Padd Solutions

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Is losing yourself good?

Posted by moses @ 18:55 • , , , , • 0 comments


I keep coming back to David Brooks' article on finding a job because I'm quite fascinated by its message. When I first read it last spring, my first reaction was to be indignant. I was still working towards my degree and feeling secure in school. I still had a little confidence that if I did well, it wouldn't be a problem finding a rewarding job that I am passionate about.

Six months after graduating, and having indeed done well in school, I have lost all that confidence as I continue to look for paid and fulfilling work (I have done unpaid work in the meantime, so I'm not just being lazy). I find myself applying to a variety of positions just so that I can pay my own rent and gain any professional experience that will be useful later.

So was Brooks right? Is it a matter of applying yourself to whatever opportunity comes up and not of finding the opportunities you want? In a practical sense, he is certainly right. Do most young job seekers have any other choice in these times?

But, inside, I'm still resistant to his message. There is something I fundamentally disagree with, and it's not just because I'm being naive and idealistic. Yet I could never put my finger on what. Until now.

Imagine a society where a typical adult has prosthetic limbs. It’s normal to have them and they are seen as an important part of what it means to be an adult and a full-fledged member of this society. These prosthetic limbs are advanced enough that they don't hinder people's day-to-day functioning. In fact, they perform better compared to natural limbs, which is originally why people do this. The only price you have to pay is the relatively small cost of the operation and the moderate amount of temporary physical pain associated with the process. To some young people, this procedure might seem a little frightening. They might express their reservations about it and they might even try to negotiate a way out. But the adults who have gone through the procedure pooh-pooh these feelings. It's just part of the process of growing up, they say; you'll get used to it.

But what these adults don't realise is the price paid in terms of the loss of your natural limbs. They have already paid that price, so they can easily forget about it. Only practical concerns enter into their calculations. Young people, however, may be aware of this price. They may like they way they are and don't like the idea of being compelled to cut off parts of themselves as part of a self-augmentation procedure.

This is essentially the problem with Brooks' message. He is arguing not only for the practicality of simply grabbing whatever opportunity comes up, but also that this is quite natural and is, in fact, good for young people because that is how they will find themselves. It doesn't seem to occur to him that who young people are before they enter the working world may hold some value that will be lost in the process.

Thus, capitalist wisdom, as articulated by Brooks, holds that one's self identity cannot be complete without being shaped by one's role in the capitalist relations of production. While it's true that the latter tends to shape one's self identity, such wisdom jumps the gun by normalising this process and not recognising prior identities as being complete and worthy of holding on to. And it glosses over this uncomfortable point by assuming that youth precludes having a strong self identity in the first place, which allows it to posit the process of finding one's career as incontrovertibly and necessarily part of the process of 'growing up' and becoming a fully-formed human being. In other words, it tells young people to just do as the market dictates because who they are before that doesn't really matter anyway.

I dislike this message very much because, inside, I feel that who I am is important in considering what I’m going to do for a living. Even if I am presently just an inexperienced young person, I like who I am and dislike things that try to force me to become someone I am not. And I realise that the process of finding employment often entails the latter.

Besides, this is just the beginning. When I do get one of these positions, I will have to live with it every day. That’s when the person I am will begin to change, and I’m not sure if that will be for the better.

What I learned

Posted by moses @ 08:07 • , , , , , • 0 comments


I have other topics in mind that I want to write about, but right now I'm struck by a sudden desire to recapitulate and summarise what I studied last year. Maybe it is the desire to seize something tangible before my memory of it fades. So here goes. 

The main lesson I derived from the research I did for my dissertation is that any claim that film critics have as arbiters of a non-pluralistic (in both the moral and universal senses of it) notion of good taste is undermined by the idea that taste is a means of social distinction; a means of thinking of oneself as superior or different based on vague but compelling categories of identity with which one identifies. 

This implies that taste is neither objective nor entirely subjective. While critics often try seductively to suggest the former, aesthetic 'laymen' tend to stress the latter. Rather, according to my research, taste should perhaps be described as 'intersubjective'. But, more precisely, it is constituted by hyperreal categories (such as socio-economic class) that often appear to us as objective categories.

In other words, from the perspective of theories of language, taste is an entirely practical concept in human language that has perhaps received far too much theoretical attention. It is very much rooted in our social structures and psychology and does not properly belong in the domain of the aesthetic.

I understand that aestheticians may want to think of (good) taste as the practical implication of what is good or beautiful in aesthetics. But I think that's just not the case in contemporary reality. Taste has much less to do with aesthetics than with social categories.

And as articulations of the social structures that give rise to this social phenomenon, the pieces of film criticism I examined do not even use the language of aesthetics, contradictory or hypocritical as it might often be. Tellingly, the critics do not seem to care to exhibit a grasp of aesthetics before presenting themselves as an authority on film tastes.

