A True Cognitive Cultural History of Singapore, and the present need for foreign talent – in brief

A True Cognitive Cultural History of Singapore, and the present need for foreign talent – in brief

I really don’t understand Singaporeans’ surprise or incredulity in the face of increased foreign workers coming in to take their jobs. Sherlock Holmes once said that a true logician will be able to look at a drop of water and from there, extrapolate the existence of the ocean even if s/he had never know of its existence. An exaggeration it may be to our currently and relatively underdeveloped minds, but the principle is sound.

As I’ve said to sim and v, amongst others, before, any government has 2 choices, one, keep the people perspectivally and intellectually docile so that they can reign in perpetuity whilst maintaining an academic elite to produce the ideas (i.e. China is a quintessential case in point), or don’t impose intellectual constraints on the people and risk political longevity. Apathy has to become a part of the culture for this to succeed. And with apathy, perspectival docility, near-sighted pragmatism, penchant for the familiar, intellectual sloth, decline in generic curiosity, etc, are both effects and causes. Now how would such a people fare in globalised economics. I wonder how many people realise that there is a cultural cause, that is politically-induced, that led to India producing IT professionals amongst others whilst China was producing factory workers. In the case of Singapore, an intellectually docile people would be fine for the manufacturing phase of its development, but not when it comes to the demands of global intellectual economy. That is when the people will be told to seek their fortunes abroad, price themselves competitively, and also see an influx of the ‘foreign talent’ to circumvent the docility of the locals – which was constructed to minimize the kind of empathy that might threaten political longevity.

The Progressives vs The Traditionals - the 2 races of Singapore Past

Most of the ‘young-uns’ these days don’t know that Singapore was extremely different in the 70s and 80s. The intellectual economy was yet to be ‘centralised’ back then (i.e. China centralised it 2000 years ago and kept the masses of its inhabitants numb and relatively perspectivally and intellectually docile thereafter – which also explains why it is the longest running state in recorded human history.). In fact, the intellectual economy was being increasingly run by the Christian/Catholic/English-speaking sector. It is not because of ‘Jesus Saves!’ that this was the case. It was simply because there was more cultural collusion amongst different ‘races’ in church as opposed to other faiths which saw people of a singular ethnic group practicing a singular and historical religion. So in church, we had the cultural and perspectival inter-breeding of Eurasians, Chinese and Indians. 3 cultural perspectives were coming together – with the most vibrant being the Indians and Eurasians…with the Eurasians bringing in the ‘vibrant’ and ‘western’ component, and the Indians bringing in the intellectual and perspectival side of things. The Chinese in the aforementioned milieu benefitted greatly from this. Thus, it was not surprising that significant opposition in Singapore began to come from the Catholic quarter.

Back then, these people disavowed much association with their ‘race’ and generally lacked fluency in their ‘mother-tongues’. Thus, they were more open to other ideas as they were not insecurely biased toward their ‘own race and culture’ simply because they looked like Chinese, Malays or Indians. For myself, and as a consequence, I grew up without a conception of race. I only knew that there were intelligent and vibrant people, and that there were people who weren’t. I also realised in primary school that the top classes were mainly populated by English-speakers, who, whilst being adept in their 2nd languages, spoke English most of the time. At that time, more and more people began to conform to the perspectival and linguistic standards of this sector of society. Inter-ethnic mixing was also on the rise. People began to shy away from speaking their ‘mother-tongues’ as it denoted a penchant for the familiar and hence, ‘backward’. People were becoming culturally and perspectivally vibrant and had an intelligent opinion on many things.

‘Singlish’ (local style English) then, was also a mix between English, Malay and Mandarin/Hokkien as opposed to the present where it is generally a mixture of only Chinese and English. (I believe that the colloquial style of English indicated the degree of cultural integration) In fact, we now have 3 variants of Singlish as opposed to the past. The Chinese have a ‘Chinglish’ that comprises mainly Chinese and English; the Malays have a ‘Malglish’ that comprises Malay and English; and the Indians, an ‘Indglish’ that comprises Tamil and English. This is ‘integration’ taken a paradoxical wrong turn mate.

I wonder how many of the 4 or 5 million in this country, including its ‘great’ intellectuals, and so-called oppositional voices, realise this. If you didn't then you're as much a part of the problem that you're attempting to address. It indicates the existence of a perspectival deficiency that is a product of socialisation within this milieu. It will certainly have a host of other negative effects on your analyses, understanding and perceptions in a host of other situations. Ever tried to put a fire out with a flame? Exorcise thyself. As I've always said, it's easier to suggest a solution than to not be a part of the problem. That's the guideline I've always applied on myself. The best I can hope for is to decrease my culpability so that my problem-identification and solutions will be more accurate. The question, 'What's wrong with the world' must always be accompanied with, 'what's wrong with me'. Both have to be asked and incrementally addressed and resolved simultaneously. It is a never-ending quest, but has to be undertaken by those whom are truly interested in changing the world for the better. If not, it is simply self-indulgent vanity.

