Why We Disagree on Racism (and how “moving forward” may be more difficult than it seems)

[I wrote this on 28 Jun 2021. It was originally published on wongyann.medium.com ]

In his keynote speech (and subsequent Q&A session) during the IPS-RSIS forum on Race and Racism, Minister Lawrence Wong called for us to “be prepared to have uncomfortable discussions — not to start arguments, but to begin civilised discussions, listen to each other, and understand all points of view.” He also exhorts that these discussions “expand the space for agreement, not narrow it, that deepen cross-cultural understanding, not cause defensiveness and suspicion, that appeals to the better angels in all of us, not instigate a “them vs us” dynamic.” These are noble sentiments. I am unsure if they are realistic sentiments.

Over the past year or so, I have attempted to follow and understand the thought process of (what I consider to be) progressive-minded Singaporeans (typically on twitter and Instagram) as well as conservative-minded Singaporeans (typically on Facebook). I am still learning and formulating my conclusions, but in this essay I would like to share some of my preliminary views here about each side’s framework of understanding, and the challenges which need to be overcome if we hope for such cross-ideological conversations to be fruitful.

Frameworks of Beliefs: Anthropology, Ethics and Telos

The first concept we need to understand is that each of us have a worldview — a framework of beliefs — which act like a lens. When we come across new experiences, we always process these experiences through our existing lens (of framework of beliefs) and only after which draw our own conclusions about what these new experiences mean. Two different individuals with two different worldviews can come to two very different conclusions even if they undergo the same experience.

A clear example of this was the recent video clip of the lady in the MRT harassing her fellow commuters, including her asking the commuters to identify their race. Everyone saw the same video, but there were broadly two conflicting conclusions. One group of people said this incident was an atypical once-off occurrence, and this bizarre lady was likely suffering from some rare mental condition. Sympathy was the appropriate response. The other group said that this incident clearly showed the lady’s racism (and elitism) and is one example of how racism is systemic in Singapore. This group also insisted that mental illness should NOT be considered as a factor as doing so would result in the negative stereotyping of people with genuine mental conditions. Therefore condemnation was the appropriate response. Needless to say, the clash between these two groups was not pretty.

It is impossible to completely deconstruct a worldview into its individual component beliefs, but I want to just highlight three types of worldview beliefs which I believe to be most relevant for our current discussion. The first is anthropology — our beliefs about human nature. These includes our beliefs about what human beings are capable (or not capable) of, what we are primarily motivated by, and how we expect humans to behave under certain situations.

If we go back to Minister Wong’s speech, you can see he articulates a sophisticated anthropology. First he observes that “the natural instincts of humans are to look out for people who are most like us, and to keep a distance from others.” Yet, he believes that humans not just capable of overcoming these natural instincts, they will happily desire to do so in the pursuit of “multiculturalism”. These are all anthropological beliefs.

The second type of worldview belief is that of ethics — our beliefs about morality. These includes our beliefs about what moral or immoral behavior (or thoughts) look like, but they also include how we prioritize them — what moral issues are most urgent and most pressing to address.

Space does not permit a full and comprehensive dive into the ethical beliefs articulated by Minister Wong in his speech. I will only provide my conclusion — he agrees that racism, bigotry and chauvinism (although these terms were never carefully defined) are all immoral, and therefore issues to be tackled. Yet, the tackling of these issues are all subservient to the greater issue of urgency (and hence greater morality), which is the maintenance of “social harmony”.

The last type of worldview belief is the telos, which is Greek for “end”, “goal” or “purpose”. For our purposes, we will only discuss the telos of Singapore society. Our telos is the envisioned Singapore society which we desire to work towards. While Minister Wong invoked “One united people, regardless of race, language or religion” as the ideal to work towards, a more careful reading of his speech shows that he believes this idea is not attainable in real life. Instead his true telos is his next best approximation, the maintenance of “social harmony” anchored upon “mutual admiration and respect” between different racial (and religious) groups. Upon this reading, I think Minister Wong believed that Singapore had been fairly close to achieving this telos in the recent past and much of the work to be done is to “prevent regression” even though there is room to push for progression.

Why We Disagree on Racism

Many (perhaps even most) Singaporeans share similar worldviews on anthropology, ethics and telos with Minister Wong. For these Singaporeans, they will find his argument convincing, and since the speech was delivered so well, they may even find it compelling and convicting. The purpose of this essay is not disagree with or to debunk any of Minister Wong’s beliefs. That said, it is my observation that many Singaporeans do not share the worldview beliefs as Minister Wong, and it is important to understand what they believe instead, and why.

On anthropology. There are people who are more optimistic than Minister Wong, and believe that tribal instincts are not inherent in human nature, but are instead fully learned from the external environment. For such people, they are optimistic that if the external environment can be changed, societies can free themselves from tribal instincts. There are also people who are more pessimistic than Lawrence Wong, and believe that tribal instincts (whether nature or nurture) are so set in stone once formed that they cannot be overcome, no matter how many conversations you have and how many impassioned speeches politicians make. Therefore what needs to be done is to have clear safeguards set in place (e.g. laws and enforcement) to prevent tribal instincts for creating harm and damage to vulnerable members of society.

On ethics. The moral framework of Minister Wong has a strong pragmatic (or consequentialist) component — a morally right action is primarily defined by the desirable outcomes brought about by that action. There are a myriad of alterative ethical positions possible, but I’ll just mention two. A deontological framework of ethics is focused less on outcomes, but clear moral rules. Certain actions are always morally wrong no matter what the outcome (or the intention). A virtues framework of ethics is similarly less focused on outcomes, but is more focused on intentions. An action is moral if it was motivated by good intentions. The same action may be considered immoral if it was motivated by bad intentions.

