Indeed, I went on a bit of a rant about the whole thing:
I had an odd experience this morning watching three so-called inspirational slide-shows in order to 'reflect' on them. I ended up reflecting on the oddness of the experience. Why do so many people in Singapore seem to regard watching these things as having anything to do with thinking? I don't think they promote thought in themselves as they present closed systems - they tell you what is right and don't invite you into any kind of dialectic. I suppose the people who think that thought is promoted wish the viewer to think about their lives/work and how the lessons of the slide shows can be applied (and I guess there is some value in this.) However, this loses out on what is most powerful about thought and reflection: its ability to remake the world and ourselves by its engagement with that world.
In the motivational paradigm we are never fully engaged because anything that may threaten our motivation is closed out of the experience. But these things, those that threaten, are tied to the most interesting and real opportunities to make progress. Because that which fails to acknowledge the real, takes on the texture of a fake. Ultimately it is empty. And what is real threatens us because we are not built to cope with reality. We are built to bend reality to our wills.
Funnily enough I think my reflections of the evening (when I presume I wrote the above) are pretty decent, as far as they go (though the last sentence is more than a bit iffy), but I rather think they wouldn't have been at all welcome during the time allotted for 'Reflection.' There is some irony in this, methinks.
Fortunately no one at present is
2 comments:
I remember this too, and my rant was typed out nicely and emailed to Y, who was in charge of collating the meagre returns. :D
That almost made me laugh - and then the tragic element became all too much for me.
Wonder what became of the returns?
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