A Masterclass in Dismantling Western Narratives on the so-called Authoritarian Regimes
Not everyone would make the rapprochement between Singapore and Mainland China but the respective governmental frameworks of both China and Singapore share many commonalities.
Three mere facts :
● Both Singapore (75%) and China (92%) are inhabited by a majority of Han (Chinese) people.
● Han people represent the majority in the ruling classes of both China and Singapore.
● There is a diversity of personal religious beliefs in China and Singapore but the *Confucianist mindset is foundational*
■ The Confucianist mindset can be summarized by 4 major values :
- LEARNING ISB (Information : Skills : Being)
- WORK (creative & non-creative)
- FAMILY
- PATRIOTISM
FREEDOM/DEMOCRACY/GOVERNANCE for *the Confucianist mindset* are subsumed under LEARNING because your real personal *freedom is directly linked to your personal epistemological development and from your personal epistemological achievement, how you will translate it into *timely appropriate social contributions* in the environment in which you live for enhancing the true *democratic values and the quality of the public *governance.
■ One of the Chinese classical books on General Epistemology called *The Great Learning* (written 24 centuries ago) proposed the following 8 goals for the gentleman (aristocratic man) :
1• Align your Affairs
2• Broaden your knowledge
3• Be Sincere in your endeavors
4• Balance your Mind
5• Cultivate yourself (in real situations)
6• Put Order in your Family
7• Assist in the Governance of the State
8• Bring Peace to the World
■ Criticising (especially when the facts are flimsy with the pretensions on one’s own values pervasive if not overbearing) and being spiteful is easy. Who cannot ?
More seriously, it exposes pathological arrogance and mad entitlement, especially the deep-seated inability of envisioning alternative good practices or the inability to imagine that other peoples could be better in certain domains; also the inability of conceiving that other peoples can simply be different and merely wish to be themselves.