Read: Media’s silence on Yong Vui Kong a National Shame
Khairulanwar Zaini
Make no mistake about where the ‘cooling off’ period is coming from: a psychological gerrymandering to serve the PAP’s advantage. But that advantage goes beyond imposing their ideological hegemony through the mainstream media or insidiously undermining the potential mobilizing power of the internet.
What the ‘cool off’ does is to canonize the rhetoric of rationality – to disable voters from choosing anything but the PAP, the very embodiment of reason. For what are the opposition but emotional rabble-rousers? Screaming nonsense and tripe, inspiring tempers and rousing passions? What are they indeed, when compared to the staid, calm, rational, reasonable men in white?
The call for ‘disengagement and reflection’ serves therefore as a convenient foil for the PAP to declare: calm down, be rational, and vote us.
The appeal to reason plays into the PAP’s hand – sterilized and devoid of emotions, citizens will make an informed choice. So they tell us: keep in check those fierce passions! bridle in the tempers! and so pay tribute to the PAP’s imperialism of reason. This will indubitably be (re)affirmed by a compliant media, purveying the soi-disant myth of the incumbent’s hyperrationalism.
But are informed choices the ones borne out of pure reason? Emotions, far from being a vile consideration, are the key to decision theory. Without emotions, our ability to make decisions becomes disabled. Writing of a neurological study of patients whose emotional faculties were impaired (but logical capacity very much intact), psychology professor Jonathan Haidt found that patients deprived of distractive emotions did not make better ‘rational’ decisions. Instead, they failed to make any decision at all, because ‘in the absence of feeling they see little reason to pick one or the other’. In the absence of emotions, people become disempowered.
With the suppression of emotions, in the rule galvanized by pure reason, PAP becomes the power – an eternal, self-affirming, self-perpetuating power.
***
Nations, at their very heart are constituted by politics and engendered by emotions. The American thinker Emerson identified that a nation is birthed when ‘a community of people … feel that they belong together’. There is no objective reason for a nation to exist; it thrives on ideas, myths, passions. Emotions. The triumph of rationality is the defeat of a nation.
When rationality triumphs, Singapore ceases to exist: rational Singapore is the Potemkin village. But the PAP will flourish. Without our emotions, our passions, our dreams, Singapore becomes nothing and the PAP becomes everything.
The appeal to reason strengthens and solidifies the PAP’s position. The ‘cooling off’ period disguises their new lifeline: pandering the myth of rationality after their sweet promises of prosperity and the lullabies of fear have lost their traction.
It depoliticizes further a society already lacking in political option, shoehorning the PAP as the only legitimate, viable and reasonable party available to rational voters. See the real danger for what it is: the ‘cooling off’ period is not about the control of information, but the subliminal disabling of human agency and choice.
It elevates rationality as though it were the only variable that matters, pouring askance to emotions. All heart may make us foolish, but no heart makes us empty. We see an incipient groundswell of resentment in the defiant promises to maintain the heat on ‘cooling day’ through the internet. The battle however will not be won at this frontier, which has always been beyond the ineluctable clutches of the PAP. Victory lies in damning rationality and keeping alive our emotions.
This city may be mechanical, but the people need not be. Indeed, the people must not be: they must breathe life into her heart, invest emotions in her sinews, infuse passion into her bloodstream. We have seen the corruptible ramifications upon our humanity when reason alone prevails: the Disneyland with the rational death penalty, generous salary scales as reasonable incentivization, economic rationalization to deny the minimum wage. And now, reason will allow the PAP to perpetuate and lock its legacy. It is not sufficient that we vote the opposition for checks and balances, or some other rational consideration, for it only serves to validate the PAP’s myth of pure reason. We need to vote the opposition because we feel in our hearts, with our hearts, that the time for change is due.
Sometimes, ‘all fact, no heart’ does inflict real damage upon people. Particularly when a country has grown on nothing but facts and reason till it forgets how to be humane. How to be human. How to feel. How to love our country. How to love ourselves.
***
The rhetoric of rationality that spins the ‘cooling off’ period as reasonable (and therefore good) has also concealed the relative ease of electoral amendments: the PAP’s cloak of reason quietly undermines fair play – we need to ‘cool off’, we need to calm down, hence we introduce a rule that ultimately benefits us.
