Aeternus, Eternus

It was the best of times, the worst of times.

I think its the 2nd time I've started off a post using this quote.

Being torn apart has interesting repercussions. Mentally, emotionally, just a train wreck.

Oddly, I don't feel anything. In the words of my own poem, I stand at the brink of a storm, yet all I do is just watch as the city crumbles around me.

There's an inherent beauty in destruction. Just like watching a flame on a candle writhe and dance to its own rhythm. There's a perfect symmetry to destruction. Death and rebirth. Without destruction, how can there be creation?

You know, saying that suddenly reminded me of the Book of Revelations in the Bible. The flames of destruction. The seeds of destruction in humanity. Mankind is resolutely charging into destruction. All in the name of progress, I believe.

Yet out of the ashes, the Saviour will create a new kingdom of peace and unite the world. Or so it goes. An eternal kingdom, one that will never fall.

Yet in history, we see the rise and fall of great empires. In the rise of a great nation lies the beginning of their destruction. Rise and renewal, that is the circle of life. Death feeds life, so that as one epoch passes into another, we grow stronger. And then we fall, to make way for the new.

Looking up the term of nihilism again. I think I subscribe to ethical nihilism (also known as moral nihilism), and to a smaller extent, existential nihilism. I didn't know there were so many categories before.

In case you don't understand, just google nihilism to find out what the heck I'm talking about.

I believe in my last post, I mentioned that I fight with death in mind. I don't fight for life anymore, I stopped doing that ages ago. I want to live, but I find no reason to. So now, I live while trying to find something strong enough to kill me. Evidently, I'm pulling a Zakath. Read the Mallorean if you don't know who or what I mean. XD

"Every belief, every considering something-true," Nietzsche writes, "is necessarily false because there is simply no true world." Fascinating thought, don't you think? Freddy might be extreme and somewhat insane, but there's no denying that he's brave enough to be crazy enough to say something like "God is dead" in a world with religious hardliners on his case.

I don't agree with Nietzsche on a lot of his ideas, because he's atheist and I don't subscribe to that view. I think its a bit one sided if you ask me. But he's interesting...and quoteworthy. XD

And *gasp*, I'm an Apollinian nihilist! One who watches the world and its ideals crumble before their very eyes. Haha. It's fun like that.

I like watching destruction. I can't deny that. It's real. In this crazy little absurd world we're living in, the only constant is that of destruction. Be it the environment, traditional family values, or even society as a base, they're all disintegrating bit by bit. All in the name of progress.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against progress. To say otherwise would be unforgivably hypocritical. I'm a hypocrite, but I'm not THAT bad. Progress is useful. It helps humanity discover more about themselves and the world. Of course, that in itself is a double-edged sword. What do we do with the knowledge? Where do we go with it? How do we handle it?

Knowledge. That in itself is a cursed word. We seek knowledge, even crave it at some point. Yet we are all too immature to know what to do with it. Yes, even me. No, especially me. Like Eve who ate of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, we as her descendants want more of that forbidden fruit, but know not what to do with it, not knowing how to control it.

I'm not suggesting that we go back to the Dark Ages and forbid the search for knowledge. Galileo got burnt at a stake for suggesting that the world is round. God forbid that that would ever happen to anybody in this day and age. Well, we can hope, but with a tide of religious fundamentalism rearing its ugly head again, it seems that freedom of thought is once again a dangerous occupation to have.

Don't get me wrong. Freedom of expression and freedom of thought are two different things. The first is a privilege, the second is a right. While some human rights protestors might argue that freedom of expression is a right, I don't really agree.

Freedom of expression is a dangerous power when wielded in the hands of the ignorant. Given the opportunity, the tongues of man can be more venomous than the fangs of that of any serpent. The freedom to express oneself can cause upheaval and hatred, if the words used are thoughtless and in wilfulness. Lack of understanding in a person can cause them to express tasteless remarks that could incite further uneasiness, even hatred, which could only perpetuate the cycle of ignorance as both sides would then fail to see and comprehend the other.

That's why I said that freedom of expression is only a privilege, not a right. It should be exercised with care, and then again only at the right time. When freedom to express your opinion leads to greater hatred and misunderstanding, then I rather not exercise it under that kind of circumstance at all.

However, freedom of thought is another thing. That is the basic right that is the root of humanity itself. We can be beaten into submission, forced to conform to societal norms, but they can't strip away the right to think what we want privately. Well, at least that's true most of the time.

