Leftwrite Center

17/09/2019

How should we navigate the moral complexity of arguing? Here are some tips.

When we argue, it's far too easy to mistreat others. This is why it's important to follow certain norms of argument, remain open-minded and remember what's morally at stake.

01/01/2019

“…Sinophone fiction of Yeng Pway Ngon and Chia Joo Ming suggests that Chinese Singaporeans, contrary to the official dictates of multiculturalism, do not have to scour the history of Chinese civilisation in order to become culturally grounded and ethnically conscious citizens.”

Writing the South Seas by Brian Bernards is one of a kind in the field of literature as it takes on imaginations of Nanyang in Southeast Asia.

22/12/2018

[“We found that people who hold radical political beliefs have worse metacognition than those with more moderate views,” said lead author and neuroscientist Dr Steve Fleming.

“They often have a misplaced certainty when they’re actually wrong about something, and are resistant to changing their beliefs in the face of evidence that proves them wrong.”]

Scientists used simple experiments to reveal radicals on left and right were unwilling to accept they had made incorrect decisions

14/12/2018

"An alternative method for relieving people of their prejudices is emerging. It’s empathetic insight. Here’s an example that many writers have noted and deserves a broader hearing. A most basic understanding of prejudiced people is that they don’t choose to believe that people unlike them are inferior. People do not choose to be prejudiced. Their opinions are formed in their homes and communities. Their commitment to prejudicial beliefs is in many cases forced on them, not chosen. And such people are so difficult to engage in reasonable conversation, mostly because they sense that they must fight back against the degradation and confusion of being called inferior for thinking that some people are inferior. They’re fighting more against the degradation than for their views."

In 1945, philosopher Karl Popper set the standard for validating liberals’ intolerance of conservatives’ prejudices. It’s now common to argue, as he did, that intolerance of intolerance is necessary. Supposedly without it, the horribly intolerant would dominate society. To liberals, strident o...

11/12/2018

[Speaking with the youth, they shared that to effect change, time has to be invested. Petitions take a decade to materialise, results don’t come overnight, and every last mile counts — their experiences as living proof that equality is a long and hard battle to be won.

Certainly not a passing fad to be forgotten once the next “progressive” trend comes along.]

They care enough to talk about inequality.

06/12/2018

"We are susceptible with race, and with almost all identities, to what psychologists would call essentialism, the thinking that just because people share a label they share some deep kind of inner properties which are very important in explaining how they behave and who they are. And in general I don’t think that’s true. It’s not true about race, it’s not true about gender, sexual orientation, religion, class, and so on. All of these groups are internally quite diverse."

NYU philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah will draw from his new book, “The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity,” when he visits Harvard Medical School to deliver the 2018 George W. Gay Lecture.

05/12/2018

"If we say that our policies are robust and can withstand scrutiny, it’s only right that they should be immune to the temptations of moral panic. We must resist allowing our fears to cloud objective facts. After all, Singaporeans boast that we are a pragmatic, rational people not prone to emotional flights of fancy.

So let’s get one thing straight: allowing our public policies to be driven or influenced by appeals to moral panic is the furthest thing from the staunch pragmatism we claim to uphold."

Panic! at the policymaker's office.

12/11/2018

"...like all terrorist movements, Al Qaeda requires three components: alienated individuals, a complicit society or community, and a legitimizing ideology. Its troops are motivated by some mixture of three key goals: revenge, renown and reaction from the enemy."

A terrorism expert and Harvard professor examines the origins of militant movements and how to combat them.

07/11/2018

"Facebook failed to prevent its platform from being used to “foment division and incite offline violence” in the country, one of its executives said in a post on Monday, citing a human rights report commissioned by the company.

“We agree that we can and should do more,” the executive, Alex Warofka, a Facebook product policy manager, wrote. He also said Facebook would invest resources in addressing the abuse of its platform in Myanmar that the report outlines."

The company, citing a human rights report it commissioned, said it was moving to prevent further abuses of its platform in Myanmar. Critics said they were unconvinced.

05/11/2018

//Integral to the liberal project, again in the broad sense of the word liberal, is confidence in the power of reason. Words and arguments can overbear ignorance and prejudice. Over the long term, words and arguments can even overcome oppression and violence. That’s why liberals in the broad sense are so uniquely horrified by official lying: How can reason prevail unless words connect to reality? How can we argue against people who will spread fictions, if serviceable to them, without a qualm?

Illiberals and anti-liberals, on the other hand, appreciate the dark energy of human irrationality—not merely as a fact of our nature to be negotiated, but as a potent political resource. People do not think; they feel. They do not believe what is true; they regard as true that which they wish to believe. A lie that affirms us will gain more credence than a truth that challenges us. That’s the foundational insight on which Trump built his business career. It’s the insight on which Trump’s supporters built first their campaign for president and now their presidency itself.//

I argued against the false promise of what Trump's former strategist bills as populism. Then events took a strange turn.

05/11/2018

In collaboration with the Biblical Graduate School of Theology, Leftwrite Center is organising a Christian-Muslim dialogue in practice with guest speakers, Prof Peter Riddell (Melbourne School of Theology) and Prof Syed Farid Alatas (National University of Singapore).

We are looking for Muslim participants to join this conversation as an effort to deepen understanding and build friendship across the two faith communities.

Do register here if you are Muslim and keen to build bridges with our Christian friends:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfx8pA6Te9nakHL2UNwJGimcCh0exZGuyhUtDmw0qJejwAXnw/viewform