Posted on 10/17/2002 2:16:25 PM PDT by B-Chan
The concept of Shared Values was first mentioned in October 1988 by the then First Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong. It was to be a blueprint for the development of a National Ideology which Singaporeans of all races and faiths could subscribe to and live by.
The aim of this National Ideology was to sculpt a Singaporean identity by incorporating the relevant parts of our various cultural heritages as well as the attitudes and values which have helped us survive as a nation. It would also help safeguard against undesirable values permeating from more developed countries which may be detrimental to our social fabric. This concept of a National Ideology was already practised by some of our neighbours. For example, Indonesia had drawn up the ‘Pancasila’, a set of common beliefs to unite its peoples. In January 1989, the then President Mr Wee Kim Wee elaborated on the rationale behind the proposal in his opening address to Parliament.
He said that Singapore’s status as a cosmopolitan city left it wide open to external influences. While this had put us in close touch with new ideas and technologies from abroad, it also exposed us to alien lifestyles and values.
"Under this pressure," he contined, "in less than a generation, attitudes and outlooks of Singaporeans, especially younger Singaporeans, have shifted. Traditional Asian ideas of morality, duty and society which have sustained and guided us in the past are giving way to a more Westernised, individualistic and self-centred outlooks on life."
"Not all foreign ideas or values are harmful. We cannot shut the outside world, and turn inwards on ourselves. As Singapore develops, we must adapt our customs and traditions to suit new circumstances."
He asked: "What sort of society will we become in another generation? What sort of people do we want our children to become? Do we really want to abandon our own cultures and national identity? Can we build a nation of Singaporeans, in Southeast Asia, on the basis of values and concepts native to other peoples, living in other environments? How we answer these questions will determine our future."
He listed four central ideas which had been identified as helping national progress. They were: placing society above self; upholding the family as the basic building block of society; resolving major issues through consensus instead of contention; and stressing racial and religious tolerance and harmony.
President Wee called for these views to be enshrined in a National Ideology as "such a formal statement will bond us together as Singaporeans, with our own distinct identity and destiny." The young were seen as the main target group and moral education, the use of the mother tongue, strengthening the teaching of values in schools and the mass media were cited as means by which these ideas could be disseminated.
On 20 January 1989, Mr Goh Chok Tong announced that a Green Paper, or discussion paper, would be drawn up. This was to be followed by a Parliamentary Committee which would gather feedback. "The outcome," he said, "should be a document crystallising the consensus. It should include a formal statement... which should enshrine the values we want to preserve." BG Lee Hsien Loong, the then Minister for Trade and Industry, was tasked to lead a team to draw up the paper.
National Ideology was then renamed "Shared Values" as, BG Lee explained, it "more modestly and accurately described what the values attempted to do."
In January 1991, during his first New Year’s Day address as Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong announced that the White Paper on Shared Values was to be mooted in Parliament, together with the Elected President Bill. This was in lieu of spelling out the Government’s long-term plans for Singapore.
The White Paper which presented the Government’s position on the matter was released on 5 January 1991. The values as they first appeared were:
Nation before community and society above self Family as the basic unit of society Regard and community support for the individual Consensus instead of contention Racial and religious harmonyA nation-wide debate ensued. The general feeling however, was one of support from all races and religions. A Feedback Unit dialogue mainly suggested rephrasing the third and fourth values.
Parliament debated the issue from 14-15 January. On 15 January 1993, two amendments were made to the third and fourth values before the House adopted the five statements as the nation’s Shared Values.
The 5 Shared Values of Singapore are a blueprint for a truly civilized society -- a conservative society that recognizes that without law and order there can be no freedom or justice, a society that emphasizes human duties as well as human rights, and a society that explicitly recognizes the centrality of the natural human family and natural human sexuality to human civilization; in short, a society completely in accord with the best traditions of Catholic and Western social thought. The adoption of a similar statement of shared national values by the citizens of Western societies could do much to begin healing the deep divisions that exist among them, creating a framework for the construction of a more just and more free social order.
No, this idea doesn't do it for me at all.
......ans a society where people who have incorrect political beliefs are known to just disappear.
Keep it to yourself.
There already is a pretty good blueprint for a conservative society. It's been in existence for 215 years.
Can you name this often ignored document? (Hint: you did not mention it in your post.)
But I lived in Singapore for 3 years and despite the occasional excesses and paranoia of Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP, I have to take my hat off to what they've accomplished. Their main accomplishment, I think, is to have in place people who are both principled and pragmatic enough to make sure that Singapore isn't swallowed up by competing outside forces or allowed to crumble under the weight of corruption and narcissism.
