https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...e-could-become-brilliant-brittle-ho-kwon-ping
Mr Ho, who is chairman of SMU and executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, said: “I fear the group-think that we have in Singapore, this coddled little space where we do not question…
We will lack resilience, and when a severe crisis hits, we will be running around with our heads cut off, simply because of the lack of diversity.”
What might have caused this “group-think” to develop? For one, the “iniquity” of the structural meritocracy which had been upheld here for decades, Mr Ho said. Over the years, it had formed a meritocratic elite that continued to perpetuate itself to a point where people in positions are coming from similar backgrounds.
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Just look at the “similarities” among the line-up of Singapore’s fourth-generation leadership, he added. “It is getting narrower and narrower.”
Borrowing media studies professor Cherian George’s analogy of Singapore being an “air-conditioned nation”, Mr Ho said: “The truth of the climate outside, we don’t know. It is hermetically sealed, and I think we need to break away from that.”
Those who “ask why” would not always have to arrive at a “contrarian conclusion”, Mr Ho insisted, saying he knows of people who question their religion and returned to their faith with far stronger convictions, for instance.
Mr Ho, who is chairman of SMU and executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, said: “I fear the group-think that we have in Singapore, this coddled little space where we do not question…
We will lack resilience, and when a severe crisis hits, we will be running around with our heads cut off, simply because of the lack of diversity.”
What might have caused this “group-think” to develop? For one, the “iniquity” of the structural meritocracy which had been upheld here for decades, Mr Ho said. Over the years, it had formed a meritocratic elite that continued to perpetuate itself to a point where people in positions are coming from similar backgrounds.
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Just look at the “similarities” among the line-up of Singapore’s fourth-generation leadership, he added. “It is getting narrower and narrower.”
Borrowing media studies professor Cherian George’s analogy of Singapore being an “air-conditioned nation”, Mr Ho said: “The truth of the climate outside, we don’t know. It is hermetically sealed, and I think we need to break away from that.”
Those who “ask why” would not always have to arrive at a “contrarian conclusion”, Mr Ho insisted, saying he knows of people who question their religion and returned to their faith with far stronger convictions, for instance.