The philosophical elegance of elections lies in its privileging of pure procedural justice. The victor is not required of anything other than to win by the rules. Legitimacy is ultimately vested in the proper adherence to procedure, and how effective would it be if one could subvert the rules yet maintain legitimacy. Since the PAP is only required to win by the rules, they undertake to amend and revise the rules with impunity. All while shamelessly couching these changes as political liberalization. Deftly done, with one eye on legitimacy, and the other on perpetual incumbency.
We can emotively discern that that justice could not and should not be the advantage of the stronger. The PAP can muster a formidable assembly of cogent arguments, but we can intuitively discover its verisimilitude and perceive how these arbitrary changes of the rules (however benevolently cloaked) are unfair.
And we should remember at the ballot box these impulses. How unfair, how deceitful, how cowardly the PAP is. And how the PAP should be reminded of their transgressions, in that hard and only way that political parties will ever learn.
***
‘Reason is, aught only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them’. – David Hume
It is imperative that we turn the PAP’s sword upon itself: on ‘cooling day’, stiffen resolve and anger. On ‘cooling day’, hear out reason but let our hearts prevail. We owe it to Singapore that we awaken our emotions and subordinate reason. We owe it to ourselves to oust the mechanical clunks of rationality that plagues our lives and decisions. We owe it to our children to subvert this dystopia of power disguised as pure reason.
Remember Hume. Remember the blunders. Remember the empty myth of reason. Remember a Singapore of heart.
(Middle anst photo courtesy of PeoplePowerTayo and Wilfred Wong)
HELP keep the voice of TOC alive!
If you like this article, please consider a small donation to help theonlinecitizen.com stay alive. Please note that we can only accept donations from Singaporeans. Thank you for your assistance.Do you have a flair for writing? Volunteer with us. Email us your full name and contact details to theonlinecitizen@gmail.com
“I am knocking reason: that’s the entire point of the piece. Reason is not sufficient for us to live or engage in nation-building – I thought the article would have made that clear. ”
Actually, ‘reason’ is not at fault here. The policies and actions of the PAP is perfectly reasonable… for their purposes.
But it runs into problems when their purposes run counter to the long-term benefits of the people.
It can be reasonably argued that many of the policies will hurt us in many ways in the long run.
Hence it is UNREASONABLE to expect the policies to still be in place.
The PAP likes to see itself as the embodiment of reason. By steeplejacking the word ‘reason’ for themselves, they are painting anyone who disagrees with them as unreasonable.
Being a person who loves reason, I am quite offended that we would even begin to agree to let them stake the claim on reason and rationality.
Rationally-speaking, values of compassion, democracy, taking care of the weaker ones amongst us, open debates, etc etc… all these are beneficial to the nation.
Disregarding these, as the PAP is wont to do, is IRRATIONAL.
They stole and soiled reason.
We have to claim it back.
It is easy to shout for change, for freedom of speech for liberty the way the westerners do… but most people, especially the common folk, the aunties and uncles do not want that. they want to be able to walk home safely at night, to ave food on the table, to have running water and electricity. and they strongly believe that it is only the PAP who can provide them with these.
to be fair i salute those who have passion for politics and for change but it’s not going to change the mindset of the older ones. i kow because my parents and my in-laws are such examples. we can vote the PAP out of the entire parliament but how confident are we that the opposition is as competent in running the country?
A+ clap clap clap!
“…opposition is as competent in running the country? ”
The first thing to re-examine starts with how quickly one jumps to the conclusion that they are competent.
Khairulanwar Zaini #48,
As conflations go, yes, it’s easy to get lost.
Responding to a question specifically asking “when” with “not always” and considering that a “direct” answer, makes it pretty clear this will go nowhere.
I’ll leave you with a comment I read on TOC. The familiar “reasoning” goes like this:
1. LKY accepts the theory of evolution
2. PAP is synonymous with the theory of evolution
3. Let’s hate PAP/reject the theory of evolution and reject the theory of evolution/hate PAP
hell, I don’t mind the 24 hours cool down period.
… I see it as the time for political parties (PAP and opposition) to stop campaigning, and for the PEOPLE to start campaigning. ie. TOC and other blogs should be filling up the www with all kinds of info (summaries of the rallies, etc) for people to read.
- pictures of PAP rallies versus opposition rallies should be shown.
