Privilege is something I think about a fair bit. It shapes the way I see the world and affects how I navigate life. I suppose part of the reason why I'm a generally content person is because I'm always acutely aware of just how much I already have.
The fact is that there was never a point in my life where I had to worry about whether I had enough to eat / pay bills / get by in life puts me in a privileged position over many people. Sure I may not live in a nice house, my family isn't wealthy, but we're definitely comfortable. We were never in need.
And that's just financially, the most easy to measure metric. There are plenty of other areas where I find that I am really privileged. Opportunities, career, relationships etc.
Having spent time in India for the past 3 months I see this even more now. If I already feel privileged compared to many Singaporeans, how much more when we compare across countries.
I don't mean this in a 'oh look at those poor people living in slums' kind of thing (tbh the kids in the slums seem to have plenty of fun even if they don't have money). I make no claims about whether greater wealth brings greater happiness, I'm not here to talk about happiness.
What I want to say is, we tend to take many things in Singapore for granted. Things that are basic in Singapore, that we don't even think about normally and would throw a fit if they go wrong, are things that may be considered as luxuries elsewhere.
Infrastructure stands out to me. One of the biggest peeves I have about living in India is pavements. You know how you can tell you're in a more upmarket area? When you actually have proper pavements. Not clean pavements or beautiful pavements mind you, just the existence of pavements. Most other places either have broken non-continuous pavements, or none at all. It makes walking around difficult because you have to go onto roads where vehicles are constantly zipping you by at distances so close that if you just stretched out your elbow you would have been hit. Even if there are pavements, they're often dusty and your shoes will be dirty just by walking about on solid ground.
There's the metro. we complain so much about our MRT system. To be fair, as vehicles are made artificially expensive, public transport needs to be reliable. Certainly the issues we've faced are major disruptions to a day. Meanwhile in Chennai, the metro just literally started under 2 years ago. They now have ambitious plan to build more. Who do they look to for inspiration? Singapore of course, they want to emulate what we have because it's considered world class. We don't even think about it much.
While we're at it, they really do look to Singapore a lot for inspiration and expertise. It's like we're the gold standard they emulate to become. They build a HDB block and it's this great up market living for the upper middle class. Basically a HDB block is like a condo to them.
What else about infrastructure. Well there's water supply. There just isn't enough water to go around. There are a lack of proper measure to ensure water security. Meanwhile we've gotten used to our solutions and we don't even think about them. When it does rain, it floods, so drainage is an issue. We experience 'ponding' in Singapore whenever there's a really heavy rain. Meanwhile it just needs to rain for 5 minutes here and not particularly heavy for ponding to happen here. Sewage. Smell of it when walking along the roads. Heavily polluted rivers that look viscous. Rubbish and rubble piled up at every street. Internet. Electricity. Clean water.
Outside of infrastructure there are many little things as well. The difference in currency strengths does mean that while Singaporeans can easily travel to other countries and find everything cheap, it's much harder for people in India to go on a holiday to another country (well thankfully for them India is huge so they can do plenty of holidaying in India itself). Safety is another issue (especially for women). Healthcare. Nutrition.
Oh funfact. A Singaporean bakery chain which we treat as a mass market neighbourhood store is a premium brand in India. They don't use local flour because the quality is not up to par and they have to import it. Think about it, our everyday neighbourhood store is using what others consider premium grade flour. Do you think about the flour that goes into your bread? I don't. We consume premium flour everyday without realising it. Then we go to upmarket stores and think those are premium.
Basically in comparison to the average person here (and I need to specify average because inequality in India is fairly high), we have a very different understanding of quality. What is basic to us is often slightly upmarket here, what is slightly upmarket to us is luxury here. What is luxury here is often unattainable by the average person. My friend had a 1.5k SGD watch. A kid living in a poorer rural area found out about the price, and his eyes looked like it was going to pop out of his head. Dude must be wondering how can this guy spend a year's worth of household income on a watch.
To be fair, we’re comparing to India, a country that is still developing. As a developed country, perhaps a fairer comparison would be to other developed countries. We can talk about how great Japan or the Scandinavian countries are. I don’t deny that things in Singapore can be better and problems that are surfaced should be addressed. High cost of living for the blue collar worker (if you’re a uni grad in a white collar job, you’ll get by). Work can be really long and really rough. Education has really great parts and also serious flaws. Sustainability is actually lacking behind India in some areas (just some). Many more.
I think even as we continue the pursuit of excellence, to be world class, we should never forget that we already have so much more than others. There is plenty to already be thankful for. It would do us well to keep in mind that many of these things that we have, that we take for granted, are things that others do not have.
We the ones born in Singapore are extremely privileged. Through nothing we did, we scored well on the lottery of life and are born where we were born. That's a perspective I think is important for us to hold on to as we live our lives.
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Singaporeans like to complain a lot. Part of this post was originally intended to say maybe we shouldn't complain so much because we already have a lot.
I thought about it though, and I think you know what, maybe complains can be helpful to keep us on our toes and to maintain the highest standards. I personally won't be the one doing much complaining myself but hey, maybe there are benefits for others to continue doing it if they so desire to lol. After all, it would be dangerous if we become complacent and think we already have it all.
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As an aside, I probably sound slightly pro establishment in my recent posts. Well I'll say that I don't think the government is without flaws and I believe I've made that clear in my posts, but if you just take a look at what's happening elsewhere, I think it's obvious that there are so many things done way better here.
I am also fully aware that Singapore is the embodiment of meritocracy, which is a system that perpetuates inequality. More on meritocracy or 'hard work' here:
- http://ipokeyouwithapencilthatissharp.blogspot.com/2015/11/privilege.html
- http://ipokeyouwithapencilthatissharp.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-radical-moral-implications-of-luck.html
Also, I know I spoke highly about technocratic rule previously, so if you wonder if there's a contradiction, I'll say nah I don't think so. Meritocracy as a concept in and of itself isn't the problem, it is the fact that people don't have the same starting points that make meritocracy problematic. In that sense, true meritocracy is out of reach. Would be happy to have a solution where they can coexist, I think this is what many things like affirmative action and bursaries attempt to do but perhaps more can still be done.
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