Oh yes he can, he's just said that the US is an illegitimate nation because its constitution is based in the consent of the governed and not "God almighty"
Oh, I agree completely. Americans, despite their claims to be conservative, are really very liberal people -- which is to be expected. The United States is in many ways the ultimate fruit of the Enlightenment: a state in which the consent of the governed replaces Deity as the ultimate arbiter of law and morality. This system ran tolerably well while the country was young and largely monocultural; like-minded citizens, each sharing the same religious and cultural values, were almost always able to reach an easy consensus, and the weirdos, flakes, and Others moved or were forced beyond the frontier, where there was plenty of room for them. Sticky questions about moral issues were argued and even fought over, but at the root of every issue was the assumption of a Divine ethical order whence derived public order; people questioned specific issues of right and wrong, but never that Right and Wrong existed. In those times, the specifically Christian nature of our society was openly acknowledged; while there was no establishment of religion de jure, the Christian faith was de facto the basis of our social order, providing an intrinsic cohesion between disparate elements as our society expanded to fill a continent.
But as the country's population diversified and grew, that intrinsic cohesion began to weaken, and with it the ability of the people to select representatives from among the natural elites that truly represented them. Democracy took root, and, as in any democracy, vox populi inevitably became vox Dei. Gone were the days where the main question in any dispute was "is it right"?; instead, the question became "Is it right for me (or my special-interest group)?" The democratic rot first took hold in the years after the War Between the States, a war in which a soi-disant government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" established centralized control over the people of the former Union of sovereign States at bayonet point. With popular consent established as the new sin qua non of the new centralized American society, it was inevitable that the canker of democracy would spread.
The Revolution took only a hundred years, The 1960s was the defining moment of this "people power" revolution, and today the bitter dregs of that poisonous era still pollutes our national conscience. The Zeitgeist of the Sixties declared that God (and His old social order) was dead; in His place, like Reason deified on the altar of Notre Dame during the French Revolution, stood the statue of our new deity Liberty. The cult of Freedom became our new national faith; the old ways and old rules still received lip service, but at the foot of the new altar of liberty lay the coiled idol of the human heart: selfish Pride. The bitter fruit of our liberation -- divorce, child abuse, social disintegration -- was gratefully eaten, and the result is plain for all to see: we are less free than ever. Dostkoyevsky put it best: "If God does not exist, all things are permissible;" in his or her heart the so-called "free American" is nothing more than a slave to his or her own desires.
Americans are not conservative. Americans are liberal, no matter how much they protest. They are liberal because they are devoted to the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity instead of the conservative ideals of duty, hieracrchy, and filial piety. Despite their pious mouthings about being conservative, most Americans despise authority, tradition, and dedication to duty -- the bedrock of conservatism. "Don't tell me what to do" -- the battle cry of every four-year-old -- is our national creed, and the satisfaction of our transient desire -- the modus vivendi of every spoiled teenager -- is our national imperative. As for duty -- well, didn't Ayn Rand say that none of us has any duty except to ourselves?
It hardly surprises me that most so-called "conservatves" react with hostilty to a truly conservative culture like that of Singapore; as heirs of revolution, the thought of an authoritarian order in which every person is defined by duties and responsibilities rather than by rights and possessions fills them with horror.
The farce continues, and someday, when the final barriers are transgressed and we lose our humanity itself, the "liberators" will -- like the Serpent before them -- defend our expulsion from Eden as the enlightenment of Liberty. "Ye shall become as gods, knowing good from evil"-- that is the ultimate promise of freedom, and the ultimate lie.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
This differs from national socialism in what way?
Freedom isn't free. The cost is more than young men dying in wars. Part of liberty's price is a somewhat less orderly and regimented society than could be accomplished in the absence of liberty. Everyone is entitled to their own preferences, and apparently you would prefer to not pay that price of freedom.
That's fine. Fortunately for you, part of the freedom we enjoy in this country is the freedom to leave. If you are so disturbed by our manner of government, and so inspired by Singapore, then the best solution for you may be to emigrate there.
First: unlike national socialism, conservatism is communitarian in nature, not collectivist. A collectivist society is a society in which the individual is defined as an interchangeable cell existing as part of the collective organism of the State. A communitarian society is one in which the individual is defined as a unique and sacred human being existing as an integral part of a nested hierachy of communities: family, clan, state, kingdom, empire, faith.
In a socialist state, all property is considered to be State property, to be meted out by the State in the manner the State bureaucracy deems fit. In a community, property is privately owned and manged by communities of individuals (families, clans, guilds, etc.) based on their responsibilities to their members.
Secondly, national socialism is an artificial order based upon coercion -- naked force; communities, on the other hand, are natural orders arising from human bonds of respect, duty, and love.
Finally, the national socialist State is the expression of a blood-and-soil cult in which the Leader is the ultimate arbiter of law and order; the Leader (and his State) replace God as the ultimate authority in that society. The traditional Christian community (in the Western sense) is on the other hand centered on the acknowledgement of Natural Law as established in the hearts of men by God, and its order is enforced in the name of God by natural hierachies instituted by Him.
Everyone is entitled to their own preferences...
A thoroughly liberal sentiment. But what if my preferences (or the preferences of 51% of the Mob) run counter to the Natural Law?
