Padd Solutions

Converted by Falcon Hive

Robotic notes

Posted by moses @ 18:52 • , , • 0 comments


Recently Gallup did a study that indicates Singaporeans are among the most, if not the most, emotionless or inexpressive people in the world. The reactions from some people were predictable.

Immediately there were people who contended that the survey questions are subjective, which only seems like a puerile stock response. How much interpretation is needed for questions like "Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?" Do Singaporeans understand words like "smile or laugh" differently? Besides, although people's perceptions of happiness or other feelings are indeed subjective, subjectivity is not the issue here—whatever people might think emotions like happiness mean, the study simply wants to know if they feel them or not.

A critique of the methodology needs to be better than that. And because the results are empirical, you can't disagree with them (the plural of your anecdote is not data, by the way). You could disagree with the interpretation of the results, but there too the critics have mostly failed to impress. This brings us to another irony in the indignant responses that seek to paint Singaporean culture as different and therefore not assessable from "subjective" 'Western' perspectives.

This group of responders seems to be asserting themselves as the voice of objectivity and of calm unemotional logic. Yet they fail to see their own hilariously inaccurate assumptions and the contradictions in their position. This is true in at least two respects:

1. "Asian Values" are a stereotypical fantasy

There are clearly some cultural differences between, say, the USA and Singapore. But simply citing "Asian values" is far from giving a good description of these differences. For one, it is widely recognised that Singaporeans are very materialistic and often egotistical in their pursuit of wealth. How does that jibe with the supposedly communal-spirited Asian Values that are now used to explain why Singaporeans are less emotionally expressive as individuals?

Popular conceptions of Asian Values are incoherent and not matched by the reality in our society. This calls into question the whole concept of a monolithic set of Asian Values itself.

2. Your government wants to retain talent, not drive them out

Many of those arguing against the study seem to be people who are patriotic and fiercely protective of Singapore's image. These are often the same people who, going by what they say, like to insist that Singapore does it better than most other places. And because of that, they tend to agree that the ruling party has done the right thing and therefore that we should all be more grateful to the government and the country instead of being critical. Don't like it? Then pack your bags and leave.

Well, that demand—that people who complain, both foreigners and citizens, should leave the country—is not one that the ruling party is making. In fact, evidence points to the contrary: They want to attract and retain talent to keep Singapore economically competitive. So for all your insistence that the government and the country are on the right track on the important things, you seem to be advocating doing something different here. What gives?

It might seem that the study implies we're a race of robotic worker bees that are emotionless or at least inexpressive. But it turns out that we're robots without a good sense of logic either. So that begs the question: What are we really good at?

Autumn Rhythm, Watercolour

Posted by moses @ 08:11 • , • 0 comments


I walk with the wind against my face, blowing frigid and fierce, promising a cold day ahead. This is of course typical of the repertoire of autumn weather in London: wind, rain and fog–and they have all made an appearance throughout the week.

Entering the Barbican Centre, I hurriedly join a friend in the queue that has steadily been building up even before the Rain Room opens. The sight of the growing line begs the question: Why would people want to visit an installation about rain when they experience rain all the time in this city?

Over an hour later, finally stepping inside, the darkened space that is the Curve Gallery feels warm enough–the first difference between experiencing rain in here and experiencing it outside during this season. But the biggest and most important difference between the two experiences is the magic of the installation itself: unlike in the outside world, walking under the rain in here will not get you wet.

There are, however, a few conditions. Firstly, you must take your steps slowly to allow your position to be properly detected. Secondly, anything extending too far from your body is not protected–stretch your arms out far enough and they will get wet.

These caveats hint at the inner technical workings behind the Rain Room's magic; and they may perhaps take a little of the sense of wonder away.

Still, waiting just outside the torrential box, the excitement is palpable. There is something about the field blanketed in drops of water, glinting in the harsh white light that shines across the space, that is fascinating; and, chances are, you feel more than ready to give it a try.

Our turn comes and we step into the rain zone carefully, a dry space forming around us. Looking up, I can see circles where the downpour has been stopped above me, and they seem a little wide, perhaps slightly too wide for the experience to be as thrilling as I imagined.

Nonetheless, the curtain of rain around me, appearing misty in the light that illuminates it, seems as though it encloses me in a kind of surreal personal sanctum, surrounded by a persistent yet ephemeral shroud. And the experience is sublime. The world outside one's immediate vicinity seems further away but still eminently reachable–it's as though one has withdrawn tentatively into a serene and reflective place, a mandala, observing the world, samsara, from a mediated distance. It reminds me of the many times I have stood under an umbrella in tropical rain, the water mere inches from my body all around; except that here I can remain completely dry.

