A blogger in TRE recommended the Four Horsemen as a good
documentary to watch. The producer Ross Ashcroft gave an analysis on the rise
of civilisation and the falls of empires. It is the last stage in the decline
of empires, the Age of Decadence, particularly in the USA
that is most relevant to what is happening here. Why not when we are just a
small replica of the American system, borrowing and copying everything American
to the T? And if America
is failing, the symptoms appearing there will also be here in a graduated
scale.
The rise of an empire coincidentally dealt with a familiar
subject called pioneers. It all began with the pioneers digging the road and
paving the way for a brighter future for those that came after them. It then
went through the ages of conquest, commerce, affluence, intellectual pursuit
and, just before it came to an end, the age of decadence described as bread and
circus.
The prominent features of the onset of decadence are as
follows:
- An undisciplined over size military that is over extending itself. This is self explanatory in what we are doing today and how cocky we have become.
- Conspicuous display of wealth. We have seen many Ferraris and Lamborghinis and French mansions around us like the Antons and the Michaels.
- Disparity in wealth or a big income gap. No need to elaborate when the wealth of the nation concentrates in the hands of a few families and the high incomes of top people in number of times over the low level workers are there for all to see. The people benefiting from it will tell the daft workers it is the hard truth, can’t be helped.
- A bloated govt or over size govt. No need to explain on this, big in numbers and big in salary.
- An obsession with sex. Funny that we have so many court cases about sex recently.
- Debasement of currency. We used to be able to buy a semi D for $40k but now it needs $3m to $4m to get one. We could get a 5 rm HDB flat for less than $30k but we need $500k or more to get one today. The value of our money has gone bananas.
There are many other features of a decadent state like
apathy, amoralism, no one cares a damn. Think
Hong Lim Park
when several very important issues were raised but hardly anyone bothered to
attend. And housing prices kept spiralling and people said it is good. Ashcroft
described it as the squandering of a generation of its inheritance. I wonder
what he meant and how relevant it is in the City of Sin.
One interesting comment by Ashcroft that I feel very strange and astonishing,
is the glorifications of chefs in the society. Are we also glorifying our chefs
too?
The Americans got rid of the Glass Steagall Act to allow the
banks to do as they liked, creating money and gambling in a way that put the
casinos to shame. And this is facilitated by the call for deregulations and
they did, leading to the financial disaster of 2008 and the massive bailout of
the banks that were too big to fall to the tune of U$8.5 trillion. This was
several times the amount used to reconstruct Europe
after WW2.
The decadence continues unabated after the bailout and the
banking and finance bandits dug in even deeper and waiting for the big bang to
come. The banks continue to gamble and cheat their clients while the stock
exchange was designed for the computer traders to cheat the innocent and
hapless investors. Crimes of such nature that are blatantly flouted like in a
state of lawlessness by the bankers and the crooks in the financial system
without anyone thinking that they were wrong, crimes sanctioned by the states
and with the regulators assisting the criminals to become more efficient and
bold in the plundering. They don’t even know that these acts were criminal,
they did not want to know.
Ashcroft said, ‘When plunder becomes a way of life for a
group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the
course of time a legal system that authorises it and a moral code that
glorifies it’.
How far or how deep are we in this state of decadence? All
the features of a state of decadence described by Ashcroft are apparent and
here with us.
What is next after the state of decadence?
Here is the link to the Four Horsemen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU&feature=youtu.be. A good 90 minute documentary.
Kopi Level - Green
17 comments:
Also watch the film documentary, "Inequality for all". It tell you how the Republicans screwed up the lives of the middle income and curtail the power of the union. Many similarities to our situation back home.
With lots of foreign talents, there won't be any decadence.
Foreign talents will be the next generation to make Sinkieland strong and with a bright future, just like what our pioneers had done in earlier generation.
And so life will go on even if Sinkies become minority or extinct.
Tiok.
For Sinkies,
numbers no enough,
talents no enough.
opposition no enough.
votes for opposition no enough.
Hence influence and power of course also no enough lah.
So why would PAP want to bother so much with Sinkies, tio bo?
Oh I see. So there are good reasons why PAP sometimes take care of foreigners better than Sinkies.
Oh I see. So there are good reasons why PAP sometimes take care of foreigners better than Sinkies.
----
maybe the obvious is not so obvious?
is it true?
a leopard can't change its spots?
a traitor can never change?
once a traitor ... always a traitor?
'once a traitor.........always a traitor?
Obviouy!
Justice like saying a leopard cannot changes its spots.
History will show that traitors
will be remembered.
patriot
When the gov is too obsessed with profit and power, it will destroy security and welfare of the nation. It will lead to a complete destruction environmentally and economically.
