2 More Cents

*cracks knuckles*

So, not too long ago, Singapore just underwent yet another General Election. This time round, there were a few surprises, and quite a few upsets, and the overall activity level relating to this has been on a high. When it comes to politics of course, everyone has something to say, and I am of no exception.

However, I am just going to say a few general observations here about the whole event as opposed to picking on any particular person or party to lambast.

All in all, I think that this General Election has done its job of rekindling the citizens' interest in the policy making process for this country. That alone is a very important outcome---the citizens no longer take in the public policies passively, and the government enlightened to the direction and census that the citizens' sociology/psychology are heading. While many see this as a major clash between the ruling party and the opposition, it is more like the stage where the blossoming of ideas are allowed to proceed relatively unhindered, ideas that are thought of by the people, for the people.

Each time a major shift in political power occurs anywhere in the world, it is often marked by an increased access of communication technologies. First it was the postal system, then the radio and telegram, followed by television, and now, the Internet. The purpose of communication technology is to have an outreach from the political participants to the voters; it serves as a means of showcasing the party's ideologies and political agenda in a mass consumable manner.

But what just happened in Singapore was hardly a major shift in political power; it is more akin of a nascent mixed pot of political ideologies and cooperative antagonism. Of course the ruling party came back to power---this is just an outcome that is really improbable to not occur. But we also see the rise of how the opposition political parties generate more appeal to their causes through a closer interaction with the tech-savvy man-on-the-street. Singapore is not like the US with a whole slew of higly complicated, larger scaled constituencies where the needs of one constituency differs drastically from another---we are so physically small that whatever policies that may come out will affect everyone sooner or later, whether they like it or not. In that sense then, any form of outreach has a tendency to affect a much larger proportion of people than it is to be expected.

I have seen normally apathetic people literally take to the streets, shouting slogans, holding up posters, with some even pledging to join an opposition party should the ruling party return to power. All these fervour over this country's politics is something that we will all learn to appreciate in time to come. As the older voters fall off the register through their eventual demise, we will find that we, the progeny, will inherit the system left behind, and if we cannot even convince ourselves to care about what is going on, we will be in dire straits indeed.

There is, however, a cause of concern regarding the recent General Election that may abate itself as the term passes. While I was expecting a logos-centric argument for all the political parties involved during the campaigning, what I found at the end of the day was that the pathos-styled arguments were the more prevalent. Even in this time and age, where we boast literacy rates high in the nineties, we find that the only way the political parties seem to want to connect to us is through the pathos perspective. I find this very odd and disconcerting, since it gives the entire outcome of the General Election very dark undertones---all those years of education and understanding of the rational aspects of an argument are all useless as we end up being swayed by words meant to pull at our emotions. I'm not saying that pathos arguments are bad; I am saying that it is ironic that that form of argumentation is still the dominant form.

Perhaps we have not really progressed much in mentality since forty/fifty years ago.