Comments on: Press Muse – Singaporeans dreaming

By: Oli

Oli — Sun, 01 May 2011 23:07:13 +0000

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By: Panache

Panache — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:10:12 +0000

I fail to see anything inherently wrong with meritocracy. The concept of meritocracy is closely related to egalitarianism. He who works hard deserves to reap what he sowed.

This article confuses me in that the author implies that meritocracy leads to elitism and cronyism, concepts of which I thought are antithetical to meritocracy.

In a truly meritocratic society, there should be no elitism, croynism, nepotism or favouritism. The author should perhaps be arguing the case that Singapore’s claim to be meritocratic society is but a sham.

By: team park

team park — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:46:38 +0000

lol i don’t wanna go to the hotline. later kana ask knock our head on the wall for not paying.

By: selina

selina — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:44:50 +0000

@ all singaporeans 27 June 2010

true indeed. there’s no hope for them.
been voting pap for last few years but sad that will be
voting them out in coming election before lees familess squeeze my brain out.

By: all singaporeans

all singaporeans — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:39:43 +0000

“Unlike in singapore Some, like Mr Yusof, commit to homes more expensive than they can afford.

is there a cheap home in Singapore and affordable??)

Others sell their homes for cash to settle gambling or credit card debts, and end up on the beach.”

ops you forget to mention paying of sky high SP bills,water bills,taxes,gst, costly transportation, once you didn’t pay they send you a penalty $. they arrange for installment too. instead of usual paying of sp bills $100 you will pay $150. so they sell another thing to settle the gov debts too.

come on don’t poke singaporeans nose with their own fault always. does the poor can sign up credit card?? so the credit card issue goes to the rich for being too luxuries ending up in debts. what about the poor? what credit card they have? they mere can survive daily needs of food and yet paying bills after bills sky high. once they fall sick they have to returned home with more bills. does CDC really help?? we have seen it and have been to many CDC and whatever. they just not really what they seems to be on the TV advertisements.

so stop this shit on blaming Singaporeans and start to focus on what government had don for us. here is some of it.

increase gst

increase taxes
increase electricity charges
increase water charges
increase cost of HDB
increase transportation’s.

increase,increase,increase!!!

what they give.

peanuts package every few years before elections to cool of Singaporeans to vote them!!

increase hospital ,home bills cost by 50% and at the same time giving Singaporeans subsidies 0.5%. to show gov, lky and pap still love us and care for us.

last but not less……they give us singaporeans a HOT LINE number to call and go and cry out our pain knock our head on the wall provided by PAP and return to live as usual pay and pay.

By: pyu

pyu — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:46:33 +0000

To me, the Singaporean system of meritocracy – ala the public scholarship system – is akin to giving someone who already can fly very well a Saturn V rocket to reach for the skies and ignoring those who can only walk on the ground.

The advantages given to those who have earned ‘merit’ are enormous. Level playing field? Hardly.

There is neither social justice involved here, nor is it egalitarian. Taken to its intellectual extremes, it is nothing than Social Darwinism – only the fittest survive, the rest can rot away.

By: lala

lala — Sun, 16 May 2010 07:50:13 +0000

11 siblings ? So what happened to the other 10 ? Are they all holding high position and earning million dollar salaries ? I wonder. If they are not, then they must be stupid/irresponsible/dysfunctional?

By: mic o mic

mic o mic — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 02:32:41 +0000

When will people realise that “merit” can be bought ? Just check out the scholars of today. Before they used to be sons and daughters of taxi drivers and labourers. Today they are sons and daugthers of the rich who very obviously don’t need the financial help but crave the marketable glory. Mr Mah may have his sob story but how many sob stories have you heard from today’s scholars ? How far can your children go compared to the rich who can afford to purchase merit by way of enrichment tutors ?
Why is anyone surprised to see the top echolons of govt organisations becoming just a dynastic inheritance of the rich ?

By: Popcorn

Popcorn — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 03:43:04 +0000

Meritocracy is only applied on the ordinary citizens,
the elites are excused, else why nobody is made accountable for the gigantic losses at Temasek and GIC. We remembered Tony Tan said they anticipated the financial tsunami coming, yet they went into trying to bail out UBS, Citigroup, Barclays,etc, with their eyes opened. And they call
Singapore works on meritocracy, and place so much pride on this lopsided concept, tweaking it according to their self interest.

By: Some Sense please

Some Sense please — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:46:36 +0000

Life is not that simple Man. There are many cracks into which people fall for no fault of their own. meritocracy by all means….. But a civil society needs to have a heart for their fellow beings in need of a helping hand – whether it is their fault or not.

By: PeterC

PeterC — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:29:01 +0000

An excellent article and thought provoking but for me and my observations of LKY’s thinking, “Meritocracy in its true form benefit the less fortunate with hope of a level playing field at best but creates a cruel BEAST of a master RACE at worst.”