True submission lies not in that of the subjugation of the body, but in that of the mind and spirit. Many people have realised that, naturally. How do you think torture came about? Torture isn't just about breaking the body though, true torture lies in breaking the spirit, the will of the person. Of course, someone with real skill can probably shatter someone else's mind, and that's just plain scary.

The ability to think intelligently is even more of a dangerous force than most people anticipate. Of course, clever rulers (generally the long-serving dictators) know that the surest way to ensure their supremacy is to suppress intellectual development in the population. People who can't think for themselves are no better than sheep, blindly accepting their lot in life. That's why ideas can be very dangerous. Ideas can ignite a pile of passive firewood, and fanned on by a discerning flame, it can be an all-consuming force, destroying all in its path.

Obviously though, if one suppresses intellectual development in the population, it can have negative effects on society and the economy in general. Just look at what the Cultural Revolution did to China. Witch-hunting the intellectuals crippled development in that country, and it takes more than a generation to recover.

So what is the key then? How can one keep their population stupid enough to follow your orders, but yet still intelligent enough to run the economy? The answer, I'm afraid, is increasingly obvious from my point of view. I'm living in a society that has managed to do just exactly that to its population.

Yep, its Singapore. I can just see the bulging eyes and indignant responses just waiting to be unleashed on myself. Honestly though, it's hard to accept, but as I watch and observe the way society and the government works in Singapore, I must applaud the government's work for the past 40 years.

Nation-building isn't just about building an economy, or a defence force. It's about bringing the people together under a single identity. While I'm not sure how successful we are in the creation of a 'national identity' we have here, I can safely say that the government has managed to unite the people using an age-old concept: avarice.

Or in a nicer term, I suppose I can say we are united under the flag of pragmatic capitalism. You can't deny that Singaporeans are brutally pragmatic, and also disgustingly money-driven. It's been hammered into our parents by the government, and then onto us through our parents. We are taught from young to 'mind our own business', and also to 'do well in your studies so you can get a good job'. Less overt (though the results are obvious) are our lessons to chase materialism, as exhibited in the ultimate Singaporean dream of the 5Cs.

The government in Singapore succeeds where many have failed simply because they did not oppress nor visibly forbid anything. Taking a look at history, one can just see how in many cases, oppression has led to greater revolt, putting into reality the simple law of physics: That for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Simply put, the more you forbid and oppress the people, the more resistance gained from within the population. You can't kill all the rats, and it takes only one to bring down the system by galvanising the rest.

The government in Singapore has understood that principle very well, so it does not try to force things directly onto us. When they do want to do something like that, the action itself is couched in a fashion that makes it easier for us to accept, not just clubbing us over the head with it. It's kind of like the ultimate carrot-and-stick game being played here in Singapore. And it works.

We, in Singapore, have been on the receiving end of a mass propaganda session which forcefeeds pragmatism down our throats for the past 41 years. I'm not bashing pragmatism, but in a case where pragmatism is used to justify just about every action, it is no wonder why we're a staid and safe society. We have been taught not to take risks, not to challenge the government because for the most part, we wouldn't succeed.

And the best part? We believe everything. We actually strongly believe that it is for our own good. And perhaps, it is. We're safe here in Singapore. The government basically babies us and takes care of us. We just have to work hard in the economic machine like the happy worker ants we are and make sure everything goes smoothly so that our lives can go on as per normal.

It is however, unfair to say that everyone is subject to this rule. If that were true, there would be no opposition party in Singapore. But then again, we all know that unless the opposition suddenly bucks up and shows some solid mettle to challenge the present ruling party, the status quo won't change.

There are discerning people in Singapore, but trouble is, we aren't willing to rise up and change the system. Probably because we are too comfortable where we are now. I know I am, since while I'm willing to blog about it here, I'm probably unwilling to actually do something about it. You see, the problem here is that if you take away the current institution, what would you replace it with? It's like how the USA invaded Iraq with no concrete idea on what they're going to replace the regime they're going to topple with. All they had was some vague ideal of democracy, without realising that democracy is simply a form that cannot be substianted without the imposition of security and intellectual awareness of the situation beforehand. And now they're busily paying the price of that lack of foresight. Not that I really care. It's their shithole, they're going to have to climb out of it themselves somehow.

Singapore succeeded in subjugating the minds of their people by gently pointing them towards a common goal and spending the rest of the time making sure that everyone continues working towards that goal. It's subtle, and its effective. We don't question the government because we're too busy living our self-absorbed, self-contained lives where the primary purpose is generally to strike it rich.