Cultural Clampdown Singapore

Anyway,

It was then (80s onwards) that a cultural clampdown began to occur in singapore. Street signs were named in ‘hanyu pinyin’ terms (romanised Chinese words); a potential Indian Prime Minister was passed over for a Chinese one; the ‘speak mandarin it’s cool’ or ‘speak mandarin it’s an advantage’ campaigns picked up pace; the SAP (Special Assistance Plan) schools which provided advanced education for mainly Chinese students finally began to come to fruition and began to produce acculturalised Chinese to take over the economy; there was increasing critique in the newspapers of ‘western values’ vs ‘asian values’ with increasing emphasis on Confucian/Chinese values thereafter; being different was increasingly frowned upon with police checks on people dressed differently; impromptu behavior was checked on by banning breakdancing in public even if it was in the void deck of flats in the 80s (I remember my being surrounded by 3 policemen whilst I was in the midst of a ‘backspin’ on a cardboard under my block one afternoon; separate cultural channels were created as opposed to the singular channel broadcasting the productions of different cultural productions – with the Indians not getting a channel until recently…Indians previously shared a channel with arts and cartoons; the initiation of a ‘mother-tongue’ policy that forbade the various ethnic groups from studying each other’s languages as a 2nd language in schools (my brother and sister, before this, studied Malay, whilst I studied Mandarin); the Chinese were spoken of by the government as ‘pragmatic and hardworking’; Chinese culture began to be celebrated in central locations whilst the celebration of other cultures were left to old ethnic enclaves such as Geylang (for the Malays) and ‘Serangoon Road (for the Indians); grander celebrations were promoted for other Chinese festivities (where I live, there are celebrations planned by the Resident Committee for Chinese New Year and the Mid-autumn Lantern festival but none for the Indian and Malay festivals); there was a major clampdown on the oppositional elements in the Catholic quarter; the ‘Zoo’ radio of Indonesia that played different types of music was blocked in favour of the local radio station that generally played only one type of music; English speaking dramas began to mainly comprise the Chinese as opposed to ‘others’, or with ‘others’ being accorded stereotypical roles that did not represent their true social characters, i.e. ‘serves you right’; public advertisements, and advertisements by corporations, and government-linked corporations only showed one ethnic group; cultural difference in school was eradicated for the stated purpose of ‘integration’ whilst only one culture and language of one ethnic group was promoted in the media and in the public…..

The above are some of the ways that singapore took the monocultural route. We could say that Singapore experienced what China did in 221 b.c. when ‘chinese’ was associated with the ‘one way’ system of Qin Shih Huang Ti as opposed to the ‘many ways’ system of the Chou era. In other words, from the late 80s onwards, Singapore, perspectivally-speaking, moved from the Chou era to the Qin era; or the Indian era to the post-Chou era; or the democratic era to the ‘Asian democratic’ era. Quite an amusing way to look at it isn’t it.

The consequence

In a cockleshell, Singapore moved to a monocultural era which can be likened to a child reared to only appreciate one type of food, friends, environment, culture, perspective, dress-style, thought, language, etc.

What do you think that is going to do to the child’s perspectival development. How do you think such a child is going to contend with novelty. Such a child is always going to go back to the familiar if given the chance. Such a child is going to reflexively discount anything new or different. Such a child is going to be more slow in processing new information. Such a child is not going to be able to sense things from different angles. But such a child will certainly not be a threat to the political longevity of any party. Thus, for instance, the longevity of the nation-state of China. Way before the west came up with the idea of the nation-state in perspectival form, China already was. The government does not have to maintain it. The people have been diminished to not want anything out of the familiar. Thus, China might always be as it always was.

Well, as I’ve always said, when we take the nation as one family, we can easily tell what’s going to happen in all situations given the dominance of this child and the methods used to rear it – what I call cognitive cultural analysis. That is why dear Singaporeans, singapore now needs ‘foreign talent’. That is why your jobs can’t be protected. The only way to protect yourself from ‘foreign talent’ is to make the methods by which talent is produced not foreign to your culture simply because it is someone else’s culture. But for that, the people must truly me the mistress and master of the political realm. When you abdicate this to the few, your complaints thereafter come across as the annoying whining of an evicted poodle. You have confused your progress in the past for the validity of a ‘one way system’. But you forget, the methods for success varies with the degree of success in varying arenas. What is a boon in one, is a disadvantage in another. It takes far-sighted pragmatism to realise this I’m afraid. It doesn’t take much intellect to advance your economic situation at the manufacturing phase, but the unfettered development of your intellect during this phase will enable you to occupy the forefront of development in the relatively intellectual and creative phase thereafter. If not, being ‘copycats’ is the best you can be.

‘Foreign talent’ is such an innocuous sounding word isn’t it. But, essentially, it refers to people who, being brought up under different cultural conditions, will be able to do things which people of other cultural conditions will necessarily require time to do given the deficiencies they will embody given their different cultural milieux. And people from the most variable cultures are generally the most equipped to be ready come what may, and do well when it does. Most people are not going to accept this as it threatens the identity upon which they base their sense of self-efficacy on – which is why I threw aside my ‘Indian’ identity when I was 18 in favour of basing my personal culture on the best elements of all cultures. But, when we base our sense of self-efficacy on nothing else but the ability to take on cultural elements of the verifiably self-efficacious of other cultures, that is when we are going to be more than we can otherwise imagine to be.

Singapore took a wrong-turn from the 80s onwards. Without critical and unbiased cultural introspection, we are going to be complaining more about its effects instead of doing something about the foundations upon which it is based, and upon which we base our present sense of self-efficacy. If it is not for present apathy and self-absorption, we will find that we will have little to complain incessantly about in the future. Ask yourselves what forms of apathy in the past has led to your present predicament. And then ask yourselves what forms of apathy you are exhibiting in the present. Both inquisitorial ventures will go far in addressing the conditions upon which your present and future complaints would be based. If not, it will cease to be an intelligent discussion, and just simply annoying.

Think about it.

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