Hello Almost White, (Reply Posted to Feedback Unit on
13.3.2006)
Men are self-centred creatures. They imagine that they are the best
and without them there will be no Singapore or Singapore will not
be what it is today.
So Singapore has been built on men's self-centredness. Citizens pay
$500,000 -$800,000 per family per life-cycle to build up the
country and its surpluses but men want to claim that they are the
ones who build up the whole country. They imagine they are the ones
who have all the solutions to all problems by assumptions of all
sorts. Many of their solutions or assumptions are not working for a
long time. Because of self-centredness, men will not admit
so.
Many major problems have been created e.g. high costs and dropping
wages, dropping standards of living, struggles of familities in
paying for daily subsistence, and for a long long time these
problems will not be acknowledged due to self-centredness of
men.
Sel-centredness will especially cause havoc where men claimed to
have built up the country with their presumed foresights, insights
and wonder-sight.
How can men with such ego be seen as not right or their leadership
and conceptual assumptions as failing. They will never admit such
failures. Most of the time exceuses will be given and problems will
be blamed on the people instead due to face or ego. So on and on
Singaporeans have had to put up with such self-ness of men for most
of the last 20 years for every policy or assumption failures.
It is as sure as the sun will rise again tomorrow that men will not
change and will cling on to their last in order to prove their
original or most of their leadership and assumptions have
worked.
Now is the new age of mass participation and practical knowledge
application but we have still to contend with men trying to prove
their leadership and asumptions that without a few leaders of
certain qualities the whole country will not grow or prosper. The
did not understand at all that empowering the people in mass
participation and practical knowledge application is the better and
more effective part of good leadership and all.
The old controls based on leadership assumptions are largely
paranoid and based on self-centredness but men will not admit such
factors of our many shortcomings.
It is now for the new-generation leaders to show the way - to
involve people in making decisions, empowering them in effective
implementations of new technologies and skills in all areas of
works and lives. Only when there is such a change of mindset in the
leadership will there be hope.