gdp's Comments

Ms Magazine Blog : Fighting Hate with Hate: Anti-Asian Rant Inspires Misogyny

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:11:47 +0000

Which means that we've stilll got a long way to go. :(

the kent ridge common : Framing our Political Discussions with Ignorance and Morality

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:46:26 +0000

I think I really am trying to answer, why do politicians make moral statements that seem partially askew to their 'actual' goals? I would say because politics begins with morality -- people are goaded into action because of morality (regardless of secondary outcomes that benefit the perpetrator of the argument). While it does mask their true intentions, they are handicapped otherwise. (This may eventually turn into Marxist structural analysis in the sense that all moral arguments need to be deconstructed to demonstrate which class they benefit the most.) I'd also like to ask you if you have a working definition of morality, at least for this article?

the kent ridge common : Framing our Political Discussions with Ignorance and Morality

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:30:39 +0000

On a side note, I'm generally averse to making distinctions with capital letters (a tendency found with philosophers) because once you start using them more often, they confuse the heck out of people (even though its useful to make a conceptual distinction). Another side note: I'm sure that you understand that empirical observations are what theories are made from! We shouldn't shy away from bottling our arguments to stay simply empirical or purely theoretical.

the kent ridge common : Framing our Political Discussions with Ignorance and Morality

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:20:59 +0000

Okay, that's much clearer. Sorry, I didn't pick up too much on the point that you basically can't trust politicians moral arguments. I'm trying to say that any politically moral argument fails (to gain support) because its not tempered by a sense of knowing how people react to it. An organic intellectual is able to provide the intellectual legitimacy to an argument because (1) the intellectual knows how people would react to it and (2) the intellectual gains knowledge of stuff going-on on the ground and (3) the intellectual himself has political support. This is my response to where moralizing sits with "politics". This is of course, has little to bear on the whether or the argument masks a shift in the political landscape i.e. if an argument can be successfully turned into policy, there is a secondary effect to the perpetrator's advantage. Sometimes that is acceptable. (Especially in Malaysia. I think many urban people are very skeptical of Anwar and understand to a certain degree that he is an opportunist, but would support the opposition anyway because of other larger political goals -- i.e. putting transparency and SERIOUS anti-corruption back on the table, and perhaps ending policies that are hurting other ethnic communities than it is benefiting a small portion of Malays).

the kent ridge common : Framing our Political Discussions with Ignorance and Morality

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:22:04 +0000

Moving towards Gramsci, the disconnect between knowledge and morality within the opposition is probably due to the lack of organicism within party intellectuals. To Gramsci, there are intellectuals within academia, popular journalism, writers, artists, businessmen, NGOs, political parties and so forth, but the only ones who are significant are organic intellectuals. Organic, in the sense that they are embedded within the social ecology, closely connected to a groundswell of support and are able to feed from them, ostensibly to produce better counterhegemony. To use the Tea Party example again, if Palin wants to run for president, she needs to craft her policies, words and ideas to suit the tea party (so as not to lose internal support) AND America as a whole (so as not to lose external support). Both will require immense amount of dialogue with people inside and outside the party, and a lot of creative brainpower to make sense and produce something acceptable for best results. Which means, back in Singapore, the problem isn't really with morality, but with how the opposition aren't able to create a counterhegemonic knowledge structure which supports that morality and supplants the current hegemony.

the kent ridge common : Framing our Political Discussions with Ignorance and Morality

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:21:51 +0000

My thinking currently goes that politics BEGINS with morality, in the sense that an individual encounters a socio-economic world that operates against that morality. As a comtemporary example, the US Tea Party is basically run on principles that want to see 17th century liberalism restored (against Obama's greater state-interventionist America). [My conception of morality simply involves the invocation of the word 'should'. I would even argue that PAP had a sense of morality in the sense that they thought that 'Singapore should be economically advanced and everthing must be done to preserve its advance', 'Singapore should be able to defend itself from threats internally and externally', against 'Singaporean citizens should have x amount of equality', or 'Singaporean citizens should have x rights'. I think I've even heard Teo Chee Hean call Singapore a utilitarian state -- see http://thoughtstreak.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/sin... ]

the kent ridge common : Framing our Political Discussions with Ignorance and Morality

