The ideas of Lee Kuan Yew - Eugenics in Singapore

Poh Ah Pak SG

Eugenics in Singapore

Mr Lee Kuan Yew recently said at the Human Capital Summit held last month: "You marry a non-graduate, then you are going to worry if your son or daughter is going to make it to the university."

Don't gasp. The Minister Mentor was just restating his long-held view that smart people (read university graduates) produce smart people. Such a Hitlerian outlook is repulsive. But in Singapore, no one dares to oppose the man.

In his book A Nation Cheated, Dr Chee Soon Juan reproduces some of Mr Lee's comments on the subject and discusses how they have tragically moulded the Singaporean society:

If truth be told, the PAP's neglect of the poor stems directly from Lee Kuan Yew's personal philosophy. In 1967, the Minister Mentor said that every society has approximately 5 percent of the population:

who are more than ordinarily endowed physically and mentally and in whom we must extend our limited and slender resources in order that they will provide that yeast, that ferment, that catalyst in our society which alone will ensure that Singapore shall maintain its pre-eminent place in the societies that exist in South and Southeast Asia.

Lee repeated his ideas in 1969, this time even more forcefully:

Free education and subsidised housing lead to a situation where the less economically productive people in the community are reproducing themselves at rates higher than the rest. This will increase the total population of less productive people. Our problem is how to devise a system of disincentives, so that the irresponsible, the social delinquents, do not believe that all they have to do is to produce their children and the government then owes them and their children sufficient food, medicine, housing, education and jobs...We must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two. We will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellectually and culturally anaemic.

The Minister Mentor, then Senior Minister, made this point again in 1993:

Singaporeans will not become successful and prosperous by talking and concentrating on dividing the pie. Our journalists write about who are the poor. Give them some money. If he can't study because he's too busy helping his father, we must look after his father and him. We are concentrating on our navels!

One of his faithful ministers, the late S Rajaratnam, echoed his sentiment by sneering, "We want to teach people the government is not a rich uncle. You get what you pay for. We are moving in the direction of making people pay for everything."

A Nation Cheated is available at Kinokuniya Bookstores and Select Books (Tanglin Shopping Centre). For online mail order, please email us at [email protected] .

http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/14

Poh Ah Pak SG

Lee Kuan Yew's political philosophy:

"Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development." - 27 December 1967

"If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society...So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem." -Lee Kuan Yew in 1983 National Day Rally

"The Bell curve is a fact of life. The blacks on average score 85 per cent on IQ and it is accurate, nothing to do with culture. The whites score on average 100. Asians score more ... the Bell curve authors put it at least 10 points higher. These are realities that, if you do not accept, will lead to frustration because you will be spending money on wrong assumptions and the results cannot follow." - Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

"I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils... I didn't start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I've come to." - Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

"I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think." - Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April 1987

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lee

ChangeCanHappen SG

He does have a point; except that the point is a skewed, self-deceiving one.

It's true that many, or even most, of the poorer, less educated folks end up with similar performing children. But what is unsaid is that it happens in such a way because these families lack the financial abilities to pursue the same paths made available to the richer classes.

Talk about education and environment. A poorer kid will probably end up in schools that has a higher percentage of rowdy, less studious peers. To fit in, he'd talk and think like them.For the richer folks, they are able to enroll in private schools, purchase the material and equipment they require, hire reknowned tutors... Sure, hard work is still required, but the rich kid sure has it easier. Less obstacles to overcome.

To prove a further point, I too came from a lower-middle income family. My father toiled in odd-jobs over the years to sustain the family, as did my mother.According to MM's theories, I should have ended up as an odd job labourer now as well.

But right now, I'm in a cushy IT job and can even afford some luxury. But all this would not be possible if I had to be the "law-abiding" citizen that stayed in line with my family's background. My parents worked hard to get me an old computer when I was young, but not being able to afford legitimate software, we had to source for pirated ones. But it is the use of these pirated software that gave me the edge over my peers - for I was able to spend the time experimenting and learning to use those software from the age of 12. Now I pay for all the software I use, but I wouldn't have gotten here if I hadn't had software that cost so much. So financial status did make the difference.

