KJ
A few days ago there was a Straits Times story about a family with four kids. (“Just enough to live on, yet they feel lucky”, December 12) It’s a regular feature that seeks public donations for the paper’s school pocket money fund. An altruistic enough endeavour, and 8,000 needy kids receive their pocket money from the ST.
What is more illuminating, though, is the parallel narrative that runs along the portrayal of a family in financial need. A more subliminal narrative, but none the less potent.
As we read the article, we are led into the Lim’s ‘sparsely-furnished’ household and its assorted intimate details. Mr Lim is a contractor. He earns $1,600 a month. But it is insufficient, so he moonlights for another one, two, hundred dollars. Mrs Lim is a housewife. She stopped schooling after primary six, and as a result finds it hard to get a job. Her oldest child, aged ten, has attention deficit disorder, severe enough to have to enter a special-needs school. Both parents are constantly looking for additional means to provide for their children, with education being the foremost concern. ‘I can’t even read some of the children’s books; the words are so difficult,’ said Mrs Lim. Forget too, about tuition. ‘No money – no need to talk about tuition.’ These form a story, but there is another story, a subtle reminder.
Assortative mating – according to Lee
When Lee Kuan Yew spoke at a conference in Singapore two months ago, he reaffirmed his long-held belief that intelligent babies came from intelligent mothers, and intelligent mothers are so, when they attain a university degree. It is an old belief, stretching back decades. Once, on the anniversary of the nation’s birth, when Lee posited what he saw as a seminal crisis of national proportions: graduate mothers were failing in their duty to produce 1.65 quality children. As a consequence, technological progress would halt, the economy would suffer, government would falter, and the country would perish.
Never mind that it was a skewed study: ‘It was an ‘awful truth’. Never mind that the debate is far from done: ‘You marry a non-graduate, then you’re going to worry whether your son and daughter is going to make it to the university.’ Never mind that intelligence comes in different forms, that intelligence is not the only reason to life, and that life is not all a digit in an economy.
Never mind that it was you who erected policies and penetrated society in such forceful manner that it cannot but submit and awesomely come true. Never mind, because otherwise, the country would die.
The wonderful myth of meritocracy
As the Lim children grow up, they would find life a little harder. It has been designed to be so. Some schools would be out of reach. There would be little social and education support at school. An education system that is driven by private tuition would put them at a greater disadvantage. From young they would be streamed continually, every stream leading them a little further from that headstart, a little further from the university, before it all converges into a torrent of foregone conclusions. All from a mere education system. What about the other systems, other embracing arms and cajoling strokes of the government and its institutions that have spread themselves across the state and seduced our minds?
It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t succeed; just that success would come in spite of the odds. That’s the way it’s made out to be. We’re given only relative numbers, your success relative to mine, her failure relative to yours. If she failed, it’s her fault. She didn’t work hard enough. If she met with success, it’s because of the system… too? The wonderful myth of meritocracy. So is it the individual or the system? I’ll know if it’s both when I can falsify Singapore. But the absolute numbers are kept away, hidden. The absolute successes are ensconced in the ivory echelons of the state. So, we have no sense of perspectives. Lee Kuan Yew was right when he said this in parliament when he was begging for more coins. We have no sense of perspectives because we have no way of weighing the relative with the absolute. This way Singapore is unfalsifiable. Things are so, because it says so. It says so because it can. It can because it is Absolute Singapore.
When readers read about the Lim household, there’ll be genuine pathos, no doubt. But there’ll also be a contrapuntal voice, the admonishing voice conveyed in that looming timbre of the Father: Remember Singapore. Are you a graduate? Look at them and their plight. Are you like them? Are you sure want to be like them?
Remember the tax penalties, the exorbitant hospital charges, the forced abortions, the clipped fallopian tubes, the public put-downs, the permanent stigmas? Forget those lives that could have led, for want of a better word, a better life. Never mind a life, as long as you produce quality genes for your fatherland. Society above self. The self is a machine.
Look at them and their plight. Are you a graduate? Remember Singapore. This is Singapore. Your place in society has been decided before you were born. Know your place in society, and take your pick: strata, structures, strictures, streaming, schools and scholarships, Singapore society’s strangleholds. Your fate has been closed and chosen. Because one man had an obsession with utopia, and made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So as to achieve happiness, prosperity, and progress for our nation.
*
Molly has written about another family with a similar tale, this time inflected not just by class and sexuality, but also race and religion. Nonetheless they do read like different pages in the same book.
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About the author:
KJ is a graduate student, and occasionally blogs at http://cavalierio.blogspot.com/
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Hi TOC,
I posted a comment here but it didn’t appear. Is there a technical problem, or was it censored? How does it work? Is it possible to make the discussion forum transparent?
Hi cjc,
Your comment wasn’t censored. The comment has more than one url link and was automatically put in moderation. This is to prevent spam comments from being posted, like those from porn websites.
Your comment is now released from the queue.
Regards,
Andrew Loh
Hi cjc,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I still have this lingering thought in my head that meritocracy is very often, if not all the time, associated with tertiary education, that is, intellectual advancement and the accordance of merit by the degree of this advancement. Academic achievement counts above all else.
Besides academic ability, can meritocracy be applied in other areas of one’s life? What about the ability to connect, to be of ‘social value’ to the community, of being able to contribute effectively to the progress of the country. How measureable is this outside of academic achievement or attainment?
Let me offer an example:
I have with me a colleague who holds a non-executive position whose contributions to the department (and therefore company) is way beyond 3 executives put together, in terms of knowledge and expertise in the areas of crafting policies and determining new job scopes etc.