- fallacies in arguments should be highlighted
- past promises (can include swiss std of living, world cup 2010, etc) not fulfilled should be featured
Anyway, my point is instead of bemoaning how advantageous it is to PAP, why not brainstorm how it can be turn to our advantage?
Hi sllim,
Here’s the thesis: rationality is not sufficient for humans to operate by. PAP, by pandering to that myth of rationality, is collateral damage. I’m aiming at the very practice of rationalism: PAP’s apparent/perceived pure rationalism failing is thereofre a corollary.
You asked when intellectual honesty is internally inconsistent: I’ve shown you that on occasion reason does not approximate with the truth, particulary with the illustration of the death penalty. Citing occasions is an appropriate manner of addressing ‘when’ questions, I believe.
52) Powerhouse on December 6th, 2009 6.25 pm
we can vote the PAP out of the entire parliament but how confident are we that the opposition is as competent in running the country?
That’s easy. The PAP is already not competent. I will just highlight what I think are the more serious example.
- super upward spiral of HDB flat price. I have no idea how the next generation is going to afford one without being in PERPETUAL debt.
- Incomes of the low wage earners have been nearly stagnant for more than a decade at least… with this kind of time line, you can’t explained it away using the economic crisis.
- now the huge influx of foreigners may also be suppressing the middle income range…
so the opposition don’t have a lot of ground to make up at all… that is, if they need to in the first place.
A superbly written critique, the quality of which will never be found in the sterile words of robotic ST journalists.
Let Lord Tennyson’s poem and a chinese proverb below be a spur to Singaporeans to use their long-repressed emotions and give vent to the truth using the power of their vote.
” Ours not to reason why,
Ours but to do and die:
Into the Valley of Death,
Voted the 3 million natives;
Death births life anew.”
Khairulanwar Zaini,
Q: When is “intellectual honesty” not an internally consistent term?
“A”: Just because it’s intellectual, it doesn’t mean it’s true; reason does not always lend itself to truth, only (sometimes) a close approximation. It is very rational to execute Vui Kong: he broke the law, the punishment is mandated – but it’s another thing altogether to say that it is the right thing to do.
Rationally, I would never back a politician who responds like that, and not just because I wouldn’t know I was given an “answer”. Emotionally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. (FYI, this delineation is all very artificial.)
Hello sllim,
You have to provide me with more meat to work with. It has to go beyond merely stating that it resonates neither rationally or emotively with you. Generally disabling discursive position to adopt.
@52) Powerhouse on December 6th, 2009 6.25 pm
“but how confident are we that the opposition is as competent in running the country?”
Can your parents or you guarantee that they/you will have healthy children, and all will become scholars and achieve great things in life? If not, then don’t have children right?
So are you worried that if the opposition forms the next government, the entire police force will resign and thus result in the streets being unsafe?
Powerhouse #52
“how confident are we that the opposition is as competent in
running the country? ‘
If you stay with this kind of thought, we will stay stagnate with
the status quo
We need the courage to experiment change in order to progress.
Besides how can you be presumptious that the opposition in
Govt wouldn’t do a better job as if the PAP has been a wonderful
govt recently.
Premise: I’ve the money to renounce my citizenship and pursue a higher standard of living in France.
Conclusion: I shall “quit” Singapore within the next 4 months. Goodbye reservist, bonjour Champs-Élysées.
PEOPLE.. just bear in mind that, we vote for a government to work for us, not the other way round.
there is definitely something wrong when citizens start fearing their government they voted in.
It can only be attributed to my pet peeve: anti-intellectualism. Most Singaporeans have no qualms sneering at CSJ for being “dumb” to go against the gahman. “Got money meh?” is the oft-cited response. Give them HDB, medisave, MRT and free schooling and they are swayed. These are the very same philistines who walk into a haute cuisine restaurant, asking if they serve buffett.
I feel that the article is slightly off. There is nothing wrong with cold, dispassionate reason. I shall gladly vote PAP out with cold, dispassionate reason given the opportunity. There is no lack of justification.
I agree that FEAR is PAP’s greatest weapon. And fear is an emotion, in fact, the most instinctive of our emotions since it concerns survival. PAP has mastered the use of fear to control us. The pertinent question is: is acting under the influence of fear rational and reasonable?