Not everone is able to achieve success by hard work alone, yet the very idea is often propaganda-ed by our ruling leaders. It takes hard work, chance, inherent and external abilities and perhaps even a little bit of luck to make it in this world.

Granted, even rich kids can lose it in the world if they just waste their lives away. But you cannot deny the fact that they have an edge - not necessarily so in genetics - but in their living environment and spending power. For if rich kids are in general smarter than their poorer cousins, we wouldn't see so many dumb moves made by some of the richest brats, and neither would it be that many of the world's greatest minds and richest people came from poor backgrounds.

Let us get rid of our stereotypical views and social apathy, and work towards a better tomorrow.

Miracles&Prophecies SG

Let us get rid of our stereotypical views and social apathy, and work towards a better tomorrow.

Hey your current primal minister makes a good example of rich kid's success.

For the bottom underlined words. Kudos to you. Sometimes a failing man is regarded way too seriously..

skythewood SG

Hey your current primal minister makes a good example of rich kid's success.

For the bottom underlined words. Kudos to you. Sometimes a failing man is regarded way too seriously..

bottom underlined words:

Have you taken your medicine yet?

angel7030 SG

bottom underlined words:

Have you taken your medicine yet?

richong 3216 SG

Much that some people dislike Dirty Harry obscene salary & a few other matters, I believe that "the Bell curve is a fact of life" cannot be ignored & written off as bunkum.

Politicians can sometimes tell lies, sue you, cheat, twists & turns, etc but scientific researchers always tell you the truth & nothing but the truth & the latter includes the concept of the bell curve.

The bell curve sometimes called the normal distribution curve is a graph reflecting everything/anything you want to profile & researchers have found it consistently accurate/true in depicting any matter/situation.

ChangeCanHappen SG

I'd partially agree with you. But while the normal distribution is pervasive when it comes to salary earning of a population, the standard deviation of the curve can be affected both positively or negatively depending on the government's style of governance.

As it stands, I'm afraid the standard deviation is already too great for a country that is supposedly "first class", and may get even larger if something is not done to correct the situation.

High standards of living should mean high standards for everyone, or at the very least, the majority of the population. Not just for a select few. Sometimes I ask myself: What new significant and beneficial developments have we seen, since 10 years ago in 1998?

xtreyier SG

Much that some people dislike Dirty Harry obscene salary & a few other matters, I believe that "the Bell curve is a fact of life" cannot be ignored & written off as bunkum.

c'mon, the 'bell curve' theory for racial intelligence and IQ had long been disputed by scholars and respected researchers. It had always been education attainment and NOT cognitive ability, for so called 'IQ genes' that determines one's social and economic success..

Do stop such trash.

crimsontactics SG

Actually, majority of his ideas are great, its just that the implementation part is a little...

the Bear SG

uhh.. when was this "last month" ?

and can we stop flogging a dead horse?

it's now just a smear..

Lau Lee is just a bleached zombie of Ah Meng and we should ignore him.. just like in the next elections, we can ignore him because he's just useless..

now, the opposition has to give us something other than deriding the policies and stupidities of a senile old man to win our votes..

wtf can the opposition offer other than the attention whoring antics of a bunch of political sociopaths?

richong 3216 SG

My main point is, as I have said in my post, one should not write off as bunkum what DH had stated "the bell curve is a fact of life". And if you come to the conclusion (as stated in your post) that the "standard deviation is ..............................and may get even larger if something is not done to correct the situation", you are in fact not commenting on the dynamics of the bell curve itself but rather your perceived scenario of the current social, class & economic status of the people.

xtreyier SG

'Facts of life' to support your theory is a misrepresentation of science.

As of today, we have yet to fully comprehend each and every specific gene in the human body. To claim to do so would be a lie. Thus eugenics is disputed science and makes a mockery of repected research institutions.

We do not yet understand genes and their combinations, the building blocks of life, and yet dare claim it as a fact?

Your theory on racial differences in IQ can only hold water if you truthfully admit it as 'behavioural science'. But that is not true science, for it cannot be repeated and obtainable with similar results under different circumstances.