Singapore had a pioneer generation. The famiLee is building up another pioneer generation with foreign talents for the Kingdom of Lanfang, ready to replace this Republic after its decay.
So the end all is to make as much as you can here and then retire to elsewhere before your assets here rot with the red dot.
Rb: // This is self explanatory in what we are doing today and how cocky we have become. //
In many people's minds and hearts, there might be this troubling disturbing struggle .....
There might be a perception that something is not very right .....
Where are we heading as a society?
Where is the moral compass?
Are we "direction-less"?
Rb: // There are many other features of a decadent state like apathy, amoralism, no one cares a damn. Think Hong Lim Park when several very important issues were raised but hardly anyone bothered to attend. And housing prices kept spiralling and people said it is good. Ashcroft described it as the squandering of a generation of its inheritance. I wonder what he meant and how relevant it is in the City of Sin. One interesting comment by Ashcroft that I feel very strange and astonishing, is the glorifications of chefs in the society. Are we also glorifying our chefs too? //
It seems that the management been rendered is of the yesteryear, no, "more correctly yester-century"?
It certainly smacks of the classical approach to modern management advocated by arguably modern management founder Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1900 namely the scientific approach which focuses on mechanical efficiency and productivity. Other advocates in that era includes Henry Gantt, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Such management approach maybe "applicable" on the factory floors in "sweat shops like those factories in low cost production developing countries " and not in its entirety in the running of a developed nation in many aspects.
In a sense, this classical scientific approach to management regards human as an extension of the machine and thus being worked like a machine. Alas, is such an approach sustainable in the long run without a serious breakdown of the "Who am I?" doubt cast in the mind?
It seems the only motivator in the classical scientific approach is the economic needs ...... But the 1924 to 1932 Hawthorne Experiment by Harvard Professor Elton Mayo had put paid to such management concept as the method to achieve greater productivity in human society.
It was further reaffirmed by Professor Abraham Maslow in the publishing of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs namely physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, self actualization.
Rb: // Debasement of currency. We used to be able to buy a semi D for $40k but now it needs $3m to $4m to get one. We could get a 5 rm HDB flat for less than $30k but we need $500k or more to get one today. The value of our money has gone bananas. //
Will there be the emergence of a group of dedicated men and women able to form an alternative to take the society forward?
Are the people stuck with the current system, the current way of life?
What is the meaning going forward?
Rb: // The people benefiting from it will tell the daft workers it is the hard truth, can’t be helped. //
In a civilised society, showing filial piety to our parents and elders who brought the children up is what holds it together.
But what if this act that holds a society together is "being hijacked"?
So should the older generation be thankful to the government for "taking from the children what the children can give directly to their parents to discharge of their filial piety duty" but instead " in turn used to give to the older generation what actually belongs to the children"?
Rb: // How far or how deep are we in this state of decadence? All the features of a state of decadence described by Ashcroft are apparent and here with us.
What is next after the state of decadence? //
Can a society be "sustainable" when such a natural act of direct filial piety is being "upturned" and "taken away" and "replaced awkwardly" by the "government playing this filial piety role but using what actually belongs to the children"?
What is the citizenry to make of "such a strange policy"?
What does the future hold given current trend?
Is there an option emerging to empower the people to "say no"?
Or are the people stuck because somehow they are "trapped in a monopolised abstruse situation with no alternative" because there is no other alternative provider as the "older generation" unwittingly has "created a monopoly" which yields absolute authority, not "dissimilar to the period 1933-1945 when the Nazi's government had a strangle hold on the people of Germany" and led ultimately to a terrible period in human history best forgotten?
Well said, a leader binded by growth and wealth. Well said, but will it make any difference?
Do we care enough!
Hypocrisy.
Asking the citizens to sacrifice for the country while paying themselves $1 million dollar salaries.
The million dollar salaries are paid in cash hor.
Not $1 million dollars topped up into their CPF accounts hor. Like you and me hor.
Stupidity and daft.
When 60$ cannot see through all this hypocrisy.
If you include bonuses and all the extras, the ministers are getting several millions or at least $3m.
Until they are transparent enough to reveal how much they are getting, do not think it is small. If they dare not tell, you can imagine what it is like.
We spent billions for a short stretch of highway called the Marina Coastal Expressway and it is not even conspicuous except for the electronic toll gantries. How much more decadent can we get?
Costs are just naturally very high in a first world country and spending a lot of money is the norm and not necessarily decadent. Our ministers understand this very well and they have made it quite clear that any more pay reduction will render it more difficult to entice capable citizens to serve the country as ministers. The hard truth is that we have to pay them an obscene amount to undertake a slow decay. Any less and they will scoot and let the decadence accelerate as they are not going to take the chance of going down with this no hope of a nation.
If you don't want to see it rot before you do, please sacrifice while they kick the can down the road.
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