And that seems key to the installation's appeal. Rain in the outside world often presents itself as an obstacle, an inconvenience, a source of discomfort; in here, one is free to experience and contemplate rain without having to relate it to one's immediate needs and desires. It is the quintessential Schopenhauerian aesthetic experience.

And that is why to me, despite its rather technical and not quite wondrous nature (partly due its technical limitations), the Rain Room is art. You can't quite get the same experience anywhere else.

Film review: The Dark Knight Rises

Posted by moses @ 05:07 • , , , , , , , • 0 comments



I'd finally gotten round to seeing The Dark Knight Rises last month, and, frankly, I enjoyed it. As such, although the film—like Nolan's other works—did not leave me with much of a lasting impression, I will not be too critical of it, acknowledging the film for what it is: An encapsulation of Hollywood at its flashiest.

Certainly, one may detect proto-fascist undertones in the film. The Dark Knight Rises tells us, after all, that raw violence and not money or influence is the ultimate source of power—Bruce Wayne's wealth and position may get him all his fancy gadgets, but he could not defeat Bane until he trained himself up physically and prevailed against his adversary in a slugging match.

Nevertheless, I will not go as far as to say that The Dark Knight Rises' politics are regressive or backward. For one, the film strikes me as partly an attempt to articulate a contemporary brand of political consciousness; although it does so in a traditional comic-book-hero fashion, hence the seemingly more backward elements in its symbolisms. The film's favouring of muscle power over sophisticated methods could, for example, simply be explained by the film's comic book roots.

The Batman of the Nolan films is also very much a traditional comic book hero. He is basically benevolent, despite his psychological scars and his initial motivation to seek vengeance. And he fights for a supposedly universal sense of justice while remaining outside of the political and legal systems. The latter is an especially important aspect in The Dark Knight Rises, and it has been given a contemporary twist: The legal and political system of Gotham are structurally unable to solve the city's serious crime problem, and it's thanks to the work of a vigilante hero that the city is saved—a narrative that banks heavily on today's post-crises distrust of traditional institutions.

But Batman isn't just Batman; he is also Bruce Wayne, whose wealth and technological expertise can save the world in their own right. How he uses or does not use them is bound to be interesting. And it turns out that he chooses not to use them except in aid of his role as the vigilante hero—all because of his fear that someone might misuse whatever technological marvel he came up with that could, on the other hand, have untold benefits for humankind.

Not only that, while fighting crime as Batman, the wealthy and powerful Bruce Wayne does little or nothing to transform the legal and political systems that are part of Gotham's problem. As such, Bruce Wayne/Batman stands for the contemporary reluctance to rock the boat too hard, representing our bitterness towards the capitalist/democratic system that is, at the same time, tempered by an unwillingness to cast it aside. Nolan's Batman is thus the hero of today: A benevolent but broadly non-interventionist patriarch, shaking his head at the excesses of late capitalist society but letting it go on nonetheless, only scraping at the mould on the rotting meat. If anything, the world must be "ready" for utopia before it can be given it—or, more correctly, it must ready itself, because he is too cynical to help it along.

Where radical movement and revolution are represented in the film, they are portrayed as simply a big con job perpetrated by the terrorist Bane, who is not actually interested in emancipating the people. Even then, when Bane's motives are finally revealed, the film plainly steers clear of any portrayal of ideological conflict. The origins of the war (on terror) can ultimately be attributed to family drama, a perennial bourgeois favourite of a genre since when novels were the most prevalent form of mass entertainment.

Thus, it's difficult not to see the film as reactionary, a middle class abrogation of things like the Occupy movement, or perhaps even a vision in a Tea Party reverie with Bruce Wayne standing in for the Koch brothers. However, it is probably overstating the case to say, for example, that the film advocates fascist politics or plain old feudalism. After all, I would hesitate to attribute a nefarious genius to a politically-flat director like Nolan. Instead, I would suggest that the film was primarily made to entertain and, like many other films, to make money, and that its haphazard politics are merely an accident, the result of the film being made in contemporary times.

Thinking that way certainly helped me switch off and enjoy the mindless entertainment while it lasted.

Whine and Dine: Singaporeans and food elitism

Posted by moses @ 16:15 • , , , , • 0 comments


The whole controversy over Dîner en Blanc in Singapore is really a storm in a teacup; it's a trivial matter that isn't worth all the fuss that has been made about it.

But the reactions towards it are, nevertheless enlightening—they tell us quite a lot about how people think and what our society is like.

What happened is as follows: Dîner en Blanc, a pop-up, invite-only picnic is being organised in Singapore as its first Asian location. Thousands are keen to go the exclusive event, which has large groups of people dressed in white meet for an evening of 'fine dining', learning of the location of the event only from the organizers just before it occurs.

