Ravi Zacharias - Where do I go from here?

 

I won’t lie. I am struggling with the news yesterday. I was stunned for a while. Foe me, that is surprising since I had prepped myself up all my life for it. I have even written about it, fallen myself, and yet, I still can’t wrap my head and heart around it. 

This is the news on CNY first day: The great apologist Ravi Zacharia (who passed on in May last year) had been investigated posthumously for sexual misconduct, an investigation commissioned by his own ministry helmed by his beloved daughter. And he had been found wanting, to put it mildly. 

Alas, what would Christ say to Ravi then, “Welcome into my eternal rest, my good and faithful servant?” 

More than ten years ago, I held in my hand a book entitled ”Can Man Live Without God?” (by Ravi himself). I devoured that book, highlighted, dog-eared and quoted the book excitedly in my cell group. His style of writing, though highly academic, was indeed living wellspring to my unsettled heart looking for unshakable faith in a world of fallen souls, including myself. 

(I even purchased the book and gave it to my elder brother, who was then an atheist, a staunch one. He still is, and I guess that book, in the light of the dark revelations of Ravi’s carefully concealed private life, has lost a significant lustre in convincing my brother that he is not like the rest who have fallen. Alas, he is no exception, and I should have known better).  

Anyway, yesterday, I read it, highlighted it, that is, the “Report of Independent Investigation into Sexual Misconduct of Ravi Zacharias” dated 9 February 2021 written by Lynsey M. Barron, Esq, and William P. Eiselstein, Esq, from Miller & Martin PLLC. And I was ashen in reaction, thinking how a defender of faith, and such a sagely one, with voice and sincerity that have melted hearts, could fail so shockingly to defend his own virtues and marital oath to God and man. 

Yes, I know we serve Jesus. He is our unshakable anchor. Misplaced faith thus pays a heavy price. I have asked for it. Indeed, I should have known better. I should have seen it coming. But I have not. Sorry, I have not. Woe to me then. 

Ravi was someone I looked up to. His faith bolstered my faith. I felt then we were connected by our common hope, an eternal hope. 

At this point, I recalled a little girl kneeling by her bedside, and her father came in and asked her what she was praying about. She said that she is praying for a God with more skin so that she could see and touch him.

Similarly, Ravi was someone with skin to me, and for a long long time, I admit that he stood as a proxy of my faith with God. Whenever I felt a hole in my faith, I remember his writings, including C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller, for example, and I comforted myself, muttering under my breath that I had someone who had gone before me, with legs and heart firmly grounded, unshakeable. Silly right? 

Anyway, Ravi’s life and writings shone a light on my cobblestone pathway. It was a journey for me to be more like Christ and Ravi went before me. In his ministry, he had made an impact, and I always wanted to follow some of the steps he had taken because I believed they were the same steps our Saviour had taken in His road to Calvary. But alas, Ravi, according to the report, made many detours in that shared journey,, and as I read them, I was crestfallen.

There were in fact many allegations made. And one of my loved ones who read it yesterday squirmed, and remarked: “He gave me the impression of a dirty old man.” 

Well, having read it myself, I shared her sentiment. Mind you, it is not about Ravi being a “silent investor” of two spas (ironically named “Touch of Eden” and the other “Jivian Wellness” - Jivan is of Hindi origin and it means “life”). It is not about him taking time away for massage treatments since he did have significant back problems. It is not even about him always starting his massages “completely naked” and “almost always (having) an erection”.

It is however about his multiple indecent touches, “rubbing them inappropriately”, and “his request to masturbate him.” One account had him talking to a woman “about her career plans and efforts to improve her financial situation” while massaging her breast. 

He had also offered them financial support (from ministry funds), paying for culinary tuitions and supporting them on a monthly basis, even settling large debts, in return for secret friendship, physical intimacy and sexual gratifications. It reports that “only one of the witnesses...said Mr Zacharias engaged in sexual intercourse. (And) this witness reported details of many encounters over a period of years that she described as rape.”

