“To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.”In National Service, three hallowed words are emblazoned on our chest - Duty, Honour, Country. It is a Code that fires the bellies of men and generates patriotic fervour capable of sustaining soldiers with an indomitable spirit in the most degrading conditions in battlefields, bravery in the most dangerous circumstances, and ultimate sacrifices when called upon. An Army with the most sophisticated weaponry and the best training, produces fighting men with no resolve in battle if they do not have these motivations in their bones.
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As Singaporeans, we recognise we have responsibilities as well as rights. As a nation, we are bound together in destiny, one in which we hope to live in happiness and enjoy the freedom our Constitution, as a social contract, grants us. That social construct requires of us a commitment to others, an obligation to protect that freedom. It is a commitment of love, charity, duty, given with passion, which honours those who came before us and who built and died for the country. Unworthy are those whose self-preservation overwhelms when they weigh the wages for their labour for country. Without this Code, patriotism is impossible.
In various social media discourse with young men over the years, I have never ever encountered one that shares my feelings on NS. Almost all diminish the Code to nothing but hubris. The youths of today, skewed on science and technology, hold a liberal world view that puts themselves in the centre of everything. Theirs is a world where The Charge of the Light Brigade is not about valor or dedication, but some bumbling generals and dumb cavalrymen taking blind orders. Where General Yue Fei's tatoo 尽忠报国 (Jìn zhōng bào guó) on his back was the work of a silly village mother who bought into the Emperor's propaganda. Where a quote of JFK "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" gets a rebuke.
Plato said there are 3 classes of man : lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain.A few days ago, I found myself in familiar digital altercation with four young Singaporean males over the issue of NS. One of them professed to be in his 60s, but his angry and colourful language and hateful Facebook icon told me otherwise. Young liberal values of equality last hardly ten minutes. As soon as it becomes apparent our views diverge, the name calling starts. I was no longer their equal. Snippets of that exchange here show some idea of the conversation, the name calling and other digressions are redacted.
I put clearly to them that NS is non-negotiable. One decried we were having a serious conversation why was I pro-establishment. My rejoiner was indeed a country's defence is a serious matter, more so that NS is non-negotiable. None was willing to shoulder the burden for the greater good unless there is a good wage to be earned. It is sacrilege to talk of sacrifices when economic recompense is demanded. Their arguments do not stand. No matter how reasonable an argument may seem, it's a camouflaged excuse to justify a reluctance to do duty.
When I talked 'Duty, Honour, Country', I was branded a 'dinosaur', pro-establishment, other unkind names, and my views were 'Victorian claptraps'. When I derided their calls for equality to extend NS to females, they said I'm devoid of understanding the new world reality, pointing to Israeli women in the IDF. This old man could not quite comprehend what they meant. Were they referring to the New Age of Feminism, where it's about equal glass ceilings and a shot at CEO jobs for women, or to the Age of Lost Masculinity, where these young men have to put on jockstraps going into a chess competition?
One can stand at Hong Lim Park and scream 'social justice'. There is nothing to stand on without a countryOne of the young man said all he wanted is social justice. That is so typical run of the mill, lazy, ivory tower argument that educated youths spin. He thinks he is standing on high moral grounds. It is mere virtue signalling and his one size fits all statement does not stand to scrutiny. The social media is full of young social justice warriors, so many that they have earned the acronym SJW. I gave him a chance to explain his meaning which turned out as I expected. He was merely asking for fair treatment. He sacrificed, so he wanted equity. SJWs champion all sorts of equality issues without understanding the philosophical implications of what they mean - LGBT, human rights, gender equality, etc .
'Social justice' is firstly an oxymoron. 'Social' is a vacuous description for 'justice'. Sacrosanct to SJWs is the belief that injustice can be wiped off the face of the planet if the playing field is leveled and wealth or benefits distributed which will lead to a Utopia on Earth. All socialist acts are fundamentally taking from one party and distributing to another. Yet SJWs toss the catchphrase about like a standard bearer oblivious to the paradox of the injustice in their very ideal.
SJW advocacy is usually a blanket appeal to some form of equity and they feel that is a valid argument. If you are against it, you are promoting social injustice, which of course simply is not true as no ordinary person supports inequality. It's too simplistic to use as an all-purpose justification for any policy or program. Those that receives, benefits personally; those denied, looses personally but may have dire economic consequences for the community. For example, higher taxes for millionaires in Democrat controlled states in US to fund increased social programmes cause the business class to pull out of those states and transfer jobs and businesses elsewhere.
Equality is not cast in iron simply because people are inherently endowed differently. After getting the women into NS these young men may then say hey it's not fair for me to carry the 80mm mortar barrel, give it to Jennifer, after all we are getting the same salary. Or why should we attack this hill, it's too high, give the job to Company B. Allocation according to attributes, skill sets, strategic objectives, national priorities, etc, take a back seat to the dictates of SJWs.
Social justice is plain and simple an idea in Utopia. Policy setting based on the SWFs' unachievable ideals is Utopianism at work where it is possible to make fishes climb trees. It is lost to them that the heroes have become the villains as they push toward a form of Utopian elitism.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."... Benjamin Franklin
Paraphrase BF's quote by replacing ' temporary safety' for 'compensation' fits the NS conundrum. What that youth asked is actually called an 'appeal to desert'. This is a philosophy of the condition of deserving something, which may be good or bad. It's structure is basically Y deserves X because of Z. Y is the subject. X is the treatment or wage that Y deserves. Z is referred to as the desert bases, ie upon what basis or virtue that Y is deserving. So here the young man say he deserves a good job, or just compensation, because he sacrificed for the country in NS.
