July 24, 2009
I THANK Ms Lydia Lim for her column last Friday, 'Beware enclaves of the like-minded', which highlighted the difference between 'religiosity per se' and 'religious practices that lead to closed communities'. I am glad she warned against an unqualified 'flight to uniformity'.
However, her point was made at the expense of 'like-minded enclaves', and it would be equally disastrous if Singapore ended end up distrusting any and every group's deeply held, faithfully practised convictions.
There is another, better way to build healthy communities, and it lies in good, old-fashioned communication and the careful instruction of Singaporeans, beginning with clarifying our thoughts and public writing on this subject.
While I share Ms Lim and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Lim Boon Heng's concern regarding closed communities, care needs to be exercised in defining 'closed'. In a necessary and very real sense, every cogent belief or thought system rules out ideas that are antithetical to or incompatible with it. This is simply how we define who we are and what we believe - by drawing boundaries.
These demarcations are not inherently harmful. 'Good fences make good neighbours', so the late American poet laureate Robert Frost perceptively penned. As Ms Lim rightly notes, any community trades on its simultaneous openness and 'closedness' within the larger society. The enclaves per se are not the problem; to speak of integration is meaningless if there are no pre-existing differences.
Nor should we move to eradicate all those differences - that would be a flight to homogeneity.
What we must avoid is segregation, the 'closedness', not of healthy communities within a society, but of isolation without participation in the greater whole.
So how do we build communities that reach out beyond the very fences that construct and contain them? Again, the fences should not be mistaken as the problem. Rather than discourage people from believing anything too deeply or from disbanding their support groups, we should encourage and value communication and understanding across these social groups.
We must surely learn to recognise and accept our differences, and still choose to interact with one another; this should not exclude having the support of a like-minded group. To return to the proverb 'Good fences make good neighbours', well, we can value our neighbours, as neighbours - but they do not live in our homes. Nor should they have to, to be valued.
It is worth spelling this out in our public discussions because the word 'tolerance' has shifted in meaning in recent years (especially in terms like religious tolerance), largely because of the influence of political correctness in the United States and elsewhere. It used to be that tolerance meant putting up with someone else's point of view and recognising that he was entitled to express it, even if one had an entirely different point of view.
Today, tolerance seems to mean never really expressing your view because that in itself impinges on someone else's perceived right not to be discomfited by it; and that is a shame.
Such tolerance is more likely to produce segregation than the sensitive practice of entrenched beliefs. For where would the interaction between those beliefs be if no one is voicing true convictions? Where is the 'multi' part of our multi-religious national identity?
Are the common bonds of our nationhood so superficial that we cannot express deeply held religious beliefs in a climate that can agree to disagree?
How much in-depth understanding of others can we ever have if the only beliefs - spiritual, intellectual, emotional or otherwise - we can share or bear to hear from others are watered down and of the lowest common denominator? How then to develop our own minds or form our own opinions? Is it any wonder we are constantly lamenting the state of this nation?
And so, finally, in the interest of genuine understanding, on to the example Ms Lim gave: the worrisome 41.5 per cent of Christian clergymen who would resist the perception that all religions are equal. In fact, many mainstream Christian groups do not accept that all religions are right and the same. Those clergymen are only being faithful leaders. They are neither against charity nor against dialogue.
Ms Lim, Mr Lim and others would be less worried if they understood also that the unique calling of these Christian clergymen makes them more, not less, responsible for and thoughtful about their interaction with larger society, including other religious groups, the authorities and the law of the land. The label 'closed' or 'exclusivist' is unhelpful and misleading for a religion just as deeply committed to reaching out and engaging with the unlike.
Religious devotion is not in itself a threat to social cohesion. I think we can also agree that we are talking about social responsibility in exercising those personal beliefs. If so, let us carefully define and adequately address such things as communication, tolerance (old style) and unity in diversity.
Do not demonise 'likeminded enclaves' and inadvertently fuel the misguided notion that harmony and unity are about never being deeply committed to local causes or never hearing or expressing viewpoints different to one's own. What we need in a climate of weakening social bonds (if that is the perceived fear) is greater, not less, understanding of those around us.
Karen Kwek (Ms)
[This is generally a well-argued and well-presented position. I can agree that groups need boundaries for their identity. And every community can be both closed and open.
And yes I agree that a more tolerant definition of "tolerance" would be nicer, but the agenda of the aggressively evangelistic is suspect. One comment on-line:
Being an ex-christian, I can agree with Karen kwek that the Christian religion is deeply committed to reaching out, but it's mostly the kind of 'reaching out' the others are afraid of - trying to convert someone else relentlessly like a hardcore salesman, even after the potential 'victim' says 'not interested'.
'Reaching out' as in telling others what you believe is fine. It is the 'reaching out' as in trying relentlessly to convert( eg. waiting at the school gates to distribute religious literature and stopping students from leaving until they take a copy or give their phone numbers) that's unsettling.