It is also about how he did it, over the hidden-away years. That was something that gripped my heart. But his MO is quite typical. He always made his young victims think of him as a “father-figure”. According to (a) witness, "Mr Zacharias used religious expressions to gain compliance as she was raised to be a person of faith. She reported that he made her pray with him to thank God for the “opportunity” they both received. She said he called her his “reward” for living a life of service to God.””

And Ravi acted like any leader desperate to burnish and protect his clean image would, that is, he treated those who dared to talk to him about some questionable practices with extreme prejudice. 

“A high-level RZIM staff member expressed concerns to Mr Zacharias about it and encouraged him to stop travelling with her (his personal messeuse). In response, Mr Zacharias grew angry and barely spoken to this staff member for a long period of time. He was effectively “sent to Siberia,” as another staff member recalled. Their relationship ship never fully recovered.””

Ravi even called his critics “nasty people” and “lunatics” who were engaged in “satanic-type” slander and falsehood. In his ironclad denial, Ravi declared: “In my 45 years of marriage to Margie, I have never engaged in any inappropriate behavior marriage of any kind.” 

While all the allegations from the victims can be challenged under cross-examination, what kept me dumbfounded for sometime were the photographs in 4 of his phones they managed to recover. It was from his own communication devices, kept by him, with carnal-fueled requests written by him. That is pretty damning. How do you then cross-examine yourself and then stubbornly maintaining a wall of self-denial? No court of self could ever be impartial to self, right? 

The investigation found photos and communication that simply defied "characterization as innocent”. There were “200 photographs of women much younger than him.” One set contained “nudes images of a young Malaysian salon employee” dated as early as August 20, 2017. FYI, he passed on in May 2020. According to the report, the “photographs grew increasingly more suggestive, culminating in two photographs showing her bare breasts dated October 27, 2018, and a video of her fully naked and touching herself dated January 8, 2019.” 

Two women said that Ravi asked for their nude photos, but they refused. 

Some of the messages were also deeply disturbing. They were also incriminating. Mind you, from his own hands, he typed them. From his own heart, he put desires into words, lust into action.

In one case, he purchased a necklace for a woman living in Seoul, and told her he wished to put it around her neck personally. He wrote: “May I say to you- you are beautiful. Just so beautiful...I cannot help but miss you even more, after seeing your picture. It brings a tear of longing in my eyes. Longing to see you again.”

In another hand-typed message, he used pet names to address a massage therapist, such as “sweetheart”, “baby”, “darling”, “angel”, “my precious little girl”, and “honey”. He told her this: “I know more than ever that you have become the love of my life. I’m waiting to hold you close to my heart again. Please be safe my angel. I Love you and goodnight from here.” He told her to keep him “as the only one in (his) heart" and said, "I love you my dearest xxxxxxx.”

In yet another bout of messaging to his victim, Ravi wrote that he loved the way she smiles, laughs, the way she loves, her work, her heart, her skills. And she responded: “I love you and kiss you everywhere xxxxxx.”

In the 12-page report, this was the brief conclusion: “...we are confident that we uncovered sufficient evidence to conclude that Mr Zacharias engaged in sexual misconduct.”

When I read that conclusion, I felt a certain numbness in my already weary, jaded faith. I wondered how he could pen every good word defending the faith so convincingly while penning words that defaces it with equal damning effect. I also wondered how he was able to deal with facing the world of mostly eager young students looking for an elderly anchorage of faith to plant theirs and the numerous private sessions he had with young girls mostly from impoverished backgrounds struggling to satisfy his desires for sexual gratifications. One victim even said (and I paraphrase) that she is a nobody, who would then believe her words against the eloquence of a giant of the faith. 

Yes, I know we are all fallen. We are only human. Even King David had committed adultery and conspired to murder. I hear you. But mind you, he repented. David was at first clueless about Prophet Nathan's accusations, but finally cried out in remorse and accepted the very dear price he had to pay - which he did. For didn’t the scripture read: “David burned with anger against the man. “I solemnly swear, as the Lord lives,” he said to Nathan, “the man who did this certainly deserves to die! And he must pay back four times the price of the lamb because he did this and had no pity””?

