Doing some research on the public discourse surrounding last years racist tram incident in the UK, I was prompted to ponder the rise of xenophobic sentiments in Singapore. As held in diaspora st...
Some people have idealised views of how they can change the world or their surroundings. Its good that these people have dreams, but even if those dreams can be translated into action, its worth aski...
Some people may lament the lack of official recognition for Singlish. There is no definitive glossary of Singlish terms, no authoritative dictionary that people can turn to in order to reaffirm the m...
I keep coming back to David Brooks article on finding a job because Im quite fascinated by its message. When I first read it last spring, my first reaction was to be indignant. I was still working to...
I have other topics in mind that I want to write about, but right now Im struck by a sudden desire to recapitulate and summarise what I studied last year. Maybe it is the desire to seize something ta...
Is all fair in love and work? I think many would say no, and that is partly because of a difference in attitudes that is entrenched in our culture and in our discourses on love and work.Consider this...
Can an immutable law be, at the same time, constrained by context and dependent upon particular circumstances for its construction and application? I think so. To put it simply, a law is made real in...
Singapore is a bit like a child who was bullied and looked down on by its peers—it grew up having something to prove.The insecurities of Singaporean society are a reflection of the insecurities of it...
When cornered, many animals fight back. We should probably do the same. Compromise becomes impossible when there is no middle ground. The only options are capitulation and confrontation, and at times...
What is the simple life? Traditionally, it is understood as a thrifty life lived without pretensions. But what exactly does that entail? Are you thrifty as long as you dont buy yachts or mansions or ...
Lets face it, adults as a group are pretty bad at giving advice to young people. For example, if young people aim low, adults tell them to aim higher and have more ambition; on the other hand, if you...
It is often said that knowledge is power. Is it? Or does knowledge simply avail us to the means of power, if that?There are criticisms to be made of the naive view that knowledge can automatically so...
Illustration by Don DailyAs a debate plays out this weekend regarding the use of Singlish, let us recall the fable of the Fox and the Grapes. Its a story that is familiar to us, in which a fox, unabl...
The difficulty of praxis in art is compounded by the intrusion of the empirical or the purely practical. The definition of art is a political matter; it is bound up with the power to dictate or influ...
Every year its the same. I would be lulled into thinking that there are possibilities here, that things will be different. This year, I actually convinced myself that I think positively now, that I w...
Part IIn the second part of this discussion of Adorno and Horkheimers The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, I conclude by building on the key observations made in the first part rega...
I wanted to write something about the riots and looting that happened in London recently, but at present I dont have the time to compose such a heavy piece. Besides, Ive just realised something that ...
I think there are exists two broad ways of tackling life in the middle class consciousness. Both are geared towards consumption, but both go about achieving it differently. The first and more traditi...
Im sure we have, as consumers, critics and individuals, expended effort, time and money to look for the authentic. As tourists, we sometimes look for the authentic experience of a place; as gastronom...
Often, I would read about things that make me embarrassed of even downright ashamed of my country. Im aware of its rather dirty history, and I dont have such faith in it to be certain that its not in...
Life is beautiful—so much so that theres little need to change it in any significant way. Such is the sentiment that I feel is predominant in the middle class public sphere, to the extent that, apart...
While cultural studies has today succeeded in appearing to undermine the Frankfurt School critique of the Culture Industry, the machinery of commodification steams ahead, more productive than ever. T...
Those who wish to hold on to dreams should also be prepared to give them up. One cannot be uncompromising about dreams, for dreams have power over us. They have the power to reveal our mortal limitat...
More technocratic or elitist discourses on governance often bring up concepts like the big picture or the the long view. I wont dispute the fact that these terms have meanings (albeit relative ones)....
I dont care much for procedural politics in general. My aspirations for social and political change are a little bit on the pie-in-the-sky side. This is not to say, though, that I dont care to vote. ...
Here I present a reading of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimers The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, with reference to Frederic Jamesons essays on Adorno in Late Marxism and Amresh S...
Postmodern approaches to social theory emphasise multiplicity and de-centring, and these themes find their natural articulation in cultural analyses. Such analyses focus on the richness of cultural i...
I wonder how often the pronouncement that "Its all relative anyway" is accompanied by the knowledge of why exactly that is so. Perhaps utterance without precise understanding is somewhat apt ...
The world of experts is a perplexing one. And thats partly because you wouldnt know what its really about unless you are an expert yourself. One might think that the role of the expert can be d...
The divide between theory and practice is illusory. I dont mean to say that there are no such distinct categories as theory and practice. Rather, the distinction between theory and practice is not as...
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