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We the Citizens

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


Doing some research on the public discourse surrounding last year's racist tram incident in the UK, I was prompted to ponder the rise of xenophobic sentiments in Singapore. 

As held in diaspora studies, there is no such thing as a mythical, unchanging homeland. A people's conception of their homeland is formed through experience: What you grow up knowing as your home will be the home that you know. That may seem obvious and tautological; yet people persist in perceiving their homeland as a thing unchanging, when, in reality, their conception of the homeland is simply that which they have learned.

As such, if you're used to the idea of a homogeneous or monocultural homeland, that is how you would conceive of your homeland; that is the image in which you might want to remake your country.

At the very least, Singaporeans are accustomed to the idea of multi-racialism. It has been drilled into us since we were young. Those with a libertarian bent may deride such education as plain indoctrination, but, in truth, it is hardly alien to the process of socialisation that every normal member of society goes through as he/she grows up. And it works. Of course, racism still exists, but there is no popular challenge to idea of Singapore as a multi-racial society.

Yet it has not saved Singapore from the tensions and culture shock associated with immigration, as immigrants from 'alien' cultures have become numerous enough to have a perceived impact on the local way of life. 

Further fuelling the tensions is the political situation, the official support for mass immigration, which sets up a bitter conflict between the authorities and citizens who feel that their grievances are being ignored. While I believe that an open immigration policy is, as typically held by liberal political philosophy, morally right, Singapore's immigration policy is firmly rooted in neoliberalism. In line with the country's ideology of 'pragmatism', immigration is to be supported on the basis of its necessity for economic growth. 

This ideology reduces not only immigrants into economic units, it does the same to the locals, who must embrace cutthroat competition. Wages are driven down and the economic worth of immigrants, especially that of the wealthy among them, is emphasised. The latter is clearly demonstrated by the Chinese evening daily's headline on the recent accident involving a reckless Ferrari driver from China. While hardly relevant to the tragic incident, the newspaper opted to announce the wealth and prestige of the driver first, perhaps to pre-empt local anger, ever-simmering as it was, towards Chinese immigrants. 

What the headline ends up doing is intensifying the existing social tensions, as locals once again feel that they are being treated as mere economic units whose worth is incessantly being compared to the immigrants'. And the fact that local media is tightly controlled by the authorities lends whatever the former prints an air of official legitimacy—it certainly means the authorities cannot conveniently push the blame away. 

Thus, the knee-jerk xenophobia among the public, while deplorable, should be understood as a by-product of the neoliberal race to the bottom, which has exacerbated social inequality in the name of economic growth. And as long as growth takes precedence over social justice and a fair distribution of rights and responsibilities, the government will continue to give ammunition to the xenophobes; which is a pity, since an open immigration policy could work without driving down local living standards and causing so much resentment, if only the government would speak the right language of multiculturalism, abandon the neoliberal religion and adopt better labour regulations. 

Feel Good Inc.

Posted by moses @ 08:46 • , , , , , , • 1 comments


Some people have idealised views of how they can change the world or their surroundings. It's good that these people have dreams, but even if those dreams can be translated into action, it's worth asking if the action would make any real difference. If not, then it would be quite silly for them to think that they are actually doing something.

Recently, as part of their school project, a group of students in Singapore decided to reach out to foreign workers who are employed to do 'low-skilled' jobs. As a result of this outreach, the students have put up an account of the workers' daily lives and their struggle to earn in a living in a society composed mostly of people of entirely different classes from them, a society that mostly ignores their existence.

This is a wonderful attempt at raising social awareness. But, unfortunately, it stops there. I find the students' recommendations for future action particularly uninspiring. The following is what they advocate, in full:
All i want to say, is that we should really learn to appreciate and accept them as our equal. Maybe the next time we see them, we could perhaps just give them a simple smile, or even a word of thanks, to show our appreciation for what they are doing, I'm sure it would make their day. Or at the very least, the next time we see them, we can just try not to pull an ugly face or walk away.