In every Dîner en Blanc event, there are strict rules that, according to the organisers, “[recall] the elegance and glamour of court society”: Guests must attend with a member of the opposite sex, men and women sit across each other in a planned arrangement, and guests must bring their own food, white tables, chairs, fine china crockery and dress only in white—in short, it's a stuffy event that makes itself out to be too good for everyone.

Along came food blogger Daniel Ang, who recommended 12 white-coloured local dishes to bring to the dinner. The blogger, an invited guest, was told by the organizers to take down his post and was then uninvited because the food he recommended was deemed unsuitable. Angered, he shot back, stating, "You can disrespect me as a blogger, and disrespect my blog posts, but you do not disrespect my culture,” adding that “Singapore local delicacies are the classiest foods ever in our hearts.”

To begin with, the indignation of the food blogger has an element of irony in it. Sure, it's annoying to be excluded, and in his position I might react the same way. But it isn't as shocking as it might seem. After all, this is an event that celebrates 'fine dining' à la "court society"—we can expect food elitism to come with the territory.

Moreover, a raison d'être of food blogs is to promote certain discerning eating habits. These may not necessarily be more exclusive than the concept of good taste itself, but by touting certain gastronomic preferences and tastes as 'good', these blogs are likely to be guilty of some measure of food elitism as well.

Further still, while 'fine dining' may arguably be all a matter of presentation and, therefore, quite an arbitrary concept, this is probably not unfamiliar territory to food bloggers. Indeed, in giving his recommendations on what local food to bring, Mr. Ang said:
Tau hway is a simple, inexpensive and elegant dessert. Jazz it up to be served on a fine China bowl, and it will look good.
Such a statement displays perfect awareness of the conventions of 'fine dining'. Perhaps the organisers' outright ban of local offerings caught him by surprise, but it's far from inconceivable—he knew what kind of business he was getting into.

Hence, the disagreement between the blogger and the organisers doesn't stem from radically differing views on food and gastronomy, but from differing views on what kinds of food fall within the category of 'fine dining'.

So it would be a mistake to see the blogger as an agent of a conflict between a gastronomic/cultural elite and the masses—he is more or less aligned with the elite; it's just that he has been excluded by a particular group of elites and is crying foul over it. His liking for food that is also consumed by the masses does not make him the face of the latter any more than Paul Ryan liking Rage Against the Machine makes him the face of the Occupy movement.

In this vein, much of the public anger over the incident is at best misplaced and at worst disingenuous. The fact that such an absurdly elitist event exists—and that many want to go to it—should have raised disdainful eyebrows from the start. Yet Singaporeans choose to be angry, and to be angry over the fact that certain local food items have been rejected by the organisers. If those items hadn't been rejected, many of them might even have felt pride that what they eat is considered 'classy' enough. So those people aren't angry about elitism; they are angry, like the blogger, over the fact that their tastes have expressly been excluded from the endorsement of an elite.

Worse, some have turned this into a matter of national pride, as though the rejection is a grave insult to the nation. The foreigners have done it again, it would seem—they have once again shown that they have no respect for local culture and customs.

If our national pride depended on the status of some food items, then it's a worthless thing indeed. But, more interestingly, this corroborates my previous observation that many people aren't actually feeling angry about what they say or think they are: In actuality, they are angry that their tastes are not considered good enough by an elite; they are angry that foreigners have come to take their jobs away and have altered the cultural landscape. Little or no part of their self-righteous outrage is really about the preposterousness of an extreme kind of food elitism that may signify an increasingly unequal society. It's really just dog whistle politics belying xenophobia and a deep-seated inferiority complex that—I would say—is the product of a highly-controlled society.

So let's be more honest about the underlying agenda here: What are we really mad about?

And the moral of the story is not that we should banish all forms of elitism; that would be impossible, especially in a 'meritocratic' society like ours. Rather, we should acknowledge that all of us practice some form of elitism, that we often like to present our tastes as good and better than others'. This will help to put things in perspective so we can reject the most egregious examples of elitism without knee-jerk reactions that only demonstrate how stupidly oblivious we are to our own positions. And that entails steering well clear of things like Dîner en Blanc, and not complaining loudly only after having been excluded.

Don't bet on the Batman

Posted by moses @ 16:37 • , , , , , , • 0 comments



Upon hearing that a massacre had occurred during a premiere of the latest iteration of the Batman films, some people asked, "Where was Batman?"

Perhaps the joke, all jokes are not an appropriate response to such a tragedy. But this is also a singularly powerful question. Indeed, where was—is—Batman?

