3-&-a-half years after the govt had approved it, there are
no longer any places in Singapore where bartop dancers are paid to
perform so as to attract more customers (as reported in todays
Straits Times Life-section).
While bartop dancing may seem frivolous enough, it was a hotly
debated issue when it was first raised about 4years ago (see
http://www.iht.com/articles/2003/07/16/singa_ed1_.php).
Not only was the govt actively involved in the debate over what I
feel is an insignificant non-issue, many social groups - religious,
feminists, morally-uprighteous, party-animals - were fervently
arguing for and against the simple act of allowing someone to jump
onto a bartop in a bar and starting convulsing to music. I remember
certain groups saying that by allowing such as act, Spore would be
heading for moral decay. Huh?!??
I would say that in the whole episode in the lead-up to the
approval, the govts active involvement in the debate made the govt
look like it was a small-minded, prudish technocratic fool that was
trying to socially-engineer the idea of fun in Spore.
Bureaucratic over-meddling over the smallest of non-issues.
A mere 3.5 years later, bartop dancing has come and gone. Spore is
still standing, and with most of its morals intact, despite the
purportedly evils of bartop dancing. What the debate has shown is
that while well-meaning people may be concerned about the
well-being of Singapore, such overwhelmingly misguided concern for
the small stuff in Spore is not only unnecessary, but also makes
us look like the noveau-riche bumpkin who is trying to grapple with
what it really means to be sophisticated.
