The Chinese Model Answer Or Why Bother About My Private Live

In Singapore with the majority educated, I believe most men have their heads to think for themselves. So why don't they ? Actually, even in the most compliant society, they do think but they just don't know if others do. So in public, they follow what they think others are thinking but in private, they do what they think. That is why WE ALL VALUE OUR PRIVACIES. But an oppressive Govt. will not like us to deviate from their self serving values which they took so long to build up through all kinds of propaganda. Worse of all, they do not want us to have privacies for common sense values to be compared with their values. Govt. values are not necessarily pleasant but "IN THEIR BIG PICTURE", it is for the the good of the society; individuals are too selfish to sacrifice for society's sake. But without some self interest, wouldn't most men be eliminated by the more ruthless ones ?

It actually happened all the time in history on the macro scale. Every empire in China was based on that principle. Use Confucianism to weaken the thoughts of the people. With all that classic texts to memorise, the intellectuals only had time to repeat model answers but not enough time to think through new ideas that will cause a paradigm shift. This was so successful that, even such profound and self evident logic like Democracy was not even on the intellectual records of China for 5000 years ! If the moral values promoted by the Govt. of those times were so great for society, why do the people have to live through 5000 years mostly in living hell. There were billions of Chinese who passed through those 5000 years and if not enough of them paused to think long enough that "hey, we do not deserve this, there must be a better way ! ", then it either meant that those ruthless ones had found an almost perfect political formula or the genes of the people are just too limited; cows will never think "hey, we do not deserve this, there must be a better way ! " for the next 5000 years.

Considering that there were intelligent men in Chinese history and also world class Chinese scientists, then the Chinese genes are not so bad. So I am inclined to conclude that those ancient ruthless Chinese actually had the very high EQ to perfect a ruthless political system, let's call that the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER. Like they said, amongst the blind, the one-eyed is the king. They could be blind for another 10000 years if not for the collision course with the Western society who just cured their intellectual blindness so profoundly through Renaissance and the French revolution. That's when the smug, "superior" Chinese society paid dearly for 5000 years of intellectual neglect !

Of course, any politician who studied Chinese history will not fail to notice the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER that will give them almost limitless power. This was most easily done when the people were mostly uneducated. With proper propaganda techniques and measures implemented through the years, the loss of power can still be gradual to last for years when the people slowly get educated. How about flooding the intellectual with classic texts to keep their minds occupied ? Revive the study of ancient texts. Unfortunately, being a small and compact society, the people get educated very fast. There are those who learnt enough from Chinese and Western histories to recognise the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER being practised here. Enough for the ruling party to wonder how to handle being politically "semi-naked". So why not change ? Huh, can you suggest a better model answer that can achieve similar results even though that result has dropped from 80s percent to 60s percent ? A small little island is good for the tight control over privacies as one can gather information very quickly and cheaply. It's like saying why grow apples when your fields has most the right conditions for growing rice even though the fields are now less fertile than before ? The many Western models now produce inconsistent results. If the Western Governments could, they will not hesitate to use the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER which they still did try in some ways. Unfortunately, Western Governments are very big with enough insiders who have historical conscience or self interests to force compromises through checks and balances.

Singapore society is still young so the initial elite is small. Most of them are not bothered by being caught by the same policies that they implemented when they become outsiders looking in. However, as we get more and more ex-Ministers and ex-MPs that we cannot find enough "golden retirements" for, there are some who worry about being caught as outsiders later on. So, policies will have to be slowly implemented less harshly. There are also many other social changes that worry the govt. but we'll explore those when we get to them later on.

So, the way gays are treated in Singapore is just a tiny part of the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER. It's about not allowing too much privacy in the people's lives. It's about owning as much of you as possible. With difficult times, every little bit goes a long way. Worry about smoking causing cancer ? Worry about drunk causing social problems ? With so much to worry about, why won't they leave us gays alone ? It's about leaving the controls to them for "THEIR BIG PICTURE".

What about history repeating itself when this type of society collide with another society competing for resources ? To its credit, the Government's EQ is always worrying about this all the time. That's where the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER stopped and further answers have to be found elsewhere. The Japanese robot society ? No, when their basic needs are met, the Japanese are also beginning to behave like the Westerners. In fact, the collision is already on course now. The good news is that this time we are not as blind as the Chinese before us. The bad news is that we are going to have a double collision; with China at the bottom competing to offer cheaper labour and the USA ( the generic West is no more as Europe finds itself also colliding with USA ) who almost monopolise the intellectual capitals ( like airplanes, medical drugs, computer processors etc.) and copyrights like patents, software, movies, music, merchandising, trademarks etc.

So what's our intellectual blindness this time ? We are relatively well off this time but we suffer the same intellectual poverty again. Why can't we compete intellectually ? The commercial intellectual world is actually a finite world just like our physically finite planet. There are just some many right ways to do each thing. With standards needed for information interchange and learning, there is even lesser space for late comers; just like when the West colonise the Americas, they actually tried to limit immigration from Asia. Likewise, who is going to compete with Microsoft to find another desktop OS continent to colonise ? Who is going to compete against Disney ? Who is going to compete against Boeing ? Who is going to compete against Visa ? Just like physical continents, once an intellectual continent is discovered, it is very easy for others to get onto the intellectual continent ( by pirating ). Just like USA jealously guarded their new found physical continent with very strict border patrols, they also guarded their intellectual continents with very strict copyright laws. The economic rules of relative advantages of national production said that we should produce more of what we can produce cheaply. Since we can produce software CDs cheaper than USA, then we should export them to USA. But we cannot. So why didn't we go searching for the intellectual continents before the USA ?

Is it already too late ? I believe it is not too late because there are still some little commercial intellectual land still unclaimed. But first the Govt. has to set the people mind free and abandon the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER. Of course, the Govt. also knew about setting the people's mind free but it's the letting go of the control that's difficult.

Let me illustrate why this control is stifling in almost invisible ways. I was trying to advise a friend to give up smoking, saying that he should consider his poor children who have to take care of him when he is in poor health caused by smoking. He said it was none of anybody's business if he want to trade a little of his life for the pleasure of smoking. Likewise, when you are gay and open, then your family is worried not just for you but because you will bring "shame" to them because the Govt. made it so. From the CHINESE MODEL ANSWER, if you offend the emperor, then all nine generations of your family will be executed. That could come to thousands of life, so if you want to think different then, thousands would try to stop you.

We used to have a bustling Bugis Street, no less famous than Patpong of Bangkok but after the undesirables are chased off, the place literally died. Tenant after tenant just go bust. Now, instead of figuring out what's the problem, there are already plans to expand the area further as an entertainment area ! Learn to tolerate a little difference and the area would expand naturally because of success.

If you should want to risk your career developing intellectual properties, you will be considered a failure for failing to own property or even a lousy car. Everybody wants to be a manager of this or that company or Govt. department. Unfortunately, when those companies move to China then what will happen to our managers ? Everybody want to develop property so what happens when the market crash ? We are either depending on others or just creating artificial wealth by pushing up property prices.

Let people develop their mind even if it seems rebellious to you. The rebellious, decadent rock and roll artists of the 50s became the multi-billion dollars recording industry of USA today. The useless bums who read and create silly comics, are contributing to the hugely successful animation action movies of today.

This article could continue on and on exploring all permutations and combinations of possibilities.But let's temporarily stop here till the next one.