Alas, Ravi had lived his life. He had made his choices, choices to live for God, and choices to die with so much unsettled questions left unanswered. Usually, when a man (or woman) of faith, like Billy Graham, leaves this world, he (or she) carries with them a candle, so that even in their absence we can still feel the warm of their testimony and the light that guides us. 

But, with a broken faith, I can’t say the same with Ravi Zacharias, at least not at this moment, even though he was the one who had written many books I secretly go to every now and then to find a small estate of uncharted territory to stand on as I cling on to faith and hope in the many storms of disappointments.  

Ravi had in living taught me many lessons about growing strong in the faith, and looking straight into the eyes of an atheist, telling them that my faith is worth defending because there are still genuine leaders out there who had lived a life of integrity, honesty and overcoming (And there are undeniably many who have died with their faith intact).

Personally, I still believe that, or want to believe that, but it just gets so much harder with a life that has given me so much cause to hold on, and yet, at the same time, so much cause to put it down in serious quiet reflection.

Let me end with the words of Ted Roberts in his book, “Pure Desire: How one man’s triumph can help others break free from sexual temptation.”

“God doesn’t bring us into a time of testing in order for Him to see what’s in our hearts. He already knows that better than we do! The trials are for us to discover what’s in our hearts. God set up the trial so we can discover that we can make it.”

We are forgetting that a man, leader or otherwise, goes through many trials in his brief life. Some trials are very public. And before a crowd of witnesses, he often comes up shinning. He then becomes a city on the hill, for all to see, for all to marvel.  

There are also some trials (if not just one) that are hidden. They are hidden for a reason. They are hidden so that we don't need to give an account of them. And they are hidden so that he who diligently hides them can garner the strength to go through trials that are more visible to the public eye. 

From Ravi, quite ironically, I have learnt that faith is therefore not about winning public trials just so that we can hide (or indulge in) private ones. One can never be a means to the other in the same way that one cannot serve two masters. Stop deceiving ourselves!

If we as believers are really serious about our faith, and desire to set the example for people who look up to us (with skin) for hope (like I had looked up to Ravi for anchorage), then don’t ever boast about coming out - like gold - in trials we secretly desire people to see and then wallow in our own private trials that we do not want anyone, not even our loved ones, or especially our loved ones, to see. 

If you want to boast in public, then settle first your own private, signature sin you have endearingly kept in the private chambers of your heart. For some demons are jealously preserved by us so that we can continue projecting an "overcoming" image many hope to emulate. The attention we get is often the fuel we need to nurture our darkest fantasies. But the insatiable appetite for popularity often backfires, even if the seeds we plant bear a bountiful harvest. 

For that is the worst kind of deception, a deception that betrays not only our faith and the faith of our loved ones, but our God to whom we declare publicly we have nothing to hide.

Shalom Lim's indefatigable spirit.

Some struggles/overcoming just have to be shared. Shalom Lim (24 yrs old) is one of them. His story is reported by Theresa Tan, in the series on millennials called GenerationGrit. 

At just three months old, Shalom was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is “a rare genetic disease in which muscles progressively weaken and waste away.”

At 16, during his O levels, Shalom nearly died of pnenumonia as a result of influenza. He blacked out at home and his father, Dr Joshua Lim, a general practitioner, resuscitated him. 

According to Ms Judy Wee, executive director of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (Singapore), “most children with (the condition) did not live beyond their early 20s.” However, she said ”with excellent care, some may live into their 30s.”

Lesson? I have three, and it is from Shalom’s own words. 

1) “I would like to help people, given all that I have been through. I had a good childhood, a good education, and I have been given many opportunities to learn and grow as a person. I have led a fulfilling life and I want to give back to society.”

It’s true. Whichever way you look at it, Shalom has been blessed with strong family support and friends, and “many opportunities to learn and grow.”

His mother, Grace, is a former lecturer and his sister, Jane, 31, is a lawyer. His father, Joshua, is a doctor. Family matters, especially when you have to struggle through a rare genetic condition. 