We must find, inside each of us, the strength to overcome fear. Fear of a poor economy. Fear of losing our jobs. Fear of falling property prices. Fear of higher crime rate. Fear of ISA. Fear of CHANGE.
Fear is the chain that binds us. Cast away your fear and let reason guide your actions.
To Zaini:
Further to my above posting, I feel that to appeal to the emotion of voters concedes the high ground to PAP. You will have lost the battle before it has even begun because you just admitted to being a ‘rabble-rouser’!
The opposition parties must make themselves a viable alternative to PAP under the scrutiny of cold, dispassionate reason. The cooling-off period is a red herring to paint you as rabble-rousers.
Hello Panache,
At the risk of missing the entire point, the thrust of the article is this: there is nothing wrong with emotions, but there is something wrong with operating by pure reason.
Mr Zaini is commendable. As a reader, i seldom see the authors proactively engaging the readers. Mr Zaini , well done. I support you.
To Zaini:
Precisely my point. I could argue that there is nothing wrong with operating by pure reason either. In fact, given a choice between operating by pure reason versus operating by pure emotion, many would choose the former in their leaders. The emotional response is widely perceived to be reactive, ill-considered and wrong.
As I have said, the objective of the ‘cooling-off’ day is to paint the opposition parties as rabble-rousers who appeal to baser emotions like envy and anger. Arguing against reason simply makes you fall right into the trap.
The key to turning this against them is to recognize that fear is the emotion that they use. Have the ‘cooling-off’ day by all means. In fact, welcome it. Use is as a day to ‘cool-off’ from fear. Call it the ‘no-fear’ day instead.
Outstanding, truly analytical and excellent in contents and substance.
We need more people like this who dare and have strong conviction.
Mr Zaini has nothing to gain and he seems to have Singapore, interest at heart by looking and observing so well the situation here in Singapore..
Hello Panache,
I do hope you’ve read the article: pure reason is not infallible, as we would like to perceive or privilege. Our decision-making ability is grounded in emotions, and then thereafter sharpened by reason – the basis lies in intuition, not rationalization.
Pure reason is disabling.
We could view this from another perspective: by acceding to the PAP’s dichotomy of reason being good, emotions bad – and hence avoiding emotions – you are falling into their dehumanizing trap.
Please do read the article again: humans do not live by pure reason, and neither are nations built on it. I am not excessively swining towards the rule of pure emotions either, but I am staking a claim for the reduced role and attenuated privilege of reason: “On ‘cooling day’, hear out reason but let our hearts prevail. We owe it to Singapore that we awaken our emotions and subordinate reason.”
Pure reason will get you PAP in perpetual incumbency – because they do not have to be rational, but only have to appear so: the compliant state-owned media will look to that. The root of our malaise is also due not so much to the PAP per se, but to them encouraging us to pander to that myth that reason trumps all.
And I’d just like to point out to readers that, for the most part, the second component of Malay names is patronymic. Zaini is my father’s name, I am usually referred to as Khairulanwar (:
Reason vs Emotions = False dichotomy.
Khairulanwar Zaini #61,
Meat:
“What the ‘cool off’ does is to canonize the rhetoric of rationality – to disable voters from choosing anything but the PAP, the very embodiment of reason. For what are the opposition but emotional rabble-rousers? …. When rationality triumphs, Singapore ceases to exist: rational Singapore is the Potemkin village. But the PAP will flourish. Without our emotions, our passions, our dreams, Singapore becomes nothing and the PAP becomes everything.”
“And now, reason will allow the PAP to perpetuate and lock its legacy.”
Absurd slippery slope aside, you (are) confused between rhetoric of rationality, rationality, reason and Pure Reason. They are not identical/interchangeable.
“We have seen the corruptible ramifications upon our humanity when reason alone prevails: the Disneyland with the rational death penalty, generous salary scales as reasonable incentivization, economic rationalization to deny the minimum wage.”
Equivocation. Rationalization here has nothing to do with Pure Reason.
“With the suppression of emotions, in the rule galvanized by Pure Reason, PAP becomes the power – an eternal, self-affirming, self-perpetuating power.”
Intellectual dishonesty: “It transcends beyond whether the PAP has a legitimate claim on rationality”
Also a fantasy/conspiracy theory leap from political rhetoric to reality. Notwithstanding the fact that “cool down” is not equivalent to no Emotion/Pure Reason, and Pure Reason only exists theoretically. Emotion-Reason is also a (folkish) false dichotomy.