Thank you for taking time to read this, and although every share would not get a dollar donated or anything, but every share is a step closer to a warmer, more accepting society.
It seems not a little naive and condescending to acknowledge that low-skilled foreign workers are economically marginalised while acting as though social acceptance and recognition are going to improve their lot. Yes, levels of social awareness are painfully low in Singapore such that having any is quite commendable. But, having become aware, what are you going to do about the system and the government that author such oppression?

I find the above project to be the humanitarian equivalent of "sending positive vibes" to help people who are faced with problems. It tries to engender good sentiments but does nothing in reality. While these workers may appreciate your reaching out to them, the failure to even mention political and economic solutions makes this gesture seem almost as hollow as the act of spamming of "Kony 2012" on the Internet, a recent example of slacktivism. Raising awareness becomes simply a way to soothe your own conscience when you're not prepared to ask the tough questions and talk about real measures to create change.

So stop just smiling like fools in a photo op—bare your teeth and attack injustice at its source.

Illustration by Frank Chimero

Make Singlish official? Don't be extra, lah!

Posted by moses @ 15:42 • , , , • 0 comments


Some people may lament the lack of official recognition for Singlish. There is no definitive glossary of Singlish terms, no authoritative dictionary that people can turn to in order to reaffirm the meanings in this local variety of English that they use.

But does Singlish (as this Wiki article claims) not have its own version of the Oxford English Dictionary because the government disapproves of it? While that may be a contributing factor, it is but one that contributes to Singlish's larger 'problem'—the lack of institutionalisation. 

And that is as it should be.

But why wouldn't a Singlish dictionary be useful? It might be useful for foreigners who are visiting Singapore, as an aid for finding their way in daily conversations with locals. But for such visitors, wouldn't a short glossary do? 

If some visitors require more because they are staying for a much longer period, wouldn't it be best if they learned by being involved in local conversations? Doesn't the appeal of Singlish come from the fact that it is the lingua franca of the neighbourhood, something that is tacitly learned and that is the culmination of the different customs and culturally-specific meanings that have been thrown together in the melting pot that is Singaporean daily life?

Hence, attempts to codify Singlish and set its rules on paper are missing a crucial point—the very character of it as a creole that is woven into everyday life. Moreover, this brings up the more fundamental issue of the difference between creole and language, a difference that can tell us why the idea of a proper Singlish dictionary is at present quite nonsensical.

As mentioned earlier, meanings in creole are tacit and very much tied to users' habits rather than to formal rules. Thus, the very nature of a creole implies that its rules are institutionalised to a lesser degree compared to a language. And it is worth saying here that the politics of language is really all that separates the two, since language can hardly call itself pure either—most languages are after all derivations of others.

In that sense, there isn't really a sacred philosophical distinction between creole and language. Still, creole is, by virtue of its relatively uninstitutionalised character, closer to Wittgenstein's concept of language-games—examples of language use where actions define the meanings of words and the rules of language. In other words, the meanings of words in creole depend on how people collectively use those words (even more so than in language), in contrast to an imaginary situation where people adhere strictly to prescribed meanings when using words.

So, just as with language, the meanings of words in creole are defined by convention. The difference is, in creole, the conventions are not institutionalised to the same degree by things like authoritative dictionaries, academies and educational systems. Hence, attempts at creating creole dictionaries would not enjoy any kind of spectacular success without also being a real step towards institutionalising the rules that govern creole and thereby towards turning creole into language.

Of course, convention, being a rather 'democratic' thing, tends to come about only with the tacit agreement of the subjects—in this case the creole speakers. And this has implications not just on the meanings of words, but also on the nature of the creole itself. That is why Singlish dictionaries will, in the foreseeable future, remain mainly as humorous rather than useful material; and they will remain so until Singlish speakers tacitly agree to turn Singlish into a properly institutionalised language that is more rigid and bound by abstract rules.

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.