“(Joshua) still feels that sense of gratitude, (that is, grateful to be alive), even though he had to start using a wheelchair at the age of seven and now needs help with the activities of daily living, such as going to the toilet, eating and dressing. He is also hooked up to a ventilator, which helps him breathe.” 

At this point, I can’t help but think about the 5-year-old boy whose parents had locked him in a cage and threw hot water at him, which scalded him to his death. They were ordered to serve 26/27 years in jail. Alas, two different parentage, and two very different outcomes. One, the state had to bury, soon to be forgotten, and the other, excelled in life, to inspire many. 

At every crossroad in life thus far, Shalom was held up by loved ones. His father resuscitated him when he blacked out. When he had skin infection “that caused his veins to become inflamed” and his “muscles in both his arms weakened” to the point where he couldn’t write, his friends “stepped up to help him take notes during lessons.”

Shalom said that his mother is his pillar of strength. “My mum is my rock. Without her, I would have never come this far.”

2) It is reported that “what has helped (Shalom) deal with the darkness is his Christian faith.” He says: “We will all die one day, whether you are in your 20s or 80s. So it’s up to you to make the most out of life as you will never know when your time is up. The day you realise you are going to die is the day you also start living.”

That’s great advice, and I thank Shalom for expressing it so powerfully. You must know that yesterday, I wrote about youth suicides. Those cases in the age range of 20 to 29 have risen (as they have been before) and it is indeed cause for concern. 

For some of us, imminent death is an awakening. We fight on. But for others, it’s welcoming. We give up. Sadly, some feel that they have reached their perceived limit to “making the most out of life” and is looking for a way to put an end to it. 

Ultimately, regardless of our age, we have to ask ourselves, what is holding us up? What can we look forward to? How do we go from wishing to end it all today to hoping to live another day with hope and gratitude?

Shalom said: “I wanted to study and I didn’t want to give up halfway. I had faith that things would turn out okay. And I had the support of my family and friends.”

And the peacemaker/builder (Shalom) did just that. He graduated with a grade point average of 3.81, receiving a diploma with merit. 

Shalom was awarded the Ngee Ann Kongsi Most Outstanding Overcomer Award for his “strong perseverance in overcoming the odds or setbacks in life.” And he also won the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Scholarship for Persons with Disabilities. He will be studying criminology and security at Singapore Institute of Technology. 

Indeed, we will all face our death one day. And along the corridor of our mortality, a few of us are forced by circumstances beyond our control to make that painful sharp turn early to face a door marked, “suicide”. But many however choose to walk on by and choose to persevere with faith and hope. 

At this juncture, I am tempted to say that if Shalom did not have such strong support from loved ones and a community that cared, he may have turned out differently. For he himself admitted that much when he said “without (mum), I would have never come this far.” 

But let’s hold that thought as I end with Shalom’s words.

3) “I used to feel sorry for myself, but I have gotten over it. I have had to adapt to losing a lot of my abilities and I have to make the most of my abilities. Like I can still speak, I can still think and I enjoy reading and learning.”

“Now, I see it as a special challenge I have been given. I think it’s God’s way of telling me I’m made of sterner stuff, to help me deal with this adversity.”

I guess for some of us, we have many reasons to give up. Trials are painful, and socially isolating. We rather become bitter, with fist-clenched, and be skeptical about everything. Misery also loves company. In a nutshell, it just takes too much from us to want to be changed for the better, even if time is prepared to be generous with us. 

So, once we are down, well, we are down. And thereon, we see everything, even the good, from that lowly level. 

But Shalom, notwithstanding the unconditional support, is indeed “made of sterner stuff.” His faith was the only constant in his life; that is, a faith nurtured by a love that never let go, or give up. 

Realistically speaking, not everyone of us will experience such love, or born to a family that went all the way. Some will be left by the wayside - like a baby who was recently found in a rubbish chute, crying. Some will be denied many opportunities in life to learn and grow.

And suicide, I believe, are not just the reserve of the poor. They are also for the rich too. For the will to live cannot be bought. Money doesn’t solve all of life’s problem, and at times, it may just be the push to end it. 

