, the responsibility is too heavy to bear. Or we might be confronted by angry people.

And when people dare suggest that we are wrong, we bring our personal indignation to bear—we quickly feel offended.

All these symptoms seem to be the hallmarks of passive-aggressive behaviour. And I think that's what we are, a bunch of passive-aggressives. We are also irresponsible since we loathe the full implications of responsibility.

I firmly believe that politics shape the way we live. So I do wonder if the latter is surprising in light of the fact that we're not given the responsibility of political choice.

Simply put, the government thinks we are children and we let that pass. And so we are.


Challenger's defense

@ 10:13 , 0 comments


Without realising it, it's been more than half a year on. I think it's time for a little introspection. I'm actually surprised I haven't done this before, though I remember at least intending to do so. So let's take a look at where this blog has gone, where it stands and what direction it should take in the future.

Looking back at its short history, there have been a few developments. First, there was a short period of uncertainty as to whether it should continue. But I decided that this blog is not so easily found and associated with me such that unfamiliar people can pick out things that they don't like and acquire an immediate prejudice (face it, that's how people tend to operate) against me in real tangible life. So that's history now.

A more interesting development is an evolutionary one—the fact that entries have on average become longer and denser.

That is actually contrary to my initial intentions. I wanted to write short, snappy things, but influence from my studies got the better of me. And I do often wonder if this is for the better.

But, at the end of the day, many things just can't be said in a few short sentences. And, on the flip side, I'm not going to turn this into a perpetual essay-writing exercise either. Essays, though more rigorous, don't tend to get the point across effectively. I'm sure that's reflected in how most of us feel or felt when we read academic papers.

And this where the apologetics begin: I wish to defend the direction that this blog is taking.

I should say that philosophy isn't my forte—political philosophy is more like it—but I do follow broadly in the continental tradition, as opposed to the analytic one. The differences between them are somewhat confusing, but it's possible to make out some trends. Most clearly, analytic philosophy has a greater predisposition towards propositional logic.

That doesn't mean continental philosophy is illogical, though. But it does mean that analytic philosophy seeks to avoid contradictions while continental philosophy, with its dialectical tendencies, finds an important place for them. Provided that they make sense, of course.


Now this implies that continental philosophers tend to write in a more nuanced way in order to be able to capture and convey the contradictions that are present in reality. It certainly means they are unlikely to argue with the same kind of formalistic structure employed by analytic philosophers.

But, having pronounced where I stand, my sympathies are actually a little divided. Nuance to the point of ambiguity may be appropriate in some cases, but I do value clarity. A paper full of propositional logic is hell to read, but so is one filled with ambiguity.

So, in sum, I think the way that I currently write is, perhaps with a little refinement, in the right direction—a non-formalistic and sometimes nuanced way, adopting points of view that are rationally defensible (hence the need for clarity and mass) without attempting to be formally logical.

It also helps that my intention here is not to write papers. At the same time, however, I wish to retain some cautiousness. Quite a lot criticism can probably still be made from a formalist angle, but it also helps that I'm not exactly trying to be right. My intention has always been to provoke thought rather than necessarily convince anyone. I aim to question more than to provide complete answers.

And I think that suits my character rather well.


The question of religious faith is something very difficult to untangle in a coherent manner. And I address it despite warnings from within and without. One would hope that this question can be addressed without evoking judgemental reactions, but I don't know if that is possible. I think the best thing I can do is to be as non-judgemental as possible on my own part. And so I write this, as I had written my previous entry, with the caveat that this is what I think without claiming that it is necessarily true. But, at the same time, in support of what I'm writing, I'd like to say that it is derived from years of experience interacting with believers (it's also worth mentioning here that my views might be more relevant to Christianity than any other faith, since the vast majority of my experiences are with it), as well as a fair measure of reasoning. In other words, I'm not doing this like Ronny Tan. And now that I've mentioned it, that's a good place to start.

