Destiny of Singapore?

1. Will the country change its priorities from economic success to individual aspiration?
2. What will be the level of political participation of her citizens apart from the election period?
3. Will we shift our budget from National Service to highly trained professional soldiers, thereby minimizing or removing NS?
4. Will our education be more focused on each child's interests and aspirations rather than state-sanctioned merits?
5. Will we have a National Medical Plan that covers most of the citizen's medical fee?
6. Will we develop a social welfare system that helps the people most in need in our country?
7. What will be our national identity?
8. Will our national anthem be in English?
9. Will we move beyond our historical baggage and physical limitations?
10. Is there hope?

Why Keep Trying even if Failure is Certain?

People fail at times. We encourage them to "keep going, don't ever stop". Some manage to stand up and to continue with the activity. Among them, some succeeds. Those who has given up never succeed, unless bless by other factors other than himself. We often look up to those who stand up and sneer at those who give up. Sometimes, we say the latter has an "attitude problem".

But what exactly is wrong with that?

We cheer those who stand up, but should we thus condemn those who give up? On what moral high ground should we judge them and labelled them as "failures with attitude problem"? I think we have no such right to impose this moral judgement. An analogy is perhaps philanthropistic acts. We respect those who donate generously to charity, but we don't criticise and condemn those who are not donating. The similarity of the analogy lies in the nature of the two events.

Why exactly should we allow people to just give up? That does not sound like a good value that you want to teach to your children, does it?

The explanation lies in the context and the ideology. First, let me provide a situation, which may not be hypothetical. My friend needed to take a series of physical fitness tests. If he had failed any of them, he would be considered as failing everything and might possibly need to retake all of the tests once more. He had failed 3 out of the 6 components. Thus, he needed to take the retest. Unfortunately, he failed the first component (standing board jump) in the series of retests once more. He did not wish to continue the rest of the exams despite the teacher's encouragements and subsequently scoldings.

We will probably be inspired by those who choose to continue despite certain failure. However, I don't think that my friend here should be reprimanded in any sense. Yes, if trying does not work, then nothing else will work, except luck. It is not the case that he had not tried, he tried twice. Twice might seem little, but given the amount of energy and time a student has, we should not ask for too much. Further more, this is not any thing important like saving lives despite low possibility of survival or recovery. It was quite a superficial physical fitness test that does not affect my friend's life at all. He needed to take the tests only because it was a school policy in Singapore.

Secondly, life is not just about continuing to try to succeed in Physical Education. Just 1 hour after the retest would be another written essay exam that would be much more significant in terms of grades. Why not spend the time to muse about the essay questions instead of drilling your body to confront unncessary failure? We should keep trying if that physical fitness test is everything in our life -- that our life will not continue if we do not pass that stage. But life just really wouldn't pause for that trivial test! Life goes on. There are many other things that are worth trying -- those that worth your energy to strike with best of conditions. Would you spend all your effort (really, all your effort) on fixing a light bulb that you are confused from inside out, when you have broken the fuse already (that light bulb is really not surrectable)? Just to make the scenario more intense, you will be sitting for your driving tests just 1 hour later.

If you have just a bit of practicality, you would comprehend that to continue fixing the light bulb is really not a good option, albeit it may be a commendable action.

This context is better justified by consequentialism. What will be the outcome of my friend's decision to continue the rest of the test? Failures, only. How much utility or happiness would he get if he gets a good grade for the essay, probably due to his last minute contemplation and physical rest? Quite a lot, really.

So, from a consequentialist perspective, given this scenario, I really need to decry the act of my Physical Education teacher. He had been ignorant of the student's needs. He was not making good sensible judgement and lastly, he was trying to teach a good value in a totally wrong way, in practice distorting the goodness in the value and thus giving my friend a wrong outlook to life and to the value of trying itself.

Trying is necessary if we need to get pass a stage before proceeding to the next. Trying is a positive display of human determination. But trying is bad when failure of targetted outcome is certain. It is even worse to try to label those who do not try as peope with "attitude problem".

Human nature

Human nature is often taken as the basis to formulation of political system. Some think that human nature is good, while others think that it is bad. This diverse opinion then grows into diverse point of view on the most suitable political system for human beings.

The consideration of human nature is only useful when humans get together. I believe that humans started out as the state of anarchy. The most fundamenta law that governs the majority of our species is that of "the survival of the fit enough". That is to say that some human beings do not follow this rule, but they are minority. 

Why then do human want to live in a society -- or at least for the first generation that was offered this choice? I guess it was due to the basic assumption that more people provides greater safety and efficiency for survival. With these 2 assumptions, the concept of society survived till today.

I would not expect the day where anarchy in its purest form would return in practice. It is just impossible for human beings to return to the state of living for the sake of survival only. Thus, we are stuck in a society, which is also stuck with certain governing body.