So, after all’s said, are we then made of sterner stuff? 

Let me share with you a brother Shalom had. I kept this to the end. His older brother, Issac, also had duchenne muscular dystrophy. He died of heart failure last December. He was only 28. His death devastated Shalom, for his fragile peace was broken to pieces with the passing of a brother he loved so much. 

“(Shalom) felt the loss keenly and recently began taking antidepressants to cope with the grief.” He said: “I was so used to seeing my brother, and I felt an emptiness (after his death).” 

By way of faith, you just have to ask yourself, why does all these things happen to someone who has already gotten the short end of a mortal stick? 

And let me remind you that no matter how bless you are from the outside, with support and all, the will to live is an intense, and at times, very lonely battle, inside. It is not a given, and you alone have to fight for it. At times, the fight seems endless. 

But nevertheless, after reading his many overcoming, I think I have my answer to the question - “Will Shalom come this far without the support of his loved ones?” 

I believe we give credit where it is due, but I also believe that the fight to live on (and thrive) is a personal choice, that is, the resolve to make the most out of life, given the circumstances. The alternative is the choice to give up, or worse, to make the least out of it and just get by. Mind you, the latter is a life forfeited, squandered, which differs little from a life abandoned. 

Shalom at 24 has taught me to live and make the most of what I have. He said “I can still speak”, I can too. He said “I can still think”, well, I think I can too. And he said “I enjoy reading and learning”, and I love all that. 

These things cost little, if nothing, but the difference they make is life enduring. For a heart that takes nothing for granted, saves itself. It is a life that never lacks, because he has everything he will ever need.

 

Caleb Tan and Pastor Philip Chan - Father to the Fatherless.

Caleb Tan, 46, never knew his own father. He said: “I didn’t know who my own father was. I had never experienced a father’s love.” 

He had a traumatic past. He had always felt he was born unloved. In the papers today, Lee Siew Hua reports: “(Caleb) had not only served time, but had also fled to the Philippines to escape court charges, divorced his first wife, a Filippina, and later attempted suicide.”

Caleb had also thought his mother was dead. But at 12, when he needed to apply for identity card, his grandmother (who was his sole caregiver) placed a newspaper advertisement to trace her. Caleb said: “I hated my mum a lot. Why did she give birth to me if she didn’t want me?”

Never knowing a father’s or mother’s love, Caleb spent his time in nightclubs. Before long, he was involved in fights and spent 10 years behind bars for drug dealing and other crimes. 

After he served his time, he made his way to The Hiding Place in 2010. It took some time for him to adjust and adapt. Life did not let up for him though. He later met with a serious accident and “suffered five broken ribs, a collapsed lung and burns on his body, after his short get entangled with a machine for food preparation.”

However, Caleb never gave up on life. He met Grace Sim, 46, who was working as a secretary in a church. They then married in 2018 and Grace came with two teenage sons, Jerel and Jerek (now 20 and 16). 

Imagine that, a father who had lived without a father, had to be a father to two young boys. And incidentally, today is Father’s Day and Caleb’s story is not like those familiar stories you often hear on this special day.

In fact, Caleb’s life in The Hiding Place took an unexpected turn when the late Pastor Philip Chan became a devoted father to him - as he was to many, who were drug addicts, gamblers, drinkers and wayward youth.

As Pastor Chan assured him that he would personally take care of him, in that short time, their relationship blossomed. Caleb later called him “Pa”. 

Caleb recalled that Pastor Chan gave him “unconditional love”. He also said that as a lost and struggling soul, just out of prison, Pastor Chan’s firm guidance was what he needed and had craved after. 

In 2018, before Caleb married Grace, Pastor Chan gave him this advice: “You are not marrying just Grace. She also has two sons. You have to be an example as a father.” Pastor Chan also said that he must spend time to talk and reason with Jerel and Jerek. He said: “Even if they’re your children, they have a right to talk.”

Lesson...?

Alas, in living, Pastor Chan became a father to the fatherless. He stepped up when their birth fathers walked out. And he gave them love when they neither knew love, nor the touch and hugs of a father. 

