Many emotions have been stirred this election, and many things have been shouted and tossed around.
Looking back on the history of the situation, we can clearly see, on the surface, a long period of compliance, followed by what is right now happening as a period of conflict, and somewhat nasty conflict sometimes.
Crossing subject lines to borrow a concept from organisational culture, Singapore is inherently a society with a low tolerance for conflict. People who disagree may not openly express it; they keep conflicting tensions internal, and over time those tensions get pent up. Cultural norms exact some form of penalty for openly expressing disagreement, whether in personal standing in the eyes of an elder, a parent, a boss, or in its most extreme manifestation, lawsuits. Disagreement is not allowed in traditional media such as print, TV and radio, through self-censorship.
Thus, as the case is now, when an avenue presents itself free of the penalties of a “low conflict tolerance” culture, such as social media and new media, a veritable explosion of pent-up tension occurs, resulting in what we see now as highly stirred, often irrational, emotions and comments flying around. It is often difficult to get reasoned, balanced opinions out of all this.
However, once the initial period of hot-headedness dies down after the easing of pent-up tension, more level-headed debate on new media may emerge as people calm down. Conflict may become less of the nasty, mudslinging nature. In the long-term – again borrowing concepts from organisational culture – conflict may eventually give way to reasoned compromise, and collaboration as emotions subside and people decide and discuss, in the open nature of new media, how best to move forward. When this happens it may also herald an evolution into a culture more tolerant of conflict, and again borrowing another concept, a healthy amount of conflict is essential to ensure optimal results in any organisation, which can be generalised to discussions in the general populace.
The danger is this: new media can still be segregated. People can split themselves fervently into different camps – as seen in the various FB page “likes”. Once segregated, dialogue is difficult to achieve – let alone compromise and collaboration, as the camps do not want to engage. People, also, can in spite of the open nature of new media, refuse to educate themselves about issues, and stick to appeals to emotion that do not hold water. When this happens, rocks will be strewn in the path of long-term evolution.
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I have a feeling this is not very well-written, and I should really be studying for my exams. But I think the gist is there so I’ll leave editing for better reading aside. I hope it has given you a bit of impetus to put the current election fever into perspective and look into why it manifests itself as it is, and what might result after.