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:20:22 +0000

This is a topic I've been developing myself through Machiavelli, Gramsci and a bit of Althusser. The sort of 'politics as practice' and 'politics as a separate morality' were first directly expressed in Western writing through Machiavelli. Gramsci is also notable because he gives us a framework to talk about situating a counter-hegemonic movement within a larger political environment while bracketing socio-economic objectives and the role of the intellectual in producing counter-hegemonic knowledge structures (which point towards the usefulness of academic deconstructionism as a first step). Yes we can moralize and politicize at the same time! That is, we can hold certain moral objectives and be true to them -- for instance, believing in state supported welfare, believing in a small state, believing in moral policing according to religious principles -- but we don't have to adhere to *personal* moral standards to achieve those objectives. What moral standards we think applies to the state and society at large does not necessarily have to apply to individuals and vice-versa. [This is more towards Machiavelli]

The Malaysian Insider : Long after the torch is put out ... — Nicholas Fang - The Malaysian Insider

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:57:29 +0000

My conversations with friends here in Singapore show that there are large differentials between people. Mediacorp employees tend to be quite optimistic about the YOG, possibly because it's something for them to cover. On the other hand, alternative news sites like TOC and Temasek Review are somewhat fanatical about pointing out the gaffes of the YOG, such as the meagre food offered to volunteers, the obvious usage of non-expert commentators and the apparent failing of the YOG celebration to draw a crowd. I just say that it doesn't seem worthwhile spending S$400 million.

the kent ridge common : Understanding Art - Reading Urinals Hermeneutically After Duchamp

Sun, 7 Jun 2009 14:22:05 +0000

Melvin, I feel like there are real gems somewhere in there, but it's too much for ordinary internet reading. Your paragraphs are really, really long.

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Tue, 12 May 2009 07:35:17 +0000

NOOO, Nostromo, not you too! Sigh, I just can't watch American Idol's first few shows because of this: I can't take the intentionally highlighting on people being unintentionally stupid.

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Tue, 12 May 2009 07:32:16 +0000

NOOOO Entertained, you're giving in to the Schadenfreude!

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:20:28 +0000

Now that's entertainment. More gems of quotes! I don't know about how you're entertained, but I tried to catch like a few minutes of S Factor the other day, and the whole judging process had zero tension. ANTM does it better, you switch on to the show and it's woah. I switched to S Factor and it was, yeah, back to CNA.

the kent ridge common : Of Gandhi and Thailand's political crisis

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:17:47 +0000

I find www.khikwai.com a bit melodramatic for my tastes. :)

the kent ridge common : To AWARE's new exco: Please leave out your religion!

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:34:51 +0000

What actions have they commitment to think that they have been overly unreasonable as leaders of AWARE? If they are not suitable just solely because they are fundamentalist Christians, it's religious discrimination.

the kent ridge common : Of Gandhi and Thailand's political crisis

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:53:15 +0000

Actually there has been a history of pacificism operating on a politics of spectacle in contemporary Thailand. In 1995, the Assembly of the Poor marched to Parliament House to surround it peacefully for weeks in order to put pressure on the government to put off a building of a dam in northeast Thailand. They managed to get PM Chavalit to call off the dam, but when PM Chuan took over in 1997, he resumed construction "for the benefit of the economy". I do agree with you that the democratic procedures in the constitution has not produced consensus, however look at how the constitution was arrived at. The fact that the drafting process was not inclusive and the plebiscite held did not have junctures where civil or political society could ask for moderation. The controversial way that the PPP lost power also is deeply divisive and could have been better managed. In another essay, I wrote against the Thai unitary state; a federal state would be better because it gives other avenues of power which opposition politicians can vie for instead of recoursing to protests.

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:58:07 +0000

it's airing on a Sunday night, not much of a "day's work".

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Mon, 6 Apr 2009 16:42:18 +0000

Relac lah, just an article only. Read it on the entertaining part, I was trying for some funny and intelligent parts together. It's not easy writing this article too you know, took me at least two days and then show people draft summore then have to layan their comments now also have to layan everybody's comments...

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 00:23:59 +0000

According to the official website, she wants to be a writer. She's also the oldest of the bunch.

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:39:10 +0000

Hahaha I'm not going to bother to argue about how feminism or anti-feminist or egalitarian I am. I just want to watch better television.

the kent ridge common : Can Local Programming Get Any Worse?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:33:12 +0000

Oh dear! How did that not get through my editors? Thanks for pointing it out. What have TVB or NTT serials got right that Mediacorp haven't? (<-- terrible sentence structure, imho)