It was a good debate. Thrashing out issues about foreign talent, Ceca, PMEs & PMETs, and job competition and future. They are heartland issues and grounded in the livelihood of many Singaporeans.
But, amidst the debate between MP Tan See Leng and PSP Leong Mun Wai, there was a minor distraction yesterday. You can call it the Trump’s equivalent of a Covfefe, when MP Tan did not just leave the parliamentary table, he also left the mic on.
Unfortunately for Minister Vivian Balakrishnan (“Vivian”), the mic captured this: “he’s illiterate...Seriously, how did he get into RI?...must have been a lousy school.” At this point, it seems like Minister Tan joined in too. He said: “I’m from Monk’s hill.”
Well, what can be implied in that short exchange between the ministers is this: “How can someone from RI not get it? I’m from Monk’s hill, and I got it.”
Vivian immediately apologised for that remark. In his Facebook post, he said: “I called Mr Leong Mun Wai today to apologise for my private comments to a colleague in Parliament yesterday. I disagree with him on the issue but I should not have said what I said. Mr Leong has accepted my apology.” Integrity restored?
Alas, modern technology had left hardly any room for privacy and the clatters of conscience. It goes further in fact. It has flushed out our most intimate thoughts, frustrations and prejudices, just as what the scripture had said: “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
But before you take this as an indictment of Vivian (or Tan), let me confess too that I had on some occasions caught myself muttering under my breath similar sentiments as Vivian’s or Tan’s.
Sometimes, a situation becomes so intolerable or ludicrous, from one’s point of view, that you catch yourself, quite unwittingly, making snide and demeaning remarks, which admittedly, are made out in jest, but leaves a bad taste behind. A regrettable utterance of instinctual unthinking?
At other times, the emboldenment comes when you are in a group, and you want to fit in, or win some brownie points. This is the crowd effect, and if you are in a Man U game, and sitting by the side of the reds in old Trafford, you often catch yourself saying and agreeing with belittling and demeaning expressions you will never be caught for in a different context, like in a woman’s Bible study group or in a wake.
It is again quite similar to the demeaning things Trump said about women and he excused it as boys’ locker-room bantering. However, I caveat that Trump takes such unthinking chatters to a whole new level, and his actions speak for itself. That topic is for another day.
And this also reminds me of the many levels or sincerity of a Freudian slip. In the book, Everybody lies: What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are” by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, he noticed that in a large dataset of typos, many of us see a person walking down a street and describe him as a “penistrian”.
Yes, you heard it right - penis-trian. That was a typo...of course? Because, clearly, it is “pedestrian“ misspelt. But, for some of us, is it really about the misspelling? Is this then a case of “out of the abundance of the heart...”?
Well, all I can say is that the mic might catch your tongue hanging loose, but it is big data online that catches you with your pants down. In absolute anonymity, we are as transparent as a plain glass window just kleenex’d. Privacy flushes out all that system’s junk or filth. But sometimes, it is necessary for us to confront ourselves and then commit to a path of innermost spring cleaning.
In any event, this is what author Seth wrote: -
“At Google, major decisions are based on only a tiny sampling of all their data. You don’t always need a ton of data to find important insights. You need the right data. A major reason that Google searches are so valuable is not that there are so many of them; it is that people are so honest in them.”
“People lie to friends, lovers, doctors, surveys, and themselves. But on Google they might share embarrassing information about, among other things, their sexless marriages, their mental health issues, their insecurities, and their animosity towards black people.”
(You shall know the truth, and it is found online? It is like a global Catholic Confession Booth, but the difference (or problem) is that it stops at confession).
So, for the ministers in parliament yesterday, well, I believe that short exchange is similar to locker room bantering, but made in bad taste, and it shows the imperfection of humanity as a whole. We all have our biases, and elitist inclination, expressed in other ways. Some of us are just more discreet about it than others, because human relationships sometimes bring out the worst in us. Mind you, we are all arrogant in our own ways, some are just more self-righteous about it than others.
And Vivian will have to live with that, because the mic never forgets. It is also a good lesson in eating the humble pie, cold. I still can taste mine years ago.
Yet, most of us, if not all of us, can quietly identify with his Covfefe, and loosening that grip on the stone meant for casting is good for the soul, especially since the man has apologised and his apology generously accepted.
So this is a good lesson for all. A lesson in controlling the tongue. But I suspect, even a rudder sometimes turns the wrong way, because we are only human after all.
And for many of us, especially me, we just have to make a long detour back on the straight and narrow, and bear the mistake, like a blistering ulcer in the mouth and a discipline whip to the heart.
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