Not by genes, not by blood ties, but by love unconditional, love most transcending, beyond biology, that Pastor Chan stepped into the gap, and dedicated his life for them. 

Truly, there is no greater love than a man willing to lay his life down for another; that is, for a stranger to become a father, a father to a stranger. And that selfless love was more than enough for Caleb to love his sons in return. 

When Caleb asked his stepson, Jerel, for his blessing to marry his mother, Jerel said: “What took you so long?” And his older brother Jerek said: “I’m happy because I know you will take care of my mum.”

Caleb’s own path to fatherhood was a transforming one. He recalled: “In one tender episode, Jerek reached out to hold his hands on the way to the cinema. Shocked, (Caleb) instinctively felt like pushing it away. But in the next moment, his heart melted and he told himself: “It’s a blessing. This action was confirmation that he accepted me as a father.”

“Then in the cinema, the boy felt cold and snuggled against him, putting his head on his shoulder. “That’s a love I couldn’t have expected,” (Caleb) said.””

At times, Jerek would text him with this simple heartwarming message: “good night, love you.”

As a father myself, with three young kids, I have come to realise that you may have a hand in bringing a child into this world, but it is the journey you take with him that makes you their “Pa”. 

Every son born into this world is a father at heart. However he cannot do it alone because he needs a father before him to love him as his own, and as he is. The heart of father is like a candle, a flickering wick no less, and only the same candle can light it up so that the light of fatherhood can be passed down the line to their own children and to their children’s children. 

And the legacy of fatherhood goes beyond biological ties. It is founded on unconditional love, a love Pastor Chan exemplified so perfectly in his unfailing embrace of the broken, the vulnerable, and the disowned. 

Caleb himself experienced that love, from a man he affectionately called “Pa”. And that short journey with his pa had made all the difference for him and his sons, Jerel and Jerek. 

Let me end with what Caleb said. “I lost everything in the past. God has blessed me with a family.” And it is a family embraced and empowered by the sacred ministry of fatherhood, that is, of being a father to the fatherless, a lover to the unloved, and a candle of light against the darkness of abandonment. 

That, to me, is the timeless message on this Father’s Day. A message not only of hope, but one of enduring love.

A requiem for a lost civilisation?

 

A requiem for a happier civilization?

Anthropologist James Suzman has been studying the lives of the Ju/‘hoansi people of the north-western Kalahari for 30 years. What he discovered is a more contented time in the past where people are happier, with less wants, and more time to enjoy the simple things in life. 

From the Ju/‘hoansi people’s point of view, James wrote that “very little about the relentlessly expanding global economy makes sense”. And they once asked James these questions: -

“Why did government officials who sat in air-conditioned offices drinking coffee and chatting all day long get paid so much than the young men they sent out to dig ditches?”

Or, “Why, when people were paid for their work, did they still go back the following day rather than enjoy the fruits of their labour?”

“And why did people work so hard to acquire more wealth than they could ever possibly need or enjoy?”

I guess ignorance here is bliss. With more understanding, the tribal folks will come to see that our world works very differently from theirs. While the Ju/‘hoansi “spent only fifteen hours a week securing their nutritional requirements and only a further fifteen to twenty hours per week on domestic activities that could be loosely described as “work”, we in the modern world work more than 40 hours a week, and some of us work full day on the weekends. 

The working hours are however not the only difference. The Ju/‘hoansi is a society where “any individual attempts to either accumulate or monopolise resources or power were met with derision and ridicule.” 

Pride is frowned upon. Any member of the same tribal community who boasts about his catch for the day would be shamed, mocked and even exiled. And by some comic extension, people like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos of our world would not last very long in such community. 

One member of another tribe, namely, !kung, in the Kalahari said: “We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle.”

Everyone in the tribe knew the communal code of permissible behaviour. Of course, there will be some rogue members or free-riders/loaders, but when they become unbearable, the community will exact their own collective justice on them. 

In the book, Humankind, by Rutger Bergman, he wrote how such justice was meted out to those grew increasingly unmanageable: -

“The group was fed up: “They all fired on him with poison arrows till he looked like a porcupine. Then, after he was dead, all the women as well as the men approached his body and stabbed him with spears, symbolically sharing the responsibility for his death.””