Thanks for supporting my contention.
A Communitarian Ethos
The Groton influence of Endicott Peabody showed in a speech Roosevelt gave at the People's Forum in Troy, NY in 1912. There he declared that western Europeans and Americans had achieved victory in the struggle for "the liberty of the individual," and that the new agenda should be a "struggle for the liberty of the community." The wrong ethos for a new age was, "every man does as he sees fit, even with a due regard to law and order." The new order should be, "march on with civilization in a way satisfactory to the well-being of the great majority of us."
In that speech Roosevelt outlined the philosophical base of what would eventually become the New Deal. He also forecast the rhetorical mode by which "community" could loom over individual liberty. "If we call the method regulation, people hold up their hands in horror and say ‘un-American,' or ‘dangerous,'" Roosevelt pointed out. "But if we call the same identical process co-operation, these same old fogeys will cry out ‘well done'.... cooperation is as good a word for the new theory as any other."
More here.
No, God almighty is. But the State is the supreme political authority here on earth, as St. Augustine points out:
We owe the State our obedience, our respect, and our loyalty, because the State was instituted by God as His instrument of order. When the State insists that we render unto it that which belongs only to God -- our adoration, our humanity, and our obedience to the Natural Law -- then and only then may we refuse to recognize its authority."We are taught most clearly that the obedience which men are obliged to render to the authorities established by God is an absolute precept which no one can violate, except if by chance something is commanded which runs counter to the laws of God or of the Church. 'Let everyone', says the Apostle, 'be subject to higher authorities, for there exists no authority except from God, and those who exist have been appointed by God. Therefore he who resists the authority resists the ordination of God wherefore you must needs be subject not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience sake' (Romans 13.1, 2, 5). Similarly St. Peter (1 Pt. 2.13) teaches all the faithful: 'Be subject to every human creature for God's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to the governors sent through him... 'for (he says) 'such is the will of God, that by doing good you would silence the ignorance of foolish men'. By observing these admonitions the first Christians, even during the persecutions, deserved well of the Roman emperors themselves and of he security of state. 'Christian soldiers served an infidel emperor: when it came to the subject of Christ, they recognized no one except Him who is heaven. They distinguished between the eternal Lord and the temporal lord, but also were subject to the temporal lord because of the eternal Lord'." - (St. Aug. on Ps. 124).
2) conservatism is not the ultimate goal of life
Holiness is. And we best reach that goal by obeying the commands of our Holy Lord -- including His command that we respect political authority. We Americans, who celebrate a revolution each July 4, should remind oursrlves that Lucifer was the original rebel.
A purely cosmetic distinction. In both cases, where the interests of the group are opposed by the interests of the individual, the group will enforce its will through coercion and violence.
In a socialist state, all property is considered to be State property, to be meted out by the State in the manner the State bureaucracy deems fit.
You confuse communism with socialism. Communism gives the state sole ownership of property. National socialism as practiced by the NAZI party allowed privately owned property while the state dictated the terms and purposes of ownership. This is identical to your theory, and is properly known as fascism.
national socialism is an artificial order based upon coercion -- naked force; communities, on the other hand, are natural orders arising from human bonds of respect, duty, and love.
Every single political order that is not based on the consent of the governed rules by naked force alone. All inhabitants of such nations are subjects and slaves. A political system devoid of coercion is by definition, libertarian.
The traditional Christian community (in the Western sense) is on the other hand centered on the acknowledgement of Natural Law as established in the hearts of men by God, and its order is enforced in the name of God by natural hierachies instituted by Him.
You describe a theocracy. God has instituted no hierarchies. MEN who claim godlike power over their neighbors use God's name to justify their violent oppression. They must do so because while they seek godlike power, it is apparent that they sweat and bleed like the rest of us - they are no gods. I and all other free men reject the Divine Right of Kings as a brutal lie that enslaved most of humanity for much of recorded history. Its hands are red from blood and oppression. Its infamous results are accounted for as recently as our own Declaration of Independence. If God wants to rule the world, he can come down here and do it himself. Until then, every man who claims to do so in his name is a charlatan and a liar.
Everyone is entitled to their own preferences...A thoroughly liberal sentiment.
You would have the state dictate even personal preferences? Insist that the state not only dictate actions, but even command the contents one's own mind? If so, you reveal yourself as even worse a tyrant than I had thought.
what if my preferences (or the preferences of 51% of the Mob) run counter to the Natural Law?
If the majority ever agrees with you, then I will be the one to leave.
Thanks for supporting my contention.
Your contention has had its time, and that time is gone. Its pracitioners were cruel and violent monsters, their vile excesses a warning to free men. Your philosophy sits in the ash heap of history, placed there by the blood, sweat and tears of people who will live free or die trying.
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS
Some worship the pagan goddess Liberty; others adore the One and true Lord of Creation, recognizing that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty". As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Thank you for your response.
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