By: A

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:28:41 +0000

Hey….you can always vote with your feet. If you ain’t liking what you are seeing….leave the comforts of home which you are seemingly just happy to lament and take the big leap and join the global community and start to fend for yourself….I mean really fend yourself by yourself for yourself. See if you will survive in this world – once you have done that – you may have earn the right to comment and probably come to realise that politicians are alike everywhere you go…manipulative and not much trustworthy than a used car salesman.
That’s what happen to people in power — they abuse it and they will continue to — trying to justify their actions by affirming to themselves that what they are doing is for the greater good of all. I was a Singaporean citizen by definition – but I chose to control my own destiny and made the difficult decision to get out of my comfort zone. If I fall it is my own undoing — and if I stand tall it is also my own doing. It is only after I had done what I done that I come to realise what it really means to be Singaporean – not one that needs to be told what I can or can’t do.
I am what I termed – self-exiled Singaporean – because I don’t agree with half the policies being implemented by the existing ruling power and I chose not to take part in it. Soon – someone is going to take notice that we are losing more than we can replenish it.

By: Toel

Toel — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:32:44 +0000

Do u think it is Meritocracy that our PM is a general and a PM becos of his outstanding abilities to serve the common people? So far, i only see him raising taxes.

By: Majulah!

Majulah! — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:41:20 +0000

Fantastic article. Well Written!

By: People Arrogant Party

People Arrogant Party — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:00:06 +0000

Meritorcracy for the rich because poor students were not given scholarship because it was limited and reserved for foreigners after awarding the minister’s own childrens and all out of taxpayer’s money. Poor Singaporeans worked hard to feed the rich and we were called lesser mortal by charles Chong – so much for meritorcracy.

By: fair player

fair player — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:18:57 +0000

I like it as well. Btw, “Gats, you’re worth more than all of them lumped together!” That’s incorrect SD, Fitzgerald finally settled on, “Gatsby, you’re worth all of them and more.” He was referring to the hippocrisy of the American elite i.e old money. Your version was taken from the Atlantic Monthly which ran the series The Great American.

By: Singaporedaddy

Singaporedaddy — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:49:43 +0000

I know this type of articles doesn’t get alot of hits – but thank you nonetheless. It was in every sense exceptional and a welcomed departure from what’s regularly served up as the meal of the day in TOC – do keep up the good work.

Best Wishes

By: Singaporedaddy

Singaporedaddy — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:45:49 +0000

Good Evening,

I enjoyed this well written article immensely.

Meritocracy is just another polite way of squeezing out the happy middle ground – it’s nothing more than a form of reductionism to drive out the grey zone and dumb down everything into a simplistic black & white format - in the mindscape of meritocracy defined by our custodians of power, it’s just another way of saying; you are either switched on or turned off; team player or troublemaker, agreeable or disagreeable, functional or dysfunctional, cooperative or malicious and with us or against us – so that the end of the day its just a big winnowing process.

If you go against them, they will either fix you or name and shame you.

But the litmus test is what do they end up with when cows come home? Nothing much if you ask me, as the main protagonist in The Great Gastby once said laconically, “Gats, you’re worth more than all of them lumped together” - the sums it all aptly.

The last time we tried to institutionalize this word – meritocracy – it was abused by Philip Yeo and we really need to ask ourselves what did he really produce after spending so much of tax payers money? A big fat nothing!

Thank you and do have a productive week ahead.

SD (Internet Liaison Officer of the Brotherhood – sponsored by the Interspacing Mercantile Guild)

By: ayoungsingaporean

ayoungsingaporean — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:09:33 +0000

A well argued article in my opinion. Lacks a bit of focus but I gather that the author’s main points are the uneven playing fields that meritocracies ignore and the redifinition of merit by a decidedly technocratic ruling elite.

I do not however feel that this is something we will be able to change in any of our generations. Unless of course more opposition voices enter parliament. We need people who also came from humble backgrounds but struggled through school and became self made entrepreneurs. Someone who was poor at mathematics or science (which many of our leaders aren’t) but made a living by starting a business or became an artist or a novelist even.

The only way out of our technocracy would be to redefine merit so a (much) broader segment our population can be regarded as talented. Not just engineers or science majors.

On a more positive note, Singapore’s brand of meritocracy has created many technical talents. The challenge now is removing entrenched definitions of merits in favour of new ones. Singapore’s long term survival would desperately depend on this.

By: Agents Provocateur

Agents Provocateur — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:18:07 +0000

@smallvoice585
Meritocracy/Mediocracy – false binary. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Meritocracy as practiced here gives rise to nothing but mediocrity and the rule of the Mediocre, which will devolve to the rule of the Crassly Incompetent.
A major issue with our meritocracy is that it assumes a level playing field at the outset, and denies the relevance of any peturbations in the playing field – to the extent of denying their existence; in practical terms, discrimination in favour of the entrenched elites.
The real problem, as I see it, is that our society is a virtualised technocracy cloaking itself in the finery of merit; virtualised in the sense that one need not possess actual techne to rise through the technocracy – one need only display the signs of possession of techne, and to tell one’s peers that one is a master. No one’s going to point it out, because everyone’s depending on it to get ahead.