P.S. In what sense are you (mis)construing my question when I asked about intellectual honesty?
Your piece makes a very strong case why being rational is so important.
Khairulanwar Zaini -
“The appeal to reason plays into the PAP’s hand . . . ”
So whose hand (not the hand that feeds us) should we all be irrationally played into (i mean intelligently) – SDP, UMNO, etc.???
Please don’t tickle our toes. Here is precisely what the rest of the improvished world wants to get into & you are suggesting we join these countries. Are you ok?
Go read “Singapore practises good governance, has strong leadership” by Zakaria Abdul Wahab from Bernama (Malaysia), just released a couple of days ago. Some Malaysians have of late regain their senses.
So much for sanity or insanity. My Goodness! Fortunately Singaporeans can think but not foreigners or the ex-S.
“but not foreigners or the ex-S.”
Leave the ex-Singaporeans alone. I can’t wait to start my new life in a better country come next April. =)
Hello sllim,
The PAP panders to this myth that reason is supreme. The ‘cooling off period’ does that: we must calm down (negate emotions) and choose wisely (read: rationally). The PAP maintains their power because they only need to appear rational, a task conveniently achieved by the mainstream media.
How is reason/rationality/pure reason dissimilar in the sense that it will have a significant impact upon the thesis that reason should be subordinate to emotions?
And for the last time, Singapore (not just the PAP, though they are responsible for asserting and pounding this assertion) values reason over emotions. My thesis is otherwise: we need to hold emotions primary, and let reason refine our intuitive judgments. Otherwise, appealing chief to reason (and emotions just being an afterthought) is a disabling position. That is why I supplied Haidt.
It is economic rationalization that deems the minimum wage unsustainable, it is the strict rationale of crime begetting punishment that allows for something as unconscionable as a mandatory death penalty.
Like I said: the matter is not the veracity of PAP’s rationality, but the impression that it is. The PAP privileges reason, and then appears to the electorate as a the party of reason and hence effectively perpetuating its incumbency. You can fight the PAP’s claim on a superstructural level (by trying to prove that it is irrational, while they employ the mainstream media to rationalize away their actions), but I’d rather undermine the entire structure that places reason as the premier mode of thinking.
For all the charges of a false dichotomy, please do read the essay again: the position is nuanced – it is not to subvert reason in its entirety, but to establish that reason should be subordinate to emotions.
It would be good if someone could establish why reason should be privileged over and above emotions, without having to adopt a self-reifying position that subordinate emotion just because it is not rational.
Hello Paksorn,
The point of the article is this: Singaporeans need to change their perspectives, and avoid the privileging of reason and discounting of emotions. The appeal to reason, when stretched too far, can become oppressive to human agency – but that will be another essay altogether.
Here’s what I can offer you: appealing chief to reason or rationality do not built nations or allow people to live fully. It can built countries with huge skyscrapers and high GDP growth, it can allow humans to attain such a wondrous mechanical efficiency, but it will fail as a means to liberate us into a more fulfilling life.
It is entirely rational to want a better life. Emotion is an integral part of defining what this better life constitutes, particularly with regard to the people that you love. I do not understand the need to make either rationality or emotion subordinate to the other. And I do not consider protecting the people I love to be irrational, even if protecting them harms me in some way.
Individuals vote, not some Singapore Hive mind. If PAP policies appeal to you, by all means vote for them if you so choose. If they do not appeal to you, then don’t. If you are angry that the PAP has compensated you poorly for your son’s death during NS, vote for the opposition. Again, only if you so choose. Listen and read and think and feel but, in the end, vote for whatever reasons you so choose.
Emotion could be among these reasons, or it could be entirely cold hard $. Some may judge you for that, poorly (the PAP?) or well (Khairulanwar?) but with or without emotion, you have a right to choose. If you do feel that it is time for a change, you may want to consider taking personal responsibility for influencing the decisions of the people around you by sharing your reasons. Or even sharing how such decisions should be made, although it may be somewhat more difficult for such a message to resonate with your audience.
And sllim,
A hundred years from now, I harbour some small hope that this essay would have made a little contribution towards something much greater. I harbour no similar hope, however, for technical criticisms of this piece, however astute. Or, for the matter, for my own comments which I am writing for my own reasons.