Posted by: GhostRider666 at Fri Jul 24 22:15:57 SGT 2009
Karen also asks, "can we not agree to disagree?" Yes we can. But the aggressively evangelistic cannot.
In fact, "many mainstream Christian groups do not accept that all religions are right and the same."
If so, can we agree to disagree and not talk about how Christians disagree with other religions? Because what would be the point? To realise we disagree? Or to realise how much we disagree?
For as long as aggressive evangelists treat their religion as some divine MLM or pyramid scheme, there can be no tolerance at the level of open discourse leading to agreeing to disagree.
Karen speaks of "greater understanding of those around us". Perhaps she should put her money where her mouth is. What steps has she taken to understand another faith? Or is her understanding of "understanding" purely one way? That non-christians should understand why Christianity is the one true religion.
Here's a deeper understanding of multi-religious Singapore. If one religion aggressively converts the followers of another, understand that the other religion will not stand idly by with passive "tolerance". They will fight for their followers, and the survival of their faith.
What's so "multi" about multi-religious Singapore? It is that the religions co-exist without attempting to wipe each other out either with violence or more subtly by systematic conversion of followers of other religions. Maybe that's a superficial definition of "harmony", but it beats a situation of religious antagonism/aggression.
The reality of Singapore (and most places) is that harmony is achieved by respecting boundaries (Karen's quoting Frost - "good fences"). Championing some idealistic notion of tolerance and free discourse while ignoring the effect of such idealism is naive, irresponsible and dangerous.
Eventually, it may be safer to ban all cults that pursue evangelisation as a core duty of its members.]
[Edited May 1, 2010. Further comments:
Enclaves of the like-minded exists in politics as well, and the two-party Democrats-Republicans system in the US is a prime example and model of what extremes such enclaves can go to. When you surround yourself with like-minded people, speak only to like-minded people, share your frustrations (with contrary views and people with those views) with like-minded people who express support for your grief and anguish and reinforce your worldview, your views and position will become more entrenched, more polarised, and more rooted. There are websites, radio, and other media channels that support and reinforce these enclaves of the like-minded, and being immersed daily in such an environment serves to close one mind to all other possibilities.
Free discourse works when the ideas being presented are more fact-based than faith-based. The scientific community can engage in free discourse because positions can be proven or disproven, evidence can be presented, examined, discredited, or accepted.
With faith and conviction, all you have are bold statements, subjective interpretations, followed by a lot of singing, or chanting, or yelling. Free discourse does not work in matters of faith and personal convictions. ]
I THANK Ms Lydia Lim for her column last Friday, 'Beware enclaves of the like-minded', which highlighted the difference between 'religiosity per se' and 'religious practices that lead to closed communities'. I am glad she warned against an unqualified 'flight to uniformity'.
However, her point was made at the expense of 'like-minded enclaves', and it would be equally disastrous if Singapore ended end up distrusting any and every group's deeply held, faithfully practised convictions.
There is another, better way to build healthy communities, and it lies in good, old-fashioned communication and the careful instruction of Singaporeans, beginning with clarifying our thoughts and public writing on this subject.
While I share Ms Lim and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Lim Boon Heng's concern regarding closed communities, care needs to be exercised in defining 'closed'. In a necessary and very real sense, every cogent belief or thought system rules out ideas that are antithetical to or incompatible with it. This is simply how we define who we are and what we believe - by drawing boundaries.
These demarcations are not inherently harmful. 'Good fences make good neighbours', so the late American poet laureate Robert Frost perceptively penned. As Ms Lim rightly notes, any community trades on its simultaneous openness and 'closedness' within the larger society. The enclaves per se are not the problem; to speak of integration is meaningless if there are no pre-existing differences.
Nor should we move to eradicate all those differences - that would be a flight to homogeneity.
What we must avoid is segregation, the 'closedness', not of healthy communities within a society, but of isolation without participation in the greater whole.
So how do we build communities that reach out beyond the very fences that construct and contain them? Again, the fences should not be mistaken as the problem. Rather than discourage people from believing anything too deeply or from disbanding their support groups, we should encourage and value communication and understanding across these social groups.
We must surely learn to recognise and accept our differences, and still choose to interact with one another; this should not exclude having the support of a like-minded group. To return to the proverb 'Good fences make good neighbours', well, we can value our neighbours, as neighbours - but they do not live in our homes. Nor should they have to, to be valued.
It is worth spelling this out in our public discussions because the word 'tolerance' has shifted in meaning in recent years (especially in terms like religious tolerance), largely because of the influence of political correctness in the United States and elsewhere. It used to be that tolerance meant putting up with someone else's point of view and recognising that he was entitled to express it, even if one had an entirely different point of view.
Today, tolerance seems to mean never really expressing your view because that in itself impinges on someone else's perceived right not to be discomfited by it; and that is a shame.
Such tolerance is more likely to produce segregation than the sensitive practice of entrenched beliefs. For where would the interaction between those beliefs be if no one is voicing true convictions? Where is the 'multi' part of our multi-religious national identity?