On telos. Not everyone shares the same telos of “social harmony”. Some view it as too optimistic, and we should have a telos where society enforces certain preferred rights and privileges, even if it comes at a cost of removing some less-preferred privileges (even if certain parties are unhappy as a result). Others view that “social harmony” is too pessimistic, and we should instead work towards a society where all members can achieve self-actualization, instead of merely harmony. I would also want to point out that your telos beliefs are closely linked to your anthropology beliefs. The more optimistic your anthropology, the more optimistic your telos, and vice versa.

I want to pause at this point and reiterate that whatever I’ve described above is a gross simplification of the true complexity of a worldview lens. There are many other worldview beliefs that interact with these three (e.g. whether or not you believe there is a God, who you trust to be saying the truth, etc.) Even though it may be tempting to divide people into neat camps (e.g. “progressives” vs “conservatives”), in reality, individuals are more complex than that and they exist not just across one spectrum, but across various spectra along various belief axes. However, for purposes of trying to make sense of what’s going on in Singapore society, I will continue to make simplifications and continue to repeat these caveats.

I believe that in the past, progressive-minded people were folks who were highly optimistic in anthropology and telos. They believed that human society has the potential for great human flourishing once they are freed from the shackles of traditionalism. Many of these progressives subscribed to the doctrine of Classical Liberalism, and believed that the pursuit of enlightenment liberal values such as individual rights (for all) and a free marketplace of ideas would provide the fertile ground for moving society forward towards that envisioned utopia.

But in the last decade or so there emerged a new kind of progressive who is highly pessimistic about anthropology and telos. This was partly brought about by academic developments which only recently percolated through to western society, and partly brought about by a sense of disillusionment— a perceived lack of progress with regards to addressing issues of inequality. These progressives gave up on Classical Liberalism and desired to forge a new path. They feel it is pointless in trying to engage, negotiate and compromise with their opponents (because of their pessimistic anthropology) and other measures need to be explored (e.g. laws and enforcement) to prevent these moral wrongs from continuing to take place.

I have a much harder time trying to study and understand Singapore “conservatives”, partly because there are many different strands of conservatism in Singapore, and partly because Asian conservatism varies significantly from western conservatism. But what I feel is true is that while conservatives have always disagreed with progressives, they feel particularly threatened and anxious about the new progressives, who are more aggressive than their old-school counterparts.

This brings me to my final point — that our worldview beliefs are not just merely cognitive, but they can and do strongly affect our emotions. Fear and anxiety are common emotions when you feel that your telos is being threatened; outrage is a common emotion when you feel like immorality is being done but not sufficiently addressed.

Three kinds of Cross-Ideological Conversations

It is impossible to have conversations when one or both parties are highly emotional. [I am not saying these emotions are unwarranted or unjustified. I am just saying conversation is impossible.] Therefore, the first qualification for being a participant in cross-ideological dialogue, is a large amount of individual patience as well as deep sense of self-security that prevents that individual from feeling defensive and from lashing out emotionally (which often ends up escalating into a heated or snarky name-calling session). These are extremely rare character traits, and I believe such individuals are in short supply in every camp, including among those who hold high office positions.

The second qualification is intellectual humility. How did we end up with such different worldviews in the first place? The short answer is that our “lived experiences” are different. An all-encompassing definition of “lived experiences” will include interactions with our parents, teachers and peers in our formative years, but also influential people/ideas you have come across and found compelling later on in life. It includes experiences of trauma in any shape or form. It includes the invisible cultural norms which form our “zeitgeist”. It also includes our more mundane everyday interactions with the people around us, including strangers, in the social spaces we occupy. Minority races talk about this regularly when they describe everyday casual racism, which is something not experienced by the majority race despite occupying the same social space. Because the lived experience of minority races is different from the majority race, they do develop a different worldview lens, and therefore they do see and understand the world differently.

It takes someone with significant intellectual humility to understand that his or her own view of the world is subjective and incomplete, to desire listening to different lived experiences and to explore new beliefs, and be willing to subject his or her own current worldview to revision and reach new conclusions. I feel that such intellectual humility is also an extremely rare character trait, and individuals who posses this trait are also similarly in short supply in every camp (including among those who hold high office positions).

What is the agenda of a cross-ideological conversation? There are two different dispositions that each participant can bring. The first kind is the disposition of learning, i.e. I’m here to learn about the lived experiences of my ideological opponent, and I’m willing to subject my own worldview to revision in light of listening to these experiences I currently do not have. The second kind is the disposition of defending, i.e. I’m here to defend my worldview from my opponent, and to prove that my worldview is a superior way of understanding the world. When two defenders meet, there will only be debate which results in nobody changing their minds. When a defender meets a learner, there will be “education”. One side will “teach” the other side the “correct way” of understanding this world. For many participants, this is the only kind of conversation they want to have.

Only in the rare occurrences where two learners meet, can there be true development of mutual understanding, a search to find common ground (no matter how small) and to build upon that common ground to develop a workable solution to co-exist. This is the kind of conversation that Minister Wong hopes (and is optimistic) that Singaporeans can have. Is such a conversation possible? Yes, I believe so. Is it probable? I’ll say no, because I think qualified and willing participants will be hard to find.