Well, maybe such tribal retributive justice doesn’t accord with our modern sense that much, but the point to all this is that there are a lot of things we can learn from these tribal community about living a life that is underscored by contentment and driven by compassion and humility. This learning journey starts with dispelling some misconceptions about them and their society. Here are some. 

We often see them in some documentaries or movies as “nasty, brutish and (having) short” lives. But according to James, “the Ju/‘hoansi were revealed to be well-fed, content and longer-lived than people in many agricultural societies, and by rarely having to work more than 15 hours per week had plenty of time and energy to devote to leisure.” 

In other words, they generally lead happier lives, enjoying prosperity that is not dictated by endless wants, and as one author puts it, theirs is a kind of “Zen road to affluence” through which they were able to enjoy “unparalleled material plenty - with a low standard of living” (per Marshall Shahlins). 

And that’s not all. Even the way they organise their society shows how natural it is for them to share the fruit of their labour. 

James wrote: “It revealed, for instance, the extent to which their economy sustained societies that were at once highly individualistic and fiercely egalitarian, and in which the principal redistributive mechanism was “demand sharing” - a system that gave everyone the absolute right to effectively tax anyone else of any surpluses they had.””

Somehow, our ancestors then valued equality more, are much less competitive, are more close-knit as a community, and largely lived without that endless strife unlike now where we are desperate to prove ourselves, and in doing so, risks leaving a trail of broken or neglected relationships behind.

Yes, one may argue that comparing our time with theirs is not comparing apple with apple, because after the industrial revolution, after the creation of the state and its sovereignty, where boundaries are clearly drawn out, and with the advent of technology and globalisation, our world and its population have all expanded/risen dramatically. There is just too much to manage, too many diverse interests to satisfy or pacify. As such, things are much more complex and complicated than the things a tribal community nestled in one corner of the globe has to deal with. 

That may be true, yet, we make the laws and the rules, we pass legislations, we carry out policies, we decide for ourselves what is best for our children and our children’s children, and we create the community best suited for our present and future. Ultimately, the same hands that created the nuclear bomb liable to destroy the world with a push of a button are the same hands that created the civilisation we are now enjoying and thriving in today. 

The reality is, we have been striving for and creating utopias for centuries as things get more and more complex, yet there is one effort or discipline towards a certain utopian world that we have not given its due attention and address, and that is our endless appetites for material possessions. And I believe if we address that, the world, regardless of its size and complexity, will be a whole lot more manageable, slower, smaller and surely saner. 

Let me end with this thought from James’ book, “Affluence without abundance”.

“Imagine a society in which the work week seldom exceed 19 hours, material wealth is considered a burden, and no one is much richer than anyone else. Unemployment is high there, sometimes reaching 40% - not because the society is shiftless, but because it believes that only the able-bodied should work, and then no more than necessary. Food is abundant and easily gathered. The people are comfortable, peaceable, happy and secure.”

Alas, most times, what we truly need is some imagination, and the courage to carry out the conviction of the heart empowered by that imagination.

 

Dsidain for the less educated in America.

Are we looking down on the relatively less educated? Is this the new prejudice? As more of us have a tertiary degree, or advanced degree, are those without, merely armed with a diploma, less of value, character and worth? 

It is ironic that the one who wrote the article - “Disdain for the less educated is the last acceptable prejudice” - is a highly respected, well known, and eminently educated professor from, well, you guessed it, Harvard...where else right?

But what Michael J. Sandel has to say is a message of great urgency and importance to us all, not just Americans, but worldwide, especially the economically advanced nations. 

Professor Sandel started his illuminating article with this reminder: “Mr Joe Biden has a secret weapon in his bid for the United States presidency: He is the first Democratic nominee in 36 years without a degree from an Ivy League university.” 

Considering that “in the US Congress, 95 per cent of House members and 100 per cent of senators are college graduates”, academically bland Joe is the black swan in a predominantly educated white swan Congress. 