The concept of authority and governance has evolved over time. Political systems are designed to best suit human needs. The first mistake that our politica systems have made is trying to encapsulate all human behaviours and practices  and thoughts into a whole -- making them accounted for. This, I believe again, is impossible. What is possible however, is to make rules that affect parts of the human life but never the whole of it.

We would agree that our political system is not the best that we have thought of as of now. We often assume people as quite good or quite bad (since neither extremes are possible). The problem is how exactly do we know whether people are quite good or quite bad? 

... ...

A better world

I have been dreaming about a better world.

This is not a world identical to the Utopia, because it is not the most idealistic and certainly not the best. It is more realistic in some sense. 

I dream of this world whereby people are at least granted equal treatment in paper and pen. They may not been possible in practice, but at least the ideal is reflected and imprinted. 

I dream of this world whereby human see themselves as descendants of a common species. It doesn't matter what is our origins exactly, what matters is that we can see ourselves as one common and united entity. Meanwhile, we shall not treat ourselves as identical, for that is impossible and there must be diversity.

Having said that, we must embrace openness, because it is the only way that we can start to make the best compromise and cooperation aimed at achieving peace in this world, for generations before us have suffered too much in the two major wars that destroyed humanity.

I dream of this world where people can be out-going, but at the same time be tolerant and considerate. It is of course difficult to outline specific rules for every situation as it would never be achieved. What is more important is that we think about "peace" as our first goal, and subsequently "happiness" as our second goal.

... ...

On the maximum number of years a person should be jailed

No doubt, every society has criminals. They exist because of the existence of law, legislative body and executive body. We should abide by the law because it outlines the rules of human behaviour.

However, we should not see criminals as hopeless social being. That means we should continue to think about their rights and welfare if applicable. One of them that I am proposing is about the maximum length of time that any one should be jailed.

My idea is that no one should ever be sentenced to a jail term that is longer than the years that the convict has lived. In USA, there are cases where somebody is being jailed for more than 200 years. This is ridiculous. Everybody has a finite number of years to live. Whatever crime that the criminal has convicted must has been committed within the his life time, that is no dead person can commit a crime.

So, for example, if a convict is aged 20, then the maximum number of years that he should be jailed is 20. This is because what ever causes that has made him committed the crime happened within his 20 years of age. If he is sentenced to more than 20 years of jail, then most of his life would be about jail life instead of anything about the real society outside the bars. 

We put criminals behind the bar because he is paying a high price, which is time and freedom, for his misdeed. We want that person to realise his mistake and thus, give him a chance to rejoin the society. In line with this objective, it clearly makes no sense to make a person to spend more time in jail than in the actual society. 

Further more, we must realise that even equating maximum number of years of jail to the person's age at the time of crime is already too severe. The equation assumes the possibility of a crime plan being created since the time that a convict is born. This, again, makes no sense. Crimes do happen spontaneously, unplanned, yet very severe. A break-up could trigger young men and women to irrationality and misdeed. However, be aware that they can be aged 20 but the crime incentive aged only split of a second. 

Thus, are we saying that we should jail the hypothetical lover criminal for a period of 30 years? No. In fact, this grave mistake is often realised shortly after the crime has been moulded into fact.

You may ask "what about those that severely threatens the society, the safety of public, the lives of people?" I will still provide the same answer. A jail sentence is a "black testimony" of a person. This testimony covers the years that the person has lived up to the point of crime. Are we telling ourselves that because that person has done something gravely wrong in his first 20 years of life, the rest of his 50 years (average life expectancy of human is about 70 years roughly) will be as disastrous to the society and to its people? Are we telling ourselves that no misdeed is forgivable? Are we telling ourselves that human life reaches the end in the first and last thing that we have done wrong? Are we telling ourselves that there is no hope to better future and humanity? 

No!

We may be able to generalise a person's past actions; but we can never ever know the future. I believe in human potential and that the least that we can do is to preserve the fairness and regard for human values for the criminals. Life is nothing without hope. With all our might and enlightenment that human race has ever claimed to possess, we should shed them on the people who are condemned by law.

We should condemn the criminals for their  misdeed; but their future should never be condemned! 

On me...

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman...because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.

--Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

On hypocracy

What is hypocracy? It is an attitude of Man when he is fearful of disagreeing with another Man or with the external circumstances, and thus put on a pretence of agreement. From this definition, hypocracy is necessarily public becuase Man does not need to put on a pretence to himself due to fear. It can also be concluded that hypocracy is a social product for the fact that it is public -- meaning for the others to see.

Why does a man need to be hypocritical? It is becuase he does not have the power to disagree wholeheartedly, even if he wishes to. It must be that he consequence of disagreeing is negative to the man himself. If a man has sufficient power, he need not be fearful of the consequence of manifesting his disagreement.

If a manis fearful, he must have perceived a threat to his survival. Fear arises from certain threats to survival. Therefore, if to be hypocritical is a response to the fear of negative consequences, to be hypocritical is to withdraw himself from threat to safety. In this sense, hypocracy, as a necessary action to prevent danger and to ensure survival , is justified.