Random Thoughts

so i was having an MSN conversation with my brother (who's in Australia... we are not that dysfunctional) about whether the Government could do anything via legislature to make the country more accepting of diversity and less prejudiced against what it currently holds as taboo.

he thinks that it can be done. he believes that if we have a constitution that institutionalises acceptance, then we will have a society that is more accepting. however, i countered, a constitution (or any law for that matter) is only as good as it is able to be enforced. and who does the enforcing? the people. so if there isn't good enough reason to get enough people to enforce any laws, then the law is powerless and therefore pointless. worse, it might lead to resentment against the government.

what the government can do is to slowly prod the society this way and that and gradually encourage the populace to change its opinions, become more liberal or conservative, depending on which will enable a more survivable society.

my brother then said that this is a sad reality because he feels that it seems like Singapore is becoming a society of robots and robot minded people where there is no freedom of expression. which i disagreed with. it is precisely because there is freedom of expression that there are such prejudices. people with these prejudices are free to express their prejudice. and it is just unfortunate for the people who suffer being prejudiced against that the people who hold these prejudices are the majority and hence have a louder voice, thus their opinions and prejudice becomes the accepted social norm. what most people call freedom of expression essentially means we are taking away the freedom of expression of that group which has a louder voice. is that then fair?

of course, it isn't fair. but nothing is. which led my brother to bemoan the lack of equality. of course there isn't equality. because, i think, the only way for there to be equality is for all of us to be the same. i.e. to be a society of identical robots. ironic isn't it? either that or we become the Gaia at the end of Asimov's Foundation series. or the Buggers in Ender's Game. or, for a more dystopian version, Huxley's Brave New World.

is this really a sad state? perhaps. perhaps not. it all depends on what standards we use to define the state of affairs. i choose to measure it with how survivable the society/nation/species is in that state. if a change makes the society/nation/species as a whole more survivable, then it's good. rather... evolutionary, i suppose.