Are the common bonds of our nationhood so superficial that we cannot express deeply held religious beliefs in a climate that can agree to disagree?
How much in-depth understanding of others can we ever have if the only beliefs - spiritual, intellectual, emotional or otherwise - we can share or bear to hear from others are watered down and of the lowest common denominator? How then to develop our own minds or form our own opinions? Is it any wonder we are constantly lamenting the state of this nation?
And so, finally, in the interest of genuine understanding, on to the example Ms Lim gave: the worrisome 41.5 per cent of Christian clergymen who would resist the perception that all religions are equal. In fact, many mainstream Christian groups do not accept that all religions are right and the same. Those clergymen are only being faithful leaders. They are neither against charity nor against dialogue.
Ms Lim, Mr Lim and others would be less worried if they understood also that the unique calling of these Christian clergymen makes them more, not less, responsible for and thoughtful about their interaction with larger society, including other religious groups, the authorities and the law of the land. The label 'closed' or 'exclusivist' is unhelpful and misleading for a religion just as deeply committed to reaching out and engaging with the unlike.
Religious devotion is not in itself a threat to social cohesion. I think we can also agree that we are talking about social responsibility in exercising those personal beliefs. If so, let us carefully define and adequately address such things as communication, tolerance (old style) and unity in diversity.
Do not demonise 'likeminded enclaves' and inadvertently fuel the misguided notion that harmony and unity are about never being deeply committed to local causes or never hearing or expressing viewpoints different to one's own. What we need in a climate of weakening social bonds (if that is the perceived fear) is greater, not less, understanding of those around us.
Karen Kwek (Ms)
[This is generally a well-argued and well-presented position. I can agree that groups need boundaries for their identity. And every community can be both closed and open.
And yes I agree that a more tolerant definition of "tolerance" would be nicer, but the agenda of the aggressively evangelistic is suspect. One comment on-line:
Being an ex-christian, I can agree with Karen kwek that the Christian religion is deeply committed to reaching out, but it's mostly the kind of 'reaching out' the others are afraid of - trying to convert someone else relentlessly like a hardcore salesman, even after the potential 'victim' says 'not interested'.
'Reaching out' as in telling others what you believe is fine. It is the 'reaching out' as in trying relentlessly to convert( eg. waiting at the school gates to distribute religious literature and stopping students from leaving until they take a copy or give their phone numbers) that's unsettling.
Posted by: GhostRider666 at Fri Jul 24 22:15:57 SGT 2009
Karen also asks, "can we not agree to disagree?" Yes we can. But the aggressively evangelistic cannot.
In fact, "many mainstream Christian groups do not accept that all religions are right and the same."
If so, can we agree to disagree and not talk about how Christians disagree with other religions? Because what would be the point? To realise we disagree? Or to realise how much we disagree?
For as long as aggressive evangelists treat their religion as some divine MLM or pyramid scheme, there can be no tolerance at the level of open discourse leading to agreeing to disagree.
Karen speaks of "greater understanding of those around us". Perhaps she should put her money where her mouth is. What steps has she taken to understand another faith? Or is her understanding of "understanding" purely one way? That non-christians should understand why Christianity is the one true religion.
Here's a deeper understanding of multi-religious Singapore. If one religion aggressively converts the followers of another, understand that the other religion will not stand idly by with passive "tolerance". They will fight for their followers, and the survival of their faith.
What's so "multi" about multi-religious Singapore? It is that the religions co-exist without attempting to wipe each other out either with violence or more subtly by systematic conversion of followers of other religions. Maybe that's a superficial definition of "harmony", but it beats a situation of religious antagonism/aggression.
The reality of Singapore (and most places) is that harmony is achieved by respecting boundaries (Karen's quoting Frost - "good fences"). Championing some idealistic notion of tolerance and free discourse while ignoring the effect of such idealism is naive, irresponsible and dangerous.
Eventually, it may be safer to ban all cults that pursue evangelisation as a core duty of its members.]
[Edited May 1, 2010. Further comments:
Enclaves of the like-minded exists in politics as well, and the two-party Democrats-Republicans system in the US is a prime example and model of what extremes such enclaves can go to. When you surround yourself with like-minded people, speak only to like-minded people, share your frustrations (with contrary views and people with those views) with like-minded people who express support for your grief and anguish and reinforce your worldview, your views and position will become more entrenched, more polarised, and more rooted. There are websites, radio, and other media channels that support and reinforce these enclaves of the like-minded, and being immersed daily in such an environment serves to close one mind to all other possibilities.
Free discourse works when the ideas being presented are more fact-based than faith-based. The scientific community can engage in free discourse because positions can be proven or disproven, evidence can be presented, examined, discredited, or accepted.
With faith and conviction, all you have are bold statements, subjective interpretations, followed by a lot of singing, or chanting, or yelling. Free discourse does not work in matters of faith and personal convictions. ]
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