Of course. He's not real. Batman is fiction. Everyone except some kids (and maybe some delusional fools) knows that. People can be expected to know the difference between reality and the superhero fiction, can't they? Well, can they?

Most people know that superheroes don't exist. But to what extent do they grasp this fact? I mean, why do people like superhero stories? The modern trend in fiction may be to humanise superheroes, to depict the conflicted and flawed hero. But they're still superheroes—they are still powerful; they can still solve the world's problems, even if they must bleed and sacrifice much in the process. Perhaps stories like Watchmen defy this convention altogether, but not the Batman films.

Christopher Nolan's Batman is a tortured hero, a hero who has to mask himself as a villain. But the audience are well aware that he is hero. And the fantasy of the mighty superhero, furthermore, is not shattered. People can expect Batman to save the world within the big screen. They want to savour—even just a shadow of it—the excitement that springs from the knowledge that a saviour is here to fight for them. Fiction melds with reality; the story is not real, but physiological reaction to it is.

That is why the massacre is semiologically powerful—a horrible crime is occurring while the superhero is 'present' on the big screen, a demonstrably flat image that interacts with the world purely as illusion. It's not even impotent; it's nothing at all. The mirage is shattered completely by the jarring reality of a tragedy unfolding simultaneously. Thus, observers may be prompted to ask, "Where was this hero?" Of course they'd known that he doesn't exist. But this incident makes them realise that anew and takes the realisation to a higher, uncanny level.

The death of the superhero, a theme that has been explored in fiction, is not as devastating to the fantasy as the real deaths of superhero fans in front of the big screen.

However, while many of us may intuit this, not everyone will realise what it means. Take, for example, this Facebook comment about the survivors:
All I can say is send them a hero Chris send the dark knight to the hospital for them, so the children know there are real heroes out there, and that evil won't win
This is exactly the kind of sentiment that should have been extinguished by this incident. Yet people want to hold on to the fantasy and, worse, to perpetuate it by instilling the same delusion in children—the notion that there is a simple fix to the big problems that can be accomplished by a few mighty and benevolent individuals.

Perhaps adults have a vested interest in raising children who are naïve and docile. Some of them had probably been raised to be that way themselves. But the use of a crutch is symptomatic of disability—this much-needed delusion reveals people's psychological inability to steer away from a petty existence waiting for salvation.

Those people have got it the wrong way around. If they did exist, superheroes would exist because people are unable to fight for themselves. Thus, instead of wishing that they did exist, we should want their existence to be unnecessary. That, not having a superhero around, would be truly empowering.

Please subvert

Posted by moses @ 16:08 • , , , , • 0 comments


Art and patronage has a complicated relationship. The reason is simple: Whoever pays for and facilitates the creation of art tends to influence the direction of art.

While this may be an ordinary thing in the art market, where artworks are freely hawked like any other commodity, it presents a problem for political art of the subversive kind. Art that receives state patronage is by definition art that is approved by the state; it therefore has limited subversive potential. Subversive art must hence be art that is not explicitly approved by the state; and an artistic object or act that is extra-legal is thus a good candidate for subversive art.

The arrest of the 'Sticker Lady' in Singapore and the subsequent online furore provides a good entry point for a discussion about the relationship between the state and subversive art.

From the point of view of the state, what she did was an act of vandalism or (if the distinction matters) at least that of the defacing of public property; to many, it was art. These are irreconcilable viewpoints not just because the state is not the best arbiter of what is and what is not art, which is a complex debate not suited to the dry legalist realm of discourse, but also because what she did is so compelling by virtue of the fact that it was an act of defiance of the law—in other words it spoke to its audience because it was subversive.

So, in that sense, demanding that the government recognise what she did as art and not a crime is quite beside the point. And, by extension, turning this into an issue of national policy on art and creativity is the wrong way to go about it; without a consensus that what she did was worthy of official recognition, the conversation would quickly reach a dead end. Instead, what we can do is to question the penalty against such acts and debate the implications of a harsh penalty on freedom of expression. Realistically speaking, what she did would always be legally deemed as a crime, but the enforcement of the relevant laws could certainly be toned down.

Why is a review the legal penalty for vandalism important? Firstly, a harsh penalty for vandalism is indicative of an authoritarian political culture that is not tolerant of dissenting voices, especially when this penalty is disproportionately heavy compared to penalties for other more severe crimes.

Secondly, if we want art of every kind to flourish, including subversive art, then it follows that we should try to reduce the heavy-handed prosecution of some kinds of art. Demanding that the authorities recognise subversive art is contradictory, but asking them to be less stern towards it is not.

Finally, this would also serve as a tangible and actionable goal that extends beyond this incident–a larger goal that could actually be reached without the debate being hopelessly mired in arguments about art and vandalism.

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.