50 Years of PAP : In-sightful Blog Awards

The Landscape is changing

The Chinese singapore blog awards event is underway.  By the way,  I call it the chinese singapore blog awards because it fronts the notion that the significance of ‘racial’ numbers is paramount given that the language in the site is solely in English and Mandarin and does little to reflect the proposition that significance can come from amongst the ‘racial’ few despite, numbers or that singapore is a multicultural state where all cultures are equal in significance despite numbers.  And besides that, Chinese characters are placed above English words that seems to equate 'singapore' with 'chinese' in cultural terms.  This is yet another instance of the idea expounded upon in the chapter  ‘Cultural Magnanimity as a conclusion of Fascism’, in the '50 Years of PAP' series. (and also noted by my protege, simsplace) 

Given such an illustration of exclusivity, an 'other' cannot be blamed for feeling discouraged from joining this competition.  In this, it is presented, as in a host of other instances, as yet 'another chinese pastime'.  This can  lead to literary or perspectival underdevelopment amongst 'others' as they, as a result, seek other pastimes where they feel their efforts, and themselves as a people, might find validation, or just end up doing less given that the awards site is none too subtle in stating whom are 'in' and whom are not.  I truly pity the young amongst the 'others' whose sense of self-efficacy will most certainly be negatively impacted upon by such phenomena that I, thankfully, did not experience in my younger years in Singapore.

Whilst quite a few locals are vying for the ‘most insightful blog award’ I cannot but wonder how insight is going to be evaluated given the lack of insight amongst the general populace, and those thinking themselves worthy of the award, in noting the point made above.  Within such conditions, we can only say that all finalists can only claim to be insightful on the basis of the biased sight of the judges and their own.  In all finalists' failure to discern the fact that the site does not have an aura of inclusivity, one cannot but wonder if their generic ability to include all pertinent facts in their ‘insights’ would not be compromised by an oversight borne of a self-absorption that misses the all too obvious oversight of the blog awards site.

In this, whosoever is accorded the thus-dubious accolade of ‘the most insightful blog’, will only serve to imbue all other insightful blogs and views with the aura of relative irrelevance.  In this, we can say, that ‘insight’ itself is incorporated and the trend is set for the evolution of ‘insight’.

In case the reader is wondering, I did not enter this site for the said award.  In such a perspectival status quo as alluded to above, we can plausibly conclude that, ‘in the land of the blind, the one-eyed wo/man would be perceived to be handicapped.’  However, this site will always stand as a shining example, amongst others, of what a person who is not perceived to be part of the 'in' crowd can do when s/he refuses to allow the generally debilitating milieu from disabling her from being the best that her/is culture enables her/im to be despite being mistaken for a 'minority'.

Ed