WARNING: This is a long meandering post that doesn’t really go anywhere. I didn’t have the heart to throw all that writing effort away…

When I was a child, my parents used to try and shame me into finishing my food (in particular rice because I hated eating plain steamed rice when there was no more lauk - still do) by saying that there were many little African children starving in this world. “Try” being the operative word. My standard reply was, “send the rice to Africa then!” and I would leave my plate with the uneaten rice on the table.

So what’s the point of this silly little tale from my inane childhood, other than to illustrate that I could be a brat when I wanted to?

Comparison is a tool used by everyone in all kinds of discourse. It can be very useful. Without something to latch on to, descriptions, standards, and value judgements can be rather very meaningless. That said, comparison can also be a very obstructive and destructive tool, particularly when it is used in place of constructive criticism.

I’ve recently become rather sensitised to observing far too many arguments where people were just relativising experiences, actions, decisions as a way to justify or defend certain positions or personal views - “it’s so much better there”, “we should be like them”, “at least we’re not as bad as some other places or people”, “count your lucky stars you’re not suffering like those other people”, “you’re better off than X number of people in the world” etc.

In some ways, I deplore the lack of absolute rightness or wrongness implied by these arguments, i.e. phenomena are judged not against slightly more eternal principles and values but against the shifting goalposts of other similar phenomena. That is except when it comes to religion. When it comes to religion, at least in Malaysia, there is no room for shades of grey. Things are judged against stark backgrounds of black and white.

On the other hand, there are times when I’m disgusted by the fact that people find it necessary to judge at all. While values and moral are very important guide posts in one’s personal life, it does not necessarily flow that they have to be exercised with respect to the lives of others, i.e. why do people feel that they always need to pass judgement? Where it doesn’t concern us pesonally, why can’t we observe and just let be? In the context of this rant, why do so many Malaysian’s feel the need to relativise and implicitly pass judgement?

The problem with such comparisons is that they are only superficially logical and rational. In reality, the world is a lot more complicated. The rule of “ceteris paribus” rarely holds such that we can reasonably compare and make judgements therefrom. The act of judging from comparisons also presumes full knowledge of every aspect of the situations in question - something which rarely ever holds true in the case of the casual observer. If things really were all that simple, I’m sure there wouldn’t be problems and there wouldn’t be a need to compare. Or judge.

Lately, one of my pet peeves is when someone exhorts others to think of the poor, or victims of war, or people suffering from famine or natural disasters etc. The fact of the matter is that when it really comes down to it, very few would actually volunteer to go help feed the poor, nurse the wounded, or provide relief to those suffering from temporary misfortune. Everyone just loves to preach and point out how easy it is to behave differently if only you compare yourself to others who are more disadvantaged/unfortunate than you. But honestly, given that no two persons are the same, no two situations alike, and that there can be no counterfactual in life, how can anyone reasonably expect everyone to behave in similar ways? More importantly, why are we denying the legitimacy of another person’s experience or choice of actions? Whatever has happened to diversity, compassion and understanding?

In the end, I still believe in the great lesson of liberalism - everyone should just mind their own business and stop judging. If you want to go help, or behave differently, because you feel compelled by a “moral” obligation, please do, but please do not scream fire and brimstone at others who choose not to do so. Let them face their own “moral” repercussions, if such a thing exists.

So there.

PRIZE: After all that hard work reading, you deserve something to make you laugh, or at least smile, however stupid…

Posted on December 29th, 2004 by jl
Filed under: lost blah blah