I'm mildly amused by the reactions to the Ronny Tan incident in Singapore. The issue itself, however, is of little interest to me—I know evangelistic rhetoric well enough not to be surprised. The point is I see no reason why we should pay attention to some ignorant or dissembling provocateur. I mean, in a similar way, who cares about what Westboro Baptist Church says next? If these people are vested with authority in state institutional positions, then we can talk about them being irresponsible, as with the case of Thio Li Ann. Otherwise, if we think that something said from a pulpit we don't sit below is complete nonsense, the best thing to do is to ignore it. That doesn't mean it's not important to address mistaken beliefs propagated by such rubbish. That means we ought to focus on the underlying problem, not on the nonsense itself. Hence, all the righteous anger that has emerged in reaction to what was said only seems childish and misguided. It adds nothing valuable whatsoever.

And the underlying problem is what I'm going to be referring to here: The fact that religious faith seems to have become synonymous with opted ignorance.

Recently, I've come across a notion of God that I find very appealing: God is excellence
—and it isn't just referring to moral excellence. This implies that to be faithful followers we must try as best as possible to approximate God's perfect excellence. This is very interesting, but it also raises problems with religious faith and what it means to be faithful as we have encountered them.

Here is where I've been quite consistently disappointed by the religious community. I've met quite a few perfectly decent and intelligent people who say ridiculous things that are patently false simply because their worldview is coloured by their unquestioned beliefs. Even amongst congregations that profess to be intellectually inclined, I'm seldom ever impressed by the actual intellectual capabilities of their members. They may know their apologetics and hermeneutics very well, but they know very little about things outside their religious framework. And a good part of the reason for this is they don't see external knowledge as anything near as valuable as knowledge acquired within the faith. In other words, they are relatively dismissive of a vast amount of existing knowledge, things that could make the positions they have learned untenable (and many of them don't want to know it precisely because they are afraid of this).

I don't mean to say that believers are necessarily ignorant. Certainly, I'm not young enough to know everything either. However, I'm quite willing to learn from anything. And that is what I mean by intellectual capabilities: The unrestricted willingness to learn and the products of that willingness. Even many of the believers who are actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge are unable to achieve this. Their pursuit of knowledge is frequently channelled by their religious sympathies, directed towards some things that conform to their beliefs and away from others that do not. And this tendency is even couched in moral terms—basically, hear no evil.

Now, I might be accused of having too much faith, ironically, in the ability of human reason to divine the truth. Of course, human minds are not perfect. But this doesn't mean reason flies out of the window. As a scholar during the Enlightenment might say, God gave us a brain, so we should use it. Indeed, even speaking within the religious framework, when people talk glowingly about the "leap of faith", I'm not sure they know what they're talking about. They are often unaware that the concept is not such a central part of established Christian schools of thought. There is plenty of emphasis on reason and rationality, which, I should add, is why people traditionally asked for signs; they wanted evidence, and the desire for evidence to support your beliefs is manifestly rational.

Similarly, when some believers talk about concepts such as "spiritual war", they are unaware that the notion borders on the heretical. And it's bad enough that believers don't know enough about their own theology, there are some groups that have virtually no theological grounding! Thus, the problem of intellectual inexcellence constitutes a vast malady amongst believers—that of a lack of inquisitiveness. They are content to be told what they like to hear and to be told that they like to hear it. And this is supposedly justified by the concept of faith or "simple faith".

One might say that that's true for any system of beliefs. But you could change your political views, for example, and it might not cost you anything. On the other hand, if you're convinced that the matter concerns your immortal soul, the equation changes.

To be fair, I've known a few believers whom I respect greatly. However, these people seem to be rare exceptions, and that is why I'm not sure whether one can be religious and be open-minded at the same time. It's a fine balance, and even the most excellence-oriented believer is quite likely to trip up. After all, if there are two things that might be true and they contradict each other, you'd simply lean towards whichever one your faith dictates.

So, as Kierkegaard was, I am sceptical towards the idea of congregations or indeed of organised religion. If a community of believers is supposed to help you nurture your faith, it certainly hasn't done mine any favours with what I've seen; so what's the point? Unlike Kierkegaard, however, I'm not willing to make the leap of faith. My willingness to learn seems to overcome that.