Fellow blogger Chillycraps heard the following nonsense during his daily commute a few days ago.
China 没有 economics,
China 没有 civil engineering,
China 没有 mechanical engineering
When I asked Chillycraps on Windows Live Messenger where he heard those comments from, I was surprised that those comments came from several youths who looked like university undergrads. I sincerely hope these frogs in the well are not a reflection of the sad state of our education training system. The so-called social media revolution clearly hasn’t benefited these youths. It amuses me to no end when some talked about how this new form of media can supplant traditional ones when perhaps this would be an example of how the lack of contact with the traditional media led to these youth’s ignorance. After all, China is always in the news these days!
Anyway, even if these comments were made in the 1970s, I might not agree. If I am not wrong, the People’s Republic of China back then built an ICBM force from scratch, detonated her first atomic bomb after the Soviet Union withdrew its assistance and launched the first satellite on her own. So for the record, I must point out that China is currently the third largest economy in the world after Japan, and is expected to surpass Japan in 2020. Justin Lin Yifu, the World Bank’s Chief Economist, is from China. If you need any evidence of China’s civil engineering you can look at the Three Gorges Dam, the Shanghai Jinmao Tower, and the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. And what about all those new Chinese tanks and J-10 interceptors on display during their national day parade if not a sign of their mechanical engineering prowess? Not to mention the Chang E Probe orbiting the moon and their recent first space walk?
My diatribe against our youths, and not just these few youths in particular, would have ended here. But this particular post reminded me of another comment on Plurk by some young people which started with: Dear Old People Who Run the World, My generation would like to break up with you. It apparently was in reference to a blog post here.
In light of the recently crisis in the financial systems, I personally have no problems with some, if not all of the points (or ideals) in the blog post. In fact, it is an admirable blog post and I ain’t writing this blog post to rebut it. In spite of that, I still agree when Plurker miccheng said this in response: One day you’ll get old too. Let’s see how you’ll fare running the world..
The main reason I agreed with miccheng is simply one of the Plurkers who plurked about the blog post is an irresponsible individual. For an authentic, deep democracy everywhere to come about with such irresponsible riffraffs would be disastrous. Imagine such an individual causing rifts within the community and then disavow of having any responsibility in doing so while blaming the people who sided with her or those who opposed her for it! Furthermore, it is almost ludicrous for the ‘iPod and Macintosh generation’ to demand small, responsive, micro-scale commerce when they would mindlessly disparage another product or anyone who criticise Apple. Frankly, can anyone make a reasonable guess just how these people would actually make some of the things in the blog post happen when they are themselves slaves of consumerism? We are talking about a generation which gather mostly in TCCs or Starbucks, change mobile phones and laptops faster than they change underwear, falls into the trap of branding as being hip and cool and go gaga over idols and stars living a decadent lifestyle.
革命要流血，改革要牺牲。i.e. A revolution requires bloodshed, and a reform requires sacrifices. Are they even aware that they would need to completely relive their lives to make things in that blog post happen? Talk about brainless and I won’t even bother to lambast everyone who repeated the link when some of these people are self defeating!
To think of it, I cannot even imagine how such people can run the world as it is, much less change it! In fact, this impression was further reinforced when I was queuing to get my Ezlink Itchy-Link card checked because it wouldn’t work at the MRT station a few days ago. As I was fuming at the long queue which is moving rather slowly, there was a few full-time NS SCDF personnel queuing behind me and one of them said this:
I think we should just cut this queue and go right to the counter. We are civil servants and should be given priority in this queue.”
I was speechless and I hope it was just said in jest. First of all these guys clearly have no idea what the strictest meaning of the word servant meant, not to mention that the role of a civil servant is to serve the public. My friend Ed has said it best when I shared this to my fellow Plurkers: “That’s the whole point. You are civil SERVANTS… not civil LEADERS.”
I shudder to imagine what will happen if some of these people with such a wrong sense of entitlement end up in high level management in an MNC or even the real civil service. In fact, when I looked at all these youths I seriously think there is a complete failure in their upbringing. These days it is easy to find a blog post where they bare all their animosity against their parents, siblings or even teachers, colleague and bosses to the general public. Sometimes you might even see people re-post some of that nonsense in Facebook, Twitter or Plurk – the so-called social media. At times, you even see them ranting about an anonymous member of the public and it is not even about the usual things that the general public detest (like someone spitting in public, or blocking the entrance while one is exiting the MRT etc). Evidently, these people seems to have no idea how to live responsibly as a member of society while they have much angst, hatred and anger against family or society in general.
For these people to ask for a break up with the elder generation is a joke because they reminded me of juvenile elephants without a pack and the guidance of an matriarch or adult elephants. Often these young elephants are shot dead by their human handlers or the park rangers. I personally won’t feel sorry seeing some of these people being put down, be it by law enforcers or another member of the general public.
To end, let me share this:
Former President Reagan was telling a group once about his tumultuous days as governor of California during the rebellious sixties and early 70s. He said he had a meeting with some of the organizers of the protests. They came into his office wearing t-shirts and jeans, and some were barefoot.
Their spokesman began, “Governor, it’s impossible for your generation to understand us…. You didn’t grow up in a world of instant electronic communications, of cybernetics, of men computing in seconds what once took months, even years, or jet travel, nuclear power, and journeys into space….”
When the young man finished, Reagan said, “You’re absolutely right. Our generation didn’t have those things when we were growing up. We invented them.”
Recommended Reads:
The Secret Political Blog: Why Singapores social divide is inevitable
Chillycraps: Crapital Finance
Mong Palatino: Singapore plans to require bloggers to reveal sponsors
Interesting Facts:
Countries with the Biggest Gaps Between Rich and Poor: No 2. Singapore