Monday, September 26, 2005
Cat's In The Cradle
My child arrived just the other day,
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay,
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talking 'for I knew it, and as he grew
He said "I'm gonna be like you, dad, you know I'm gonna be like you"
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you comin' home dad?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then, You know we'll have a good time then"
My son turned ten just the other day
He said "Thanks for the ball dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw"
I said "Not today I got a lot to do" He said "That's OK"
He walked away but his smile never dimmed,
It said I'm gonna be like him, yeah,
You know I'm gonna be like him
Well he came from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son I'm proud of you can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and he said with a smile,
"What I'd really like dad is to borrow the car keys,
See you later can I have them please?"
I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said "I'd love to dad if I could find the time,
You see the my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talkin' to you dad
It's sure nice talkin' to you"
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me,
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you comin' home son?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then, Dad,
We're gonna have a good time then"
~Harry Chapin
This song is quite a good reflection of the problems faced by Singapore in making sense of the future. This blog will term this general problem as the Precedence Factor. Again and again, the government is faced with the problem of why Singaporeans are not creative? Why Singaporeans do not want to venture into business? Why Singaporeans do not have enough fun in this city-state? There are a myriad of factors involved, but this blog asserts that one of the factors that has been overlooked is the Precedence Factor. My dad did this, he was successful, so I will do the same thing.
This is not an unreasonable point of view, that most children look up to their parents as role models. However, as the Singapore government can attest, the old ways of doing things are no longer viable. Getting good grades at the JC to get into NUS will not ensure that a decade down the road you can have a job and a career. Company loyalty in the past is now replaced by retrenchment and short contract jobs. So the question is how can the government convince the people not to allow the Precedence Factor to affect this generation of citizen?
This is not a trivial by any account, on one level its appears to be a solely economic decision, but on another, it will affect the core of the family. The family will no longer provide a role model for the child and with that much of the foundations of the basis of the role of families in Singapore. To compound the problem, there is the paternalistic instincts of the government to content with. Witness the recent dengue outbreak, with all the ministers out in full force doing the job of pest busters. If the government has no trust that Singaporeans can pour away 50ml of water from pails, what more can be said about the future of Singapore.
Thus the conclusion is that Singapore must choose the path that no one want to take. First, the government must be less of a participant in the state affairs as opposed to a coordinator. Its has to learn to let go of the power it now has on every citizen. Parents, on the other hand must learn to do the same with their children. It is difficult to take apart everything, but ultimately that is requires to reinvent the economy.
12:04 AM
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Even This Shall Pass Away
Once in Persia reigned a King
Who upon his signet ring
Graved a maxim true and wise,
Which, if held before the eyes,
Gave him counsel at a glance,
Fit for every change and chance.
Solemn words, and these are they:
"Even this shall pass away."
Trains of camels through the sand
Brought his gems from Samarcand;
Fleets of galleys through the seas
Brought him pearls to match with these.
But he counted not his gain
Treasures of the mine or main;
"What is wealth?" the king would say;
"Even this shall pass away."
In the revels of his court
At the zenith of the sport,
When the palms of all his guests
Burned with clapping at his jests;
He amid his figs and wine,
Cried: "Oh loving friends of mine!"
"Pleasure comes but not to stay;"
"Even this shall pass away."
Fighting on a furious field,
Once a javelin pierced his shield;
Soldiers with a loud lament
Bore him bleeding to his tent;
Groaning from his tortured side,
"Pain is hard to bear," he cried,
"But with patience, day by day,
Even this shall pass away."
Towering in the public square,
Twenty cubits in the air,
Rose his statue, carved in stone,
Then, the king, disguised, unknown,
Stood before his sculptured name
Musing meekly, "What is fame?
Fame is but a slow decay
Even this shall pass away."
Struck with palsy, sere and old,
Waiting at the gates of gold,
Said he with his dying breath;
"Life is done, but what is death?"
Then, in answer to the King,
Fell a sunbeam on his ring,
Showing by a heavenly ray,
"Even this shall pass away."
--- Theodore Tilton
10:57 PM
Friday, September 09, 2005
'Money is the Root of all Evil'
Had a pretty interesting and heated discussion on this topic with some camp people, so this blog will represent some of the arguments brought up.