The difference between a Rwarda 10 year old villager and a 10 year kid from New York is their environment and opportunities. The village kid would only be taught goatherding and survival in the savannah, while the city boy would have big city broadbased education, of which IQ tests were constructed upon, of which researchers are similarly taught.

I have an opened mind, but eugenics is too much of a 'fringe science', similiar with elvis being alive, aliens conspiracy theories, etc, which are only good for sci-fi books or movies.

Each person is entitled to his personal beliefs, for we are an open society. But so far, in our nation, eugenics had not played any part in our social programmes. There are equal opportunities for all, even for a woman if she thinks she can be an equal to man in crane operations, of which there exists in PSA, employed as such.

Meat Pao SG

I think LKY is a very smart and observant man....and his ideas are very accurate, mostly.

But I think some of his ideas about "Graduates" maybe is a little bit outdated, because nowadays being a graduate is not a big deal, and doesnt signify intellectual supremacy. It is very normal. It is different compared to his times when he was in his youth, at that time I believe only a very small percentage, maybe 3% or 5% go to university. But today so many go to university, so being a graduate is not a yardstick or a sign that a person is outstandingly smart.

But I do agree with the general ideas of his observation. And in fact, if one can make a more relevant observation for todays' era, what is more important nowadays is to find a way on how to promote more birthrate and preserve the culture.

angel7030 SG

I think LKY is a very smart and observant man....and his ideas are very accurate, mostly.

But according to my grandma, she still cannot forgive LKY for his 2 childrens is enough policy. Today, we are facing aging population and low birthrate, as a female myself, how can I help??

Firstly, education and influential society bring about a negative aspect of getting marry, not to mention giving birth. All these are a burden in the eyes of an intellect girl, she see no gain but rather a struggle in building a family. Yet the males are also not forthcoming, they rather prefer to stay single, no attachment, a freedom to associate with anyone and free to move.

On the culture aspect, again the influence of western education and the erase of dialects had in on way or the other created a mix culture that see no direction. If you tell me that I should get married, serve my husband well, give birth to childrens and take care of family, I will tell you i rather take care of my money and rest can go and fly kite. Money had blinded our culture greatly. With the current influx of foreigner, we took face a different culture shock, it further deepen our mix cultures. '

The Policies that the govt set in this country were never mend to build a true singapore culture, it was mend to build a solid economy so that someone can gain

xtreyier SG

But according to my grandma, she still cannot forgive LKY for his 2 childrens is enough policy. Today, we are facing aging population and low birthrate, as a female myself, how can I help??

The Policies that the govt set in this country were never mend to build a true singapore culture, it was mend to build a solid economy so that someone can gain

Lol! You are a very observant lady and sure got it right.

Yes, your post is true about many issues. But which human would not want to have a country with a good economy to live and thrive in? Culture? Perhaps later. It's all about experimentation to get the social economic political landscape right for all, if not all, at least the majority.

And we are still trying to get it right. No elected govt is perfect. At least we are way ahead of others since independence, freedom from all kinds of discrimination to build an equal opportunity society for all our fellow citizens.

And don't be too sure about yourself caring only about money. In time, like every other human being whom needs love, you will meet someone and would want to spend a lifetime with, and have kids.

This is only natural. Same with everyone boy and girl living in this planet. Love is something special, an entitlement for each human. No one craves loneliness or able to accept it.

When the economy grows, we all grow along with it, and helping others left behind to catch up with us. This is Singapore, your homeland and the land of your birthright.

richong 3216 SG

Do stop such trash.

Please do not talk if if I am the originator of the bell curve - the gist of what I said is that I believe in the bell curve - that's all.

Through-out history 'scholars & respected researchers' have been disputing, arguing & debating the whole spectrum of anything under the sun & this will go on ad infinitum, bell curve included.

You have stated "Each person is entitled to his personal beliefs, for we are an open society" & yet you tell me "Do stop such trash" & so to sq up below is my response:

"It had always been education attainment & NOT cognitive ability, for so called 'IQ genes' that determines one's social & economic success...."

Structure, words & meaning are all messed up - a load of bunkum - do stop such trash please!