Many political and moral thinkers have pondered over the concept of appeal to desert and it remains debatable whether desert applies to justice at all. Great minds such as Emmanuel Kant and John Rawls have posited on the ethics of desert. There are 2 schools of thought. In very simple terms, they are :
Many political and moral thinkers have pondered over the concept of appeal to desert and it remains debatable whether desert applies to justice at all. Great minds such as Emmanuel Kant and John Rawls have posited on the ethics of desert. There are 2 schools of thought. In very simple terms, they are :
- Deontological ethics : This just requires that people follow the rules and do their duty. It emphasises on the action itself. If aspects of the action is considered morally obligatory, such as a duty, then the consequences for human welfare is not important. A case of means justifying the end, duty for duty sake.
- Teleological ethics or Consequentialism : This judges actions by their results. Therefore the results must stand to scrutiny, analysis, weighing the cost and effects and other subjective determination of the morality or equality of its outcome.
"Patriotism means to stand by the country; it does NOT mean to stand by the president or any other elected official."... Theodore RooseveltInvariably, the core reality, that the country is paramount over all else, that idea is lost to the youths who will carry the debate on NS to various controversial issues of the day. Whatever these many be, and in Singapore there are many - elitism, arrogance of those in power, non-accountability, incompetence, CECA, foreign workers, high cost of living, unemployment, inept politicians, poverty, abuse of power, lost of liberty, etc. These are issues that are serious and worthy of loud public voices and platforms to champion against, but ought to be decoupled from a discussion on NS, or minds will be mired and unable to see a disconnect.
The Code of 'Duty, Honour, Country' which are the highest of virtues and moral laws, now has a price tag. Enthusiasm for the kind of liberty paid for by patriotic duty and honour to country is dead. What is happening to our young people? I'm beginning to have ephebiphobia.
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I don't remember any opposition parties suggesting the abolition of NS like it's some sort of 'slave trade'. So how come they are not taken to task. So to a certain extent it's an accepted norm that a small nation like us needs a citizen-based army program.Sadly many who have served, don't have pleasant memories during the stint, thus the angst. Low remuneration,loss of early career opportunities,etc does not even comes close to the loss of dignity during training days. The experience breaks you and in some cases, kills you. The training methods have not changed a wee bit since genesis. On top of that there are trainers who go overboard and ignore regular training methods and enforced 'new' protocols based on sadistic inclinations. In most cases they got away with it until fatal incidents occur.These callous trainers scarred the NS men for life. I understand why the youth are so angry when they mistakenly sensed that you are not only in favor of NS but you actually enshrined it. Serving one's country is a privilege but why the 'slave' treatment per se? My interpretation is we raised our boys to young adulthood and loaned them to the Govt to prepare for the defence of our nation in times of war. The nation must treat them well and returned them to us in mint condition or better, not worse and certainly not in black bags. On one hand we want to do our part as citizens, the nation must never think of it as an obligation but rather as a patriotic gesture. It is also a sacrifice on our part though. NS is like an over-hanging dark cloud that follows you all the time until you completed your obligations. It is highly inconvenient when you have families and businesses to care for. To date nobody wants to dwell on this 'taboo' subject, like is it really necessary take up so many years of youth & adulthood? Have the training methods been reviewed and re-invented to suit modern-day warfare? Why safety protocols are not adhered to like a religion? Movie makers are making millions scoffing at our NS men and to a certain degree they are true to screen. Will we still pride ourselves in serving NS? Is it possible for NS time to be reduced at all? We must keep in mind that not all jumped into work right after NS, many actually continued studying. This 2 year absence can derail one's motivation to study by a fair bit. Is Reservist training still relevant in terms of 10-year cycles even though we are compensated dollar for dollar? The inconvenience still persists, patriotic or not. Maybe the 2 year stint has not been revamped because the nation thinks that it will do injustice to those that have served before. In fact those who have served their dues may be open to their children not having to serve NS as long as them. Certainly, they will not be jealous but in fact they would be grateful as they have seen how it disrupts their lives as a whole. They have walked the path and wished that the new generation don't need to sacrifice as much.Those in NS are not guaranteed jobs outside, in fact they lost many opportunities to FTs which is their existential dilemma.We weren't affected by this dilemma in our time. Will our nation paused their economies and wait for these NSmen to complete before moving on? No, of course not. Time and tide waits for no man. So they are left with crumbs by performing their duties obligating a nation's defence policy and have nothing to show forth.The odds are stacked against them rather than for them in so many ways. You are not wrong, they are also not wrong. We just lived in different time-lines.We pride in honor and honor rewarded us in our time. They pride in honor but honor betrayed them in their time.
Thank you for tour ling comment . Sorry for the late reply, I overlooked.
I appreciate your views but I can’t help your constant reference to willingness to sacrifice and being patriotic and shouldering citizenship obligations but constant reference to economic losses. The twain never meets in this particular endeavour.
Regarding the point that training has never changed I’m not sure what spectrum of time you measured, but we have come a long way and much has changed over the years.
I can see you want a lowered standard of regimen and 100% no casualty training doctrine, and camps where trainers say ‘Please’ to trainees when they bark an order. As tou know, Singapore always seek the best from the rest of the world. If you can source a country that trains their army in the kind of manner you desire, I’m sure our government would like to hear about it.
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