When it comes to prejudice, there is a growing gap between the credentialed and the uncredentialed, and looking at the statistics in US Congress, it is obvious that we live in a world where “the credentialed few govern the uncredentialed many.” 

Now let’s not be naive, you can’t avoid prejudices in this world we live in. We are somehow hardwired to pigeonhole people of diverse backgrounds into categories to make it easier to precast, prejudge, and prejudice. 

We may be reminded not to judge a person by the colour of his skin nor the gender or nation she’s born in, but when it comes to education, we are fast dividing the world into those who have degree and those who have not. Even amongst those who have degree, we further divide them into those who have degree from ivy league schools and those who have degree from community colleges.

That is why in America, one of the leading causes of despair resulting in suicide is when one is being left behind just because he or she does not have a degree. For them, there is just no chance of upward mobility. For them, there is no chance of competing with those who have better education. And for them, the American dream has mutated into an American nightmare. 

Professor Sandel wrote: “And, despite its inspiring promise of success based on merit, it has a dark side. Building a politics around the idea that a college degree is a precondition for dignified work and social esteem has a corrosive effect on democratic life.”

“It devalues the contributions of those without a diploma, fuels prejudice against the less-educated members of society, effectively excludes most working people from elective government and provokes political backlash.”

Yet, every single day we worship at the altar of merit centred essentially on grade. Our billion-dollar tuition industry is a clear indictment of the obsession that has no name, only a combined number on perforated paper our employers are equally obsessed with, especially our monolith civil service. That seems to determine where you will end up in society, what you will do eventually, how people will see you superficially, and why you are politely identified, blindly sorted and quietly shelved.

As one psychologist Thomas R. Guskey observed: “If someone proposed combining measures of height, weight, diet, and exercise into a single number or mark to represent a person’s physical condition, we would consider it laughable...Yet every day, teachers combine aspects of students’ achievement, attitude, responsibility, effort, and behavior into a single grade that’s recorded on a report card and no one questions it.”

The truth is, your degree, regardless of which university you come from, does not define you. We know that, and want so much to believe that. But the issue, according to Professor Sandel is that society still defines you based on it, and now, curiously, even more.

That is the prejudicial one-dimensional ladder we are all made to scale in a fiercely meritocratic and arrogantly aristocratic society we live in. This is how author Todd Rose (of “The End it Average”) puts it: -

“We all feel the weight of the one-dimensional thinking that has become so pervasive in our averagarian culture: a standardised educational system that ceaselessly sorts and ranks us; a workplace that hires us based on these educational rankings, then frequently imposes new rankings at every annual performance review; a society that doles out rewards, esteem, and adoration according to our professional ranking.” 

“When we look up at these artificial, arbitrary, and meaningless rungs that we are expected to climb, we worry that we might not fully ascend them, that we will be denied those opportunities that are only afforded to those who muscle their way up the one-dimensional ladder.”

Let me end with the quiet but tidal-like wisdom of Professor Sandel. 

He said that “history suggests little correlation between the capacity for political judgment and the ability to win admission to elite universities. The notion that “the best and the brightest” are better at governing than their less credentialed fellow citizen is a myth born of meritocratic hubris.”

He calls for renewing of the dignity of work by putting aside all prejudicial preconditions. He also calls for us to reassess the way we define success and question our meritocratic hubris, by asking ourselves: “Is it my doing that I have the talents that society happens to prize - or is it my good luck?”

He adds: “Appreciating the role of luck in life can prompt a certain humility: There, but for an accident of birth, or the grace of God, or the mystery of fate, go I. This spirit of humility is the civic virtue we need now.” 

Indeed, and strangely, attributing it to luck keeps one grounded, because what is perceived as causation, solo effort of one, is often correlation, group effort of many, disguising as luck. 

Attributing luck is therefore not living your life randomly, surrendering to circumstantial whims, but it is living life realistically, standing on the shoulders of many who came before us. 

I guess that is why the late former deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee once told veteran banker Wee Cho Yaw that it is better to be born lucky than to be smart. There is a lot of Sandelian wisdom about it.