He highest education level is ‘O’ level while the 3 executives are degree holders and very ofthen, these executives would come to him for help when they need to word documents like job instructions or new initiatives. The executives will ultimately put name to paper and take credit for the work done. What does it leave behind for this poor fellow? How does meritocracy apply in a scenario like this?
#103 gemami
I believe that the competency should, as far as possible, be interpreted in the broader sense as you have mentioned. Because appraising the performance of a large group of people is inherently difficult, academic achievement is often used as a first stage to filter candidates. The process is imperfect, but it does not arise from practicing meritocracy but from the difficulty of performance appraisal.
What we can do and should do is try our best within practical bounds to appraise performance as accurately as possible, then select the most competent candidate for the job. In most cases, using the broader type of appraisal is only possible when the number of candidates has been narrowed down to a manageable size.
To see if meritocracy is practiced in your specific example, the question to ask is this: “Who is more capable at the job?” In this particular situation, we can actually afford to go beyond academic qualifications to appraise abilities.
If whatever non-executive staff is helping is not just part of the job of the executive staff but all of their work, then it is clear that the non-executive staff is more competent and should be selected to do the job. If that is really the situation, then your department is not meritocratic. On the other hand, if the executive staff are actually also doing other stuff that the non-executive is not capable of, then the situation becomes more complicated. And I don’t feel qualified to comment without knowing the details.
Whether your department is meritocratic or not , I think the non-executive should be acknowledged since it seems to me that she has made a substantial contribution. But it looks more like a problem of office politics here.
Gemami 103,
Yes, you are right, that’s an astute observation. Just to add on.
I believe there are two types of people in this world; one is sheep; the other are foxes.
Sheep are good. They’re obedient. Reliable and dependable especially when one considers how readily they take to the pen without too much fuss. And if sherperded wisely they can even produce moderate to fair results, but don’t expect anything stellar; that’s true to the nature of sheep; one needs to set the right expectations.
Foxes on the otherhand; are perennially difficult, if not impossible to control; for one they’re capricious and ANY talk of “control” is strictly out the question; one could even say whether they choose to do your bidding depends on the vagaries of a hundred; if not a thousand things; but foxes when matched properly with their element are diabolically smart; they know when to pull and push; and when it comes to the snatch and run; they have no comparable equal and that’s why they will always remain the preferred quarry of the professional huntsman and his terriers – the fox will always be the proverbial run for your money by half.
Now you know why no bothers to hunt sheep; it’s like SDU, they’re just standing there; they’re simply zero sport.
The problem is this; when we talk about meritocracy and scholarship in tandem; while we may all agree and disagree on an endless medley of objects of interest; there is one thing that we can all agree on without too much difficulty.
Never ever send a sheep to do the fox’s job.
The problem as I see it; there are too many sheeps in the system; as for the foxes; they’re too busy impersonating sheep.
But trust me; their day will come. It must. It always does.
SD
Hi cjc,
I do agree that appraising a large group of people is not an easy task. But I am pointing out one from among the big group whom everyone know is deserving of some meritocratic recognition by his own merit. The department’s colleagues from peers to executives and managers have all pushed for some form of recognition from the company’s HR division.
Unfortunately, the only stumbling block is his O level education. HR cannot proceed to recognise his contribution because of his lack of academic achievements. It is compelled to follow a set of strict guidlines that stipulates meritocracy by academic achievements only. We are talking about a govt institution here.
Even his former manager who had since left after being promoted to a Director position, felt bad for him that all these executives and managers have moved up while this poor fellow is being left behind to help new executives and managers on their way up.
Walk into this department and you will see the many initiatives, good works and strong foundations which the dept is progressing on, which this fellow has contributed to, since his arrival a few years ago.
Talk to him about meritocracy and he laughs, without resentment, because he enjoys his work. This is besides the point. Where is the ‘to-give-credit-where-credit-is-due’ part of meritocracy?
This is why I say that meritocracy must be further addressed by the govt to make it clear that academic achievements should not, must not, be the ONLY criteria for appraisals. This is the case with the current understanding of meritocracy.
Hi singaporedaddy,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts but I think you’ve missed the point for once, ha! ha!, although it is a good lesson by itself.
I don’t think we are looking at the comparison of the peer-to-peer factor. In the present national context of meritocracy, we are looking more at the ‘shepherds’, by the way you have described.
It is more like the search for good shepherds, than it is, the ability of the shepherd to command his sheep. It is about the shepherds who decide whether you make enough of a good shepherd to join the clique, by a single criteria, which is, your ability to read and write.
Against this, I am saying, the shepherds ought to look at other factors that are just as meritorious, like his ability to connect with the sheep, his love and joy working with the sheep etc. Can these be measured and how?
#106 gemamiThis is why I say that meritocracy must be further addressed by the govt to make it clear that academic achievements should not, must not, be the ONLY criteria for appraisals. This is the case with the current understanding of meritocracy.
I understand what you mean. This is exactly what I believe needs to be done.
This is not just about idealism, but also tackling the problem in its roots. In this case, elitism is not at fault. The problem is simply not upholding meritocracy enough: selecting the most competent people do the job.
Academic qualifications is probably the only practical way to sort out massive number of applications. But whenever possible, I find government and large organisations generally (i.e. on the whole, not every instance) has a greater tendency to overlook other aspects beyond paper qualifications. Small companies are usually better at this, although the appraisal criteria is less standardised.
(I don’t know the details, so I don’t think I can or should draw specific conclusions about your work place.)