The question of whether money is the root of evil is cannot be easily resolved on the literal level. Money, taken literally is basically a yardstick to measure the value of an object. Which is why we pay thousands for a computer and perhaps only a dollars for a packet of soil, ie, we value the computer more than a packet of soil. Thus, to argue on this literal level that money is the root of all evil is like saying an hour is bad or a kilometer is good. This makes no sense because money is only a measurement of value, it is the interpretation that is more important.
So given that on a literal level no meaningful argument can be made, what can money represent? It can be argued that money is the representation of human greed, afterall, human greed mostly involve material comforts that can be directly correlated to money, since money is a representation of value. Thus the initial question is now rephrased - Is human greed the root of all evil. In order to show that human greed is the root of all evil, it is necessary to proof that human greed is both an intrinsic property of human behavior and as a result a root cause of evil.
Again on the surface, it seem very plausible that human greed is intrinsic to human behavior. How else can u explain the proliferation of crime on all levels of society, from robbery in the slums to white collar crimes in the board-rooms of Enron. However this fails to take into account inter-related complexities in several respects. First, such cases are the exception rather than the norm. For every robbery committed, there are thousands of other people who try to eke out a decent living. For every crony board of directors, there are hundreds of others who are honest. Of course, the debate can continue in this fashion, but the trend is that the wrong doers are generally a lot less than the do gooders.
Why is this so? While it can easily be assumed that this trend is due to human nature, this assumption is in fact inadequate. Humans are creatures of incentives (or disincentives). In the case of crime, the law reach of Law (or the believe of it), is usually sufficient to deter crime. Indeed, in countries with a lax system of justice, its crime rates are generally higher than a country with a sound system of law and order. A country with a high GDP per capita is also more likely to have a low crime rate as there is no incentive to break the law when there is lawful employment available. Thus it is difficult to give a general trait for the behavior of humans, given the myriad of factors involved, but it can be argued that people will response to incentives.
Does this response to incentives therefore constitute greed and thus lead to evil? I think the answer is no. Because just as a sack of money on the table is an incentive to steal it, the security guard with the big shotgun is a disincentives to going near the money. Incentives works in both ways and thus actually holds in check the forces of greed that man has. And upon closer examination, one will reach pretty much the same conclusions about the nature of evil. Just like the two faced god Janus, the evil of the nuclear bomb is now one of the leading alternative fuels, while the good of vaccines is now part of a very evil bio-chemical warfare policy.
Thus to say that money is the root of all evil is far too simplistic a statement. Humans may not be the personification of saints but they are surely not the devil's advocate either.
10:59 PM
Sunday, September 04, 2005
As the effects of Katrina is gradually revealed to the world, this blog is watching the plight of New Orleans and the Gulf States with a mixture of sad mourning and a vengeful smirk. While this is the second tragedy on USA soil in 4 years, not counting all the minor ones in between, this blog believes the irony is not loss on many of the environmentalists that USA had vehemently refused to rectify the Kyoto Protocol.
While it remains to be seen whether Katrina is just another freak of nature or is it due to some form weather imbalance due ultimately to the increase in greenhouse gases, this blog asserts that it is becoming increasingly obvious that the weather is gradually changing. The 7 highest temperature on record occurred within the last decade, with temperatures rising faster still. The Arctic and Antarctic glacial sheets have decreased in size and there is the problem of the ozone hole. Quoting Kofi Annan in a different context, 'If I was a doctor doing a diagnosis of the world, I would be very worried'.
And yet here we have the world's sole super-power artificially lower the price of oil on her own soil, pushing the price below what is the market rate, encouraging demand for oil, and polluting more air per capita than any other nation on earth. If this continues, the capacity of the earth to absorb the damage cause by the pollution and destruction maybe irreversibly damaged. Already, there are reports that oil supply is running dry and headway to alternative sources are slow and at time even causing more damage than oil itself (eg nuclear energy). Perhaps we should open our eyes to the fact that our lifestyle now is not sustainable and must end, whether we are prepared or not to accept that fact.
Katrina is a wake up call, and just as we will remember the dead, we must remember to save the living as well.
1:01 AM
