Category: Culture

Of conversations and postmodernity

The complexity of our postmodern times

I’ve spent the last few days immersed in the topic of postmodernity preparing for my final examinations on Monday and I still find myself constantly amazed by it. For me, postmodernity helps me make sense of what I see as a complex world and advocates the agency and creative capacity of a person. What it is is hard to pinpoint and often even refuses to be characterised because it opposes the reductionist tones of modern times where things are often addressed in universalistic and absolute terms. Yet, pitting it in this way against modernity might not be totally agreeable because some see is as an extension of modernity rather than rupture from it.

In any case, one of the better ways I’ve learnt about this is to read outside my text and talk to people about it. It is amazing to observe for yourself the contradictions and complexities that people have in their views and stories. In a sense, postmodernity celebrates diversity and difference but more importantly attempts to engage them rather than be ambivalent about it.

Such an engagement leads to the opening up of possibilities that could be good or bad, but like one says, that is the “tragic beauty” of it all.

Why we should create

gohpohseng-1

Today’s Sunday Times lifestyle had an article about Mr Goh Poh Seng, a “cultural maverick” of early Singapore who wrote If We Dream Too Long in 1972 about a young man’s quest for identity in the newly independent nation. I have yet to read the book, but this sense of the importance of culture creation is something that I find increasingly lost amongst our generation.

While the need to build a sense of nationhood for a young was imperative to this drive for culture creation then, it is the effects of globalisation today that drives this need to build a Singapore culture. Another intellectual of Mr Goh’s generation, architect William Lim wrote in his book Alternatives in Transition that culture creation was vital against the tide of globalisation. “The most effective instrument to handle this cultural intrusion is the strengthening of our own cultures, values and identities in order to provide a strong filtering mechanism.”

DON’T LEAVE IT TO THE GOVERNMENT
Another issue with regards to culture creation is that we cannot leave it to the government to do it alone. By letting the government dictate cultural production in the last 40 years, it has only resulted in apathy because its products are viewed with suspicion or totally ignored as propaganda. It is not the government support but more its tight regulations that has stifled interest on local culture and also a whole generation of local culture producers. This is one reason why many Singaporeans today do not support local products or feel it is inferior to foreign ones and also why we have only been seeing the same few faces in the scene.

Ultimately, we should create culture that we can call our own because it is how we can empower ourselves and the community. Rather than let the government or globalisation dictate the form of our culture, we can only truly relate to culture if we all engage in its creation rather than just be recipients of it.

Life in the visible spectrum

We all need light to see.

Without light, red roses and yellow sunflowers are lost to us.

Although light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, it determines what we can and cannot see.

So, in a way, our “view” of the world is limited, but this limitation establishes a common ground for us to explore and interpret our world.

Things work because most of us can identify colours — just think about traffic lights for instance.

However, have you ever seen life beyond this light?

Equipment like night vision goggles use infrared waves — another part of the electromagnetic spectrum — to let us see in the dark.

Similarly, my exchange program to the USA has broadened my vision (figuratively of course, I still have yet to acquire that mythical X-ray vision).

As some of my classmates in America have said, everyone here chases the American Dream, “a nice house, two dogs and a backyard”.

It does not sound that much different from what we dream in Singapore.

In Singapore, the sight at the end of the race is a rich and comfortable life, and to do that you get yourself a degree or a stable job. We always try to make economic sense.

However, in America, people also chase dreams and ideals, intangible things that would be invisible to most of us in Singapore.

For example, while pursuing civil liberties like freedom of speech may not exactly help the government carry out policies smoothly — hence the lingering problems in America — it gives the citizens a sense of importance, the belief in being able to change things.

One of the most vivid memories I had was when I attended the anti-war protest at the National Mall.

As I took the metro that Saturday morning, it was packed with people holding placards with personalised messages displaying their hopes for the Iraq war to end.

I do not think anyone benefited economically from that event, and it might have cost losses and inconveniences. But I could image how empowered they felt.

It seemed to me that Americans were not solely concerned with the ends, but often the means to the ends too.

Environmental issues, minority rights and historical preservation — these are just some of the things that stood in the way of America bulldozing its way to becoming a state as efficient and well-run like Singapore.

I say this because the rich and powerful nation is still steeped in social problems.

Public housing and transportation are not as efficient as they are in Singapore, and much poverty and inequality linger.

Here was a country which I thought had enough resources to give its citizens a comfortable life.

Hence, when I first compared it to Singapore, I felt luckier to be living in the latter — life was indeed more comfortable back home.

However, this initial perspective that I had of America was in the light of me being a Singaporean.

As the days went by and my vision broadened, the things I saw in America started to make more sense.

In some ways, Americans and Singaporeans really looked at life in the same light. However, while the latter was stuck on a more focused spectrum, the former saw wider.

I could see for myself why Singapore is such an economic success: we had a focused vision on what we wanted and we worked as one towards it.

If we had a wider vision of life and were thus divided in our dreams then, it would have been so much harder to achieve the way of life we have now.

However, now that we have become an economic success, I am starting to yearn for more than just a comfortable life.

I want to lead an even more meaningful life, by knowing that I have made a difference to this world.

I have seen in America how people fought for ideals, improvements and rights — this fighting spirit and purposeful outlook of life are invisible to the Singaporean vision.

Personally, I feel the economic success we have has opened more opportunities for me to pursue the intangibles in life.

As a young nation with little historical baggage and the benefits of economic stability, I feel now is the time for more of us to broaden our vision and see beyond mere economic value in our live and actions, beyond our limited spectrum.

The Nanyang Chronicle, 12th March 2007