And there is no such thing as accidental dishonesty. If you are acusing Khairulanwar of intellectual dishonesty, you must believe there is an intent to decieve at some level. Do you really? Because while I can certainly see the errors you describe, I can’t for the life of me detect any malice behind them.
“practises good governance, has strong leadership”
stick without real democracy can still give you strong leadership (e.g dicta.
stick without real democracy can also let you practise good governance easier . remember, fix the opposition.
however, strong leadership + real democracy gives you real leadership.
what is the point of foreigners saying how good your country is when you own people do not recognize as such.
It is the locals who have to fall into line of the stick (whatever the costs may be) that creates the condition for your so-called “strong leadership” & “good-governance” to happen not foreigners.
Hello Kenneth,
I think you’ve framed rationality in a slightly different manner, but our ideas are in similar vein. While you consider emotions as within the ambit of rationality, I consider rationality as one of pure reason alone. Protecting the people you love at your expense is irrational in terms of cold blooded reason, but we do feel it is right at the emotive level.
That said, the article shares the idea of not excessively privileging reason, which Singaporeans are wont to do.
“And sllim,
A hundred years from now, I harbour some small hope that this essay would have made a little contribution towards something much greater. I harbour no similar hope, however, for technical criticisms of this piece, however astute. Or, for the matter, for my own comments which I am writing for my own reasons.”
Took the words right out of my mouth.
@ Kenneth
“It is entirely rational to want a better life.”
What do you think of Khairulanwar’s response @ #82? Of slightly different manners, similar veins, and “rationality as one of pure reason alone”?
“Individuals vote, not some Singapore Hive mind. If PAP policies appeal to you, by all means vote for them if you so choose…. Listen and read and think and feel but, in the end, vote for whatever reasons you so choose.”
From your reading, what do you think of Khairulanwar advocates in terms of how/who to vote?
“A hundred years from now, I harbour some small hope that this essay would have made a little contribution towards something much greater. I harbour no similar hope, however, for technical criticisms of this piece, however astute.”
I wouldn’t consider a disagreement with an article/author, and backing it up, “technical” criticism. And what is this contribution you hope for?
If you “can certainly see the errors you describe”, what hopes do you harbour of political discourse if the non-critical-thinking in “The Treason of Reason” becomes media-widespread? Small?
“If you are accusing Khairulanwar of intellectual dishonesty, you must believe there is intent to deceive at some level. Do you really?”
Yes, initially I thought Khairulanwar was just “goofy” and “wrong-headed”. The ensuing dishonesty might well be self-deception and I am just “corollary”. Refer to #17 and #20 (In particular, “It transcends beyond whether the PAP has a legitimate claim on rationality”).
Or #76 and #79 (the “distinction” Khairulanwar makes between identical and similar; and the suddenly uncharacteristic usage of “similar” in #82).
“… while I can certainly see the errors you describe, I can’t for the life of me detect any malice behind them.”
I can’t either, and I didn’t claim Khairulanwar isn’t well-intentioned and/or self-deceived and/or plain mistaken. That said, if the deception (in the piece) is intended, that’s ample malice towards PAP. And I can’t for the life of me detect why :)
It is extremely childish and gullible to fall for the argument that if PAP goes then Opp that takes over will be bad. at best, a lousier than PAP opposition is only a speculation. however it is a fact that Opp constitutients are more prudently run than investment losing PAP wards.
What makes us so sure that only PAP can be good? Singapore is evolving. so while the early PAP maybe good, then it should evolve to be better. and again history shows us that the only way to prevent corruption is to evolve into a balance of power. One thing for sure, and this is cold, hard historical rational fact is that 1 party rule that continues will become inbred and corrupt. I think maybe can see the direction PAP is heading after so long a rule. the signs are there and i do not need to repeat.
So we should be rational and heed history’s teaching – dilute PAP’s power by 50% to ensure good governance. Do not listen to PAP’s self-serving nonsense abt ensuring self-renewal and criticisim. what they keep saying, especially LHL, is IRRATIONAL. It is only rational to him because it serves his purpose and not Singapore’s. Let us be rational and listen to history and not PAP.
Now emotions are impt too. As a rational student of history, i explained why rationality tells us we must vote against PAP.
