English Personal Commentary

Mrs Nathan please grade this post and this post only...!



In the recent discussion done with teammates Ting Wei, Sing Yee and Jiacheng, our group concluded that democracy was superior to communism in creating a stable country and society, for the various reasons listed in Ting Wei's blog, such as feasibility in real life and modern examples of both systems, as well as their individual advantages and disadvantages.

However, I still feel that, in my research, after reading about conservatism, I have to say that I see more future in conservatism. Firstly, when a people have been restrained from certain, shall we say, elements which may or may not be favourable to society, for example prostitution and tax rebates, the people will tend to think radically of these missing elements, so when the government happens to make a suggestion, even if it is in passing, the public will pounce on it like a pack of hungry hyenas on a deer. The reason for this is that since it is missing from their lives, it has been given an elevated position in society. It's just like in the case of a mischievous boy, if his mother tells him not to play computer games while she goes shopping, all the more he feels that doing this "forbidden act" has more "kick" as compared to, say, reading a book. Thus, if a government happens to suggest legalising prostitution, obviously men would be all for it, seeing that prostitution has always been illegal. As such, democracy is not able to bring across radical ideas in a controlled manner, causing more attention to the matter at hand than is good.

On the other hand, conservatism, "a political philosophy that tends to support the status quo and advocates change only in moderation", is a system where past merits of certain traditions or way of dealing with matters are not forgotten and preserves it in the modern society. In our currrent case study, conservatism would obviously weigh the pros and cons of legalising prostitution before even announcing the possibility of the government doing so, unlike Singapore and the Integrated Resorts. And yet, with the sole reason of large national income, Singapore's government overrode all the disadvantages to its people and went ahead despite the petition signed by many people. This is not to say that conservatism does not allow the public a degree of individual autonomy, but is a philosophy against radicalism of any sort, regardless of merit, for example the Singapore Integrated Resorts.

Switzerland provides the strongest example of modern direct democracy, as it exhibits the first two pillars at both the local and federal levels. In the past 120 years more than 240 initiatives have been put to referendum. The populace has been conservative, approving only about 10% of the initiatives put before them; in addition, they have often opted for a version of the initiative rewritten by government. But see here, this only works if the populace are rational and conservative, which brings us back to conservatism.

Conservatism is not a system which does not allow for radical changes, but incremental change, where, over a period of time, that radical effect can be achieved."it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society."This embodies the spirit and reason for conservatism.

In the short-term, democracy may see more action or reap more benefits due to its free-for-all policy where radical actions are allowed, but in the long-term, there is bound to be some radical action that set forth unforeseen consequences and thus conservatism, which restricts any of the aforementioned radical action, is still better.