Looking for a job, looking for love

Posted by moses @ 22:42 • , • 0 comments


Is all fair in love and work? I think many would say no, and that is partly because of a difference in attitudes that is entrenched in our culture and in our discourses on love and work.

Consider this: Well-known columnist David Brooks wrote in an article for the New York Times that young people should not "pursue happiness and joy" when deciding on their career paths, focusing instead on solving the problems they come across and seeking fulfillment through "[engaging] their tasks". On the other hand, Brooks wrote in his book The Social Animal that "The relationship between money and happiness is very tenuous; the relationship between personal bonds and happiness is incredibly strong". So we are told that happiness matters in our personal relationships but not in our jobs.

But why this difference in attitudes? How much time do we spend at our workplaces every day versus the time we spend socialising? How many friends do we see every day for durations that come anywhere close to the amount of time we spend at work? Why does happiness not matter in something that forms a significantly larger proportion of our everyday lives?

The only relationship we have with people that can come close in terms of the time and commitment that we have to invest in it is a serious romantic relationship. We might say that it's difficult or even unbearable to be in a serious relationship with someone you don't love, having to see the person daily and to pretend that, deep down, you care about him/her first and foremost. So why do some us think we can do it when it comes to our jobs?

As we are probably well aware, it comes down to a difference in motivation. It's not that happiness matters in our personal relationships and not in our jobs to begin with, it's that a lot of the time we look for happiness in our personal relationships but not in our jobs. That is quite understandable. Work occupies that space between our public and private spheres of life where necessity and practical considerations are dominant. In other words, the primary reason we work is to earn a living, and we don't often have much of a choice in that.

But, that said, we can still ask why we voluntarily set up a teleological barrier between work and personal relationships. Why do we judge people who enter into personal relationships out of purely material concerns? Why are people who work purely for money normal but those who seek partners for material reasons deplorable?

You might put this difference in attitudes down to a matter of frequency and significance. Serious relationships are more significant because they are harder to come by, whereas one can switch jobs relatively easily. But what difference would there be if we keep looking for jobs without putting much weight on how much we love them? Working for purely practical reasons wouldn't therefore be a temporary arrangement.

Or you might put it down to a matter bad faith. Normally, people enter into personal relationships on the understanding that it is mostly, in a strict sense of the word, personal. In other words, as we see it, personal relationships concern our persons and not so much external and material things. So in letting the latter take precedence, you would often be breaking a tacitly made contract.

Yet these days many jobs ask for passion and a degree of personal commitment that justifies the personal sacrifices that we have to make for them, often for no tangible compensation. We can no longer be assembly line workers who perform mechanical tasks while waiting for the working day to end so that we can be free to live our own lives after that. The discourse on work-life balance is increasingly making way for the discourse on work-life integration. The job is no longer something that you have to get over and done with out of necessity; it's very much a part of you as a person. Indeed, it demands to be so. Hence, if we put on a front in our jobs, aren't we similarly lying to our employers and maybe to ourselves?

So, in light of the changes in the way we live and work, is the sacred teleological divide between jobs and personal relationships defensible? Can we condemn people who treat love as labour, as an exchange to be understood in material terms? If we can lie and pretend that love or passion for our jobs is integral to our work ethic, why should we disapprove of people who pretend that love or passion is integral to their relationships? Are we just being hopeless romantics who wish to use moral indignation to protect one of the last aspects of our lives that is not touched by the paradigm of commodity exchange?

Ma Nuo, a Chinese reality show contestant, was famously blasted by the public for stating on the topic of life partners that she "would rather cry in the back of a BMW than laugh on the back of a bicycle". But wouldn't many of us rather cry in the back office of Goldman Sachs than laugh behind the counter of a café? What makes us sure that that is a morally superior sentiment?

So perhaps we can't judge people who enter into personal relationships for material or tangible gains any more than we can judge people who work purely for money. At this point, that seems to be the most logically consistent position we can have.

Zen-like Kant

Posted by moses @ 16:18 • , • 0 comments


Can an immutable law be, at the same time, constrained by context and dependent upon particular circumstances for its construction and application? I think so. To put it simply, a law is made real insofar as it is known and obeyed, and its construction and application is dependent on the societies (and on the particular moments in their history) that institute it and that are governed by it. Yet the same law may have the gravity and the force of an immutable law.

But it is not my intention here to discuss the metaphysical implications of this line of reasoning. Instead, I want to take a brief look at a pillar of Kantian ethics, which is the notion of autonomous will. As my memory of Kant's first two Critiques is sketchy, I am indebted to the SEP in writing this quick recap of Kant's moral philosophy.