My emotions tell me the same too. As a father, i canot bear to see my daughter grow up in a place that will be to oexpensive to survive, where her hard earned CPF and savings will be used for somebody’s wife to buy chips at the international stock mkt casino on a bad day, and for her future leaders to only care abt making millions instead of serving the people. where her leaders will be inbred, yes-men who think for the familee and party more than teh citizens. If I dont vote against PAP, then as her father, i have failed her to do my part in ensuring a bright future for Singapore.
I love my daughter and i love Singapore. Emotions n rationality both tells me i can no longer vote for PAP.
I must heartily disagree. There is nothing treasonous with reason. The treason is in how PAP uses reason on a highly selective basis to make their policies sound amazingly justified and dresses it all up as a non-existent “Asian pragmatism”. It’s something like how the American Republicans like to call guns, homophobia and liberal-bashing an “American way of life”.
There is nothing treasonous about Apathy is there?
How about consciously choosing to be apathetic behaviorally?
I think this is not treason.
But what about you guys and gals?
I disagree with young01. There is much that is treasonous when it comes to PAP’s reasons.
Mainly because PAP is un-reasonable.
After all is said and then, it still boils down to there is only 1 way out.
A factor of time.
Nature has to take its course.
In the entire world, let me emphasis this, the ENTIRE WORLD, the cooling off is for the people to debate and discuss. Only in tiny singapore, we cannot discuss political news Zzzzzzzz And they still hung the banners on cooling off days in Australia!!!
Lamers…
Reason is not the be all and end all. The world is everything that is the case. Forgive my brevity =)
#20 Khairulanwar /// We are conditioned to think of rationalism as premier, but in truth, our decision- making is based in emotions and intuition and refined by reason, the latter very much subordinate to the former ///
I am so happy that you have included “intuition”, as a distinct factor (besides reason and emotions) in this excellent article of yours.
In any culture, intuition is held in higher esteem than an accurate common-sensical appraisal of the facts as perceived by the physical senses, which include reason and the emotions.
Intuition can be defined as a combination of (historical) empirical data, deep and heightened observation and ability to cut through the thickness of surface reality, and a knowing and sensing that is beyond the conscious understanding.
IMHO, it is this quality of “intuition” that the PAPies have been so very successful in eroding from the minds of the populace, leaving behind zombies and robots that flourish here now.
sllim,
Most people tend to be very good at fuzzy logic. Too good, sometimes, in that they understand a meaning that was never intended. ESPECIALLY when poetic licence is abused.
I believe that I understand what Khairulanwar was saying in #82.
When I first read his article, I found several terms quite jarring. But I am willing to examine the basic premise that Singaporeans have been wrongly conditioned to associate emotion with poor decision-making. I interpret his article as a response to this observation and an effort to reverse this conditioning by 1) sparking awareness of said conditioning, and 2) providing supporting arguments to convince the unconvinced.
I note that his article does seem to resonate with the majority of readers who have chosen to leave comments. So I applaud a good effort.
From my reading, Khairulanwar is advocating that people vote against the PAP, based (primarily) on what their heart tells them. I don’t see anything wrong with him having such an opinion. If you do, then I would venture that attacking how he conflates “rationality” and “pure reason” may not be the best way to convince the casual observer.
The “contribution” that I hope for is political plurality. Not the plurality system, but plurality in terms of political representation. I believe this to be in the long term interests of Singapore.
Your first post made some sense to me and I understood the next few as responses but from post #36 onwards you completely lost me. And I was sad (emotional response!) to see the conversation get derailed.
I think that political discourse is important. Clarity of terminology is certainly a critical enabler for political discourse. But, honestly, it doesn’t detract all that much from the main point in this essay.
And my question (on malice) was simply based on a wrong assumption.
Khairulanwar ,
I do not think the question as to whether emotions can or should be considered within the ambit of rationality should be debated here. But my view is that rationality is demonstrated in the selection of optimal options in the course of pursuing one’s goals. Rationality is always independent of how “optimal” is (subjectively) defined. But, like I said in my earlier post, I really don’t see this discussion adding very much value.
I disagree that Singaporeans are “excessively privileging reason.” In fact, I agree with earlier posters who see fear, which is an emotional response, as a stronger explanation for their actions. Individually, of course.