I won't deny that I'm infected with the same syndrome. Heck, I think it's part of the cause of my internal turmoil as well. I'm rebelling against the standard measure of success in my society, and the little brainwashed part of me is screaming "NOOOOOOOO!!! Turn back! Turn back now!!" in order to try and knock some of the proverbial sense into me. That might be a reason for the kind of paralysis that has gripped me in recent months. On one hand, the pragmatic part of me wants to study and mug like hell so I can ace my A Levels and secure a ticket to university in order to get started on that well worn road to 'success'. On the other hand, the other half of me wants to pursue my dreams my own way, even if it means breaking off from the norm, to hell with the consequences. And there you have me in the middle, being torn in two different directions, and end up not moving at all while being systematically stripped off my fundamental parts, bit by bit. Haha.

Ignoring my personal circumstance though, I feel that China seems to be going down the same road as Singapore. Or trying to. I suspect Mao Zedong's visit to Singapore in the 1980s must have impressed him enough to indoctrinate that approach into his country, and subsequently followed by his successors. Of course, since China is such a large country, they're having a bit more trouble trying to balance that approach. One of the advantages of being as small as Singapore is that everything is so much easier to regulate.

If you aren't convinced by this aspect of my argument, just take a look at China now. Capitalism is on the rise there, despite the fact that they still have a communist government. I believe that in Newsweek, one of the articles even mentioned China's 'pragmatic capitalistic approach'. Now, haven't I mentioned something to that effect earlier in my argyment regarding to Singapore?

You see, the thing with China is that in a pure communist system, there are no values, no religion holding the country together. Except maybe nationalism, but that's about it. In many respects, it seems infected with nihilist principles. Of course, China is no longer pure-communist, since they have now embraced a capitalistic economy in order to revitalise the stagnant command economy system.

In the breakdown of traditional family and social values espoused by 5000 years of Chinese history during the early communist reign, they had nothing to cling to but nationalism. When China started opening up though, they had something new to cling to: avarice. Sound familiar yet?

Of course, China being as large and populous as it is, the urban population benefits first while the rural people lag far behind. The young urban elite now embrace capitalism fervently; money makes the world go round indeed.

But despite opening up to foreign influences, the communist government in China, despite predictions of the West, did not topple. The one thing about the West is that they can be awfully naive at times. They seem to believe that democracy is the ONLY way. But it isn't. Democracy as a system is awfully instable, because people, given a choice, are awfully fickle. As a nation, people can have extremely short memories, and stupidity seems to infect masses of people more insidiously than it does to a single individual. That's a little something Nietzsche agrees with by the way.

But you see, in China, they practice something known as controlled opening up. They don't throw open their doors and allow all foreign influences to bombard their people. They select certain things and ban the rest. In effect, they allow their people a little leeway in economic matters, but clamp down firmly on anything else that challenges their authority. That's why China succeeds where the USSR failed. Because China was more pragmatic about their economic development, which ensured a semi-stable base to work on, and with economic clout, it is easier to screen what kind of influences can reach the masses and to ban those that are subversive (to them anyway). How do you think the government got the search engine companines like Yahoo and Microsoft to censor certain information for them anyway? Money naturally. There's a lot of economic potential in China, and to reach it, those companies have to comply with the government's demands. That's the ingenuity of the CCP, first they create economic development, then use the results to strengthen their hold on the nation. Pragmatic capitalism, socialist style, at its best.

I'm not saying its a good thing. But I'm not saying its a bad thing either. It's effective, that's the only thing I can say. It's good that China is opening up and getting richer in the process, but its not so good that their government still retains so much control over civil rights and the like. But is the whole thing a net benefit or a net loss? That, I'm afraid, is a question that I don't have a answer to. Time will tell I guess.

Wow. I spent about 2 hours doing socioeconomic and political discussion. That is just so me. I can't focus on my studies, but give me something like philosophy and current affairs and I'll be happier than a fish in the ocean. It's just the way my mind works I'm afraid.

I wonder what my teachers will think, if they look at this post? I have no idea. Maybe I should just show them. It would be so much easier.

Fools. That's all what we are. Hopeless fools, in a world speeding towards destruction.

I'm in for the ride. Aren't you?

Bring the popcorn, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. That's all I can say.

Don't you think so too?

>>Edit: This has been sitting on my blog for a couple of days but I couldn't get it to publish earlier.