Unlike the utilitarians and many other ethical systems, Kantian ethics holds that moral law is constituted not by instrumental principles that rational agents must adhere to in order to attain some form of ultimate good. Rather, moral law is founded upon the categorical imperative, which is a non-instrumental principle and which is not predicated on the existence of an abstract notion of ultimate good.

Nor is morality the product of our physiology. Unlike the central principle of, for example, an ethic that is based on empathy for others, the categorical imperative does not command us to act by virtue of what we feel (although emotions may play an important part in motivating us)—it commands us unconditionally.

Hence, we have a duty to obey the categorical imperative. But not all duties are absolutely binding—the law of the land, for example, is only binding insofar as we fall under its jurisdiction, a status we can often opt out of by leaving. The duty to obey the categorical imperative is, on the other hand, absolute because it is binding for all rational agents who are by definition "capable of guiding their own behaviour on the basis of directives, principles and laws of rationality". And we cannot opt out of our membership in the category of rational agents.

We can therefore see the connection between the categorical imperative and our status as rational agents. But the notion of autonomous will has not yet entered the picture. What role does it play in Kantian ethics? We are tempted to assume that rational agents possess autonomous will, which is a point that Kant does argue for. But how does he do so? And how is this important to the categorical imperative?

As rational agents, human beings possess rational wills, which is a will that "operates by responding to reasons". Hence, for it to be rational, it should not be entirely constrained in its operation by, for example, "being determined through the operation of natural laws, such as those of biology or psychology". To some, this might seem like an attempt to divorce reason from our biological make up, which they would regard as labouring in vain under the idealist illusion. However, Kant does not seem to go so far. He argues only that what is necessary for a will to exercise itself freely is "the Idea of its freedom", holding that having free will means not strictly operating under the constraints of immediate practical considerations when "trying to decide what to do" and "what to hold oneself and others responsible for". In other words, as I understand it, we can be said to have free will because in our practical endeavours we are capable of engaging in "self-directed rational behaviour and to adopt and pursue our own ends"; we are capable of making choices and not just of doing as the physical or material circumstances dictate.

Thus, Kant asserts that rational wills are also necessarily autonomous wills. And the significance in his ethics of the autonomy of a rational will can be found in the Kingdom of Ends and humanity formulations of the categorical imperative. Under the Kingdom of Ends formulation, a will that regards itself as a member of the category of rational wills must "regard itself as enacting laws binding to all rational wills" and thereby as a member of a “systematic union of different rational beings under common laws”—a “Kingdom of Ends” whose members "equally possesses this status as legislator of universal laws". Hence, not only must we acknowledge other people as fellow rational, autonomous beings, we must also recognise that they possess the same responsibilities as we do because they are similarly, in their capacity as rational and autonomous beings, capable of enacting universal moral laws. This is a strong basis for the concept of human dignity, a concept that is articulated in the Humanity formulation of the categorical imperative, which demands that we treat others' humanity not as a mere means to our own ends but as an end in itself.

What this means, in plain language, is that we must respect fellow human beings as equals who, like us, possess a significant basic level of dignity. This is a law that should appear immutable to us as both its legislators and its subjects; it should not be modified depending on who we're talking about or on the prevailing circumstances. Even those who are guilty of heinous crimes retain their humanity and therefore their human dignity, and the punishment meted out to them should not fail to recognise this.

All this might seem quite obvious when we think about it, but when we feel antipathy towards others for the smallest of reasons, we clearly need to remind ourselves why we shouldn't our feelings cloud our reason.

Singapore 21

Posted by moses @ 06:44 • , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 comments


Singapore is a bit like a child who was bullied and looked down on by its peers—it grew up having something to prove.

The insecurities of Singaporean society are a reflection of the insecurities of its founding fathers. And as all deep psychological traumas go, the result is a pathological pattern of behaviour—in this case, the perpetual post-Separation obsession with proving that it can prosper without natural resources and an initial industrial base.

To this end, Singapore has transformed itself into a rentier state in all but name. And the resource that is rented: Human labour. Factories and offices in Singapore are in principle no different from the sweatshops of the Third World, riding on loose or non-existent labour laws and wage legislation that help make the country competitive as a magnet for foreign investment. Politically, in order to facilitate this path of economic development, security and stability have been prioritised over other goals such as democracy and social justice—again, much in the manner of the archetypal rentier state.

What sets Singapore apart from other rentier states that rely on renting its workforce to foreign investors is the kind of industries it seeks to attract. Thus, a significant part of the workforce has to be trained and educated enough to do the kind of work that those industries require, but not in a manner that is enough to enable them to challenge the country's socio-economic trajectory.

That is the essence of Singapore's famous economic and political pragmatism.

However, popular dissatisfaction with its immigration policy and with falling standards in the provision of public services point to a parallel but related trend in the country's political and economic stance.

Even the most diligent of workers may not be able to stomach the fate of forever being a mere cog in the economic machine. Hence, as a form of compensation for their dedication to the government's vision, citizens were promised comfortable middle class lifestyles that were ensured by the provision of subsidised high-quality public services. This is one of the reasons why the government has invested heavily in the country's healthcare and transportation infrastructures—things that are, incidentally, important in maintaining the productivity of the workforce.

This social compact has held until fairly recently. As Singapore increasingly aligned itself with the neoliberal paradigm, however, the old wisdom of labour market liberalisation—which also happens to be a core tenet of neoliberalism—was eventually joined by the move towards the privatisation of state-owned enterprises.

With this move, naturally, came an increased emphasis on profitability, which has been blamed for the fall in service standards in the country's public transportation system, as demonstrated by the recent and unprecedented major disruptions to urban rail services.  At the same time, fares continue to increase, which only helps to lend credence to the notion that the privatisation of public transport has not been in the public's interest.

In addition, as an extension of its stance towards the labour market, Singapore is importing large numbers of cheap workers in its continuing effort to keep labour costs low, thereby contributing to overcrowding and adding to the stress on the country's infrastructure.

Thus, Singaporeans can no longer expect the nanny state to take care of them. Now, all we get in return for our hard work and dedication are promises that are no longer backed by concrete socio-economic support structures. We may have been a first-class rentier state before, but now, with increasing income inequality and decreasing welfare, there is less and less to separate us from the neighbouring states we so enjoy looking down on.

Can things change? Perhaps with the aid of the vast sums of public money that is currently given to the government's investment bankers with little or no public oversight. Will things change? Probably not if we are counting on the old guard to make it happen.

Unfortunately, at the rate we are going, change probably won't come soon enough. Add in the uncertainty in the global economy and the prospect of slower growth, and you know we're in for a rough ride. 

So, in light of our predicament, let me say this: Welcome to the 21st century, ladies and gentlemen. The worst is yet to be.

You vs. the world

Posted by moses @ 09:26 • , , , , • 0 comments


When cornered, many animals fight back. We should probably do the same. Compromise becomes impossible when there is no middle ground. The only options are capitulation and confrontation, and at times only the latter offers a chance at survival.

When people talk about confronting an issue or a problem, they sometimes mean capitulating to it. Catchphrases like "change your mindset" or "adapt to the situation" may conceal a sense of helplessness that has prompted the speaker to give up without actually admitting as much.

Indeed, surrendering may often seem the easier option. Sometimes, the world seems hostile to our ideas and our aspirations; sometimes, it defeats us. However, even if we haven't lost, it's so much easier to give up without a fight. Let the world consume us rather than resist it. After all, isn't defeat inevitable?

It's true that, chances are, going against the world will be a tough long slog. And you're often alone in that struggle. But it may be your only chance at achieving freedom when everything conspires to bind you. The more remote the possibility of compromise, the more you have to fight.

If we do choose to fight, we shouldn't expect to survive, much less to win. But perhaps, by the time we are done fighting, a path towards compromise would have opened. Or perhaps we would indeed have to surrender in the end. But you will certainly never find out for yourself if you give up from the start.

And that I think is a fitting message to think on as the new year rolls around.

Simplicity/sophistication

Posted by moses @ 21:50 • , , , , , • 0 comments


What is the simple life? Traditionally, it is understood as a thrifty life lived without pretensions. But what exactly does that entail? Are you thrifty as long as you don't buy yachts or mansions or don't live a jet setting lifestyle? Can you be free of pretensions even when you chase the latest trends and fashions?

Of course, the simple life, in the traditional sense of it, still exists. But in the developed part of the modern world, it is increasingly rare. In everyday life, the urge to consume—to spend and to be wealthy enough to spend—is overwhelming. Through constant exposure to various media whose function is to encourage consumption, we have been conditioned to desire and even need extensive material comforts.

Consumption is also about status and a social-psychological need to earn one's place in modern society. Simply being able to consume and being 'sophisticated' enough to know how to consume confers upon us identities that are compatible with the self image of modern society. And what falls outside of the latter is at best unconventional.

Thus, society exerts a pressure on individuals to conform to a consumerist lifestyle, and this pressure increases as more and more people embrace that way of life. Mass exerts its own gravity; popularity may well correlate with conformity.

One result of this trend is the engendering of a pervasive inertia among the expanding middle class—we have become much more productive over the past century, but most of our time and energy goes into the furious cycle of production and consumption, leaving us perpetually exhausted and, in our spare time, desiring only to enjoy the material comforts that our labours have bought. So despite the great degree of empowerment that human beings have enjoyed over the past century, most of us remain content to let the world take shape around us, to let the powerful and influential push society in whatever direction they desire.

Hence, while the simple life would help bring us out of the passivity induced by the consumerist lifestyle, the simple life is by no means simple to live. And so we drift.