Freedom of Expression or Social Responsibility? (June Blog Task for Racial Harmony Day)

Singer believes that freedom of expression is essential to any democracy and therefore should not be limited. On the other hand, Szilagyi believes that more focus should be placed on social responsibility. In the context of Singapore’s multi-racial society, where there is cultural and religious pluralism, which author’s view do you think should be adopted?



In Singapore, racial harmony day falls on the 21st of July. It is a day to remind all races in Singapore that we need to live together harmoniously, as it was on this day in 1964 that a racial riot between the Chinese and the Malays. In my opinion, racial harmony is of utmost importance, not only in Singapore alone, but also throughout the world. Just simply by publishing a cartoon, a racial unrest can surface, as seen from the cartoons, published on newspaper in 2006 that were being depicted as an insult to the Islamic countries.

In response to this social unrest around the world, there is a debate on whether more emphasis should be placed on the rights of media to publish on what they want or the responsibility of society. So, in the context of Singapore's multi-racial society, should freedom of expression or social responsibility be accentuated? In my point of view, I believe that social responsibility is more important and thus, should be adopted in Singapore.

While freedom of expression is essential in a democratic country like Singapore, social responsibility is more far-reaching. The former may go out of hand and people will be offending other races through what they say, which they think that is fine. Too much freedom given to the people may result in misunderstandings between the different races, when someone did not filter through what they say about other races. It is now that social responsibility has to come in. People and most importantly, the media, will have to learn to be sensitive to others and to be aware of the consequences of what they say. Especially so for the media, as they are the answer to how information is being disseminated globally. Therefore, what they report will have an impact on the groups of people worldwide who are involved in the issue. This might lead to retaliation from these groups of people.

However, with social responsibility, all these can be prevented and a multi-racial Singapore will then be able to survive and flourish even with different racial groups living together on this island. As everyone plays their part of refraining saying anything that is damaging to the society's interest, all racial groups will feel respected and there will then be no existence of unhappiness, which might lead to anger.

In conclusion, social responsibility acts as a preventive measure against racial unrest, while freedom of expression may breed racial unrest, as it may act as a trigger when used inappropriately. Therefore, I feel that Singapore should focus more on social responsibility to maintain the serenity present in our nation.

"YouTube has no ethics, it's being created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money." Do you agree?

First of all, in the question, "no ethics" is defined as not possessing a set of moral principles or values* and YouTube is to be created to meet the objective of being a medium of amusement and making profit. I do not agree with the motion, as YouTube is created for people to share their knowledge and disseminate information too.

Indeed, YouTube is a source of entertainment for everyone in the world and it is a medium where companies can post videos to advertise about themselves or their products. However, it is gradually being used to educate people on health matters.

Like Phil Commander, people use YouTube (1) to share health advice with the mass. To illustrate, Phil Commander shared on ways of encouraging autistic children to communicate with people through posting of a series of tutorials on YouTube. Besides being posted by non-professionals, there are also health related videos posted by the professionals. For example, there is a clinic in the United Kingdom that posted videos, demonstrating how to test blood sugar levels and use an inhaler (1), on YouTube.
Therefore, the creation of YouTube is not only for meeting the purpose of entertaining and making money and since it is also used by people for a good cause, that is, to share medical related information, it is incorrect to say that YouTube possess no moral values. Thus, I do not agree with the statement, “YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.”


* Definition from http://dictionary.reference.com.
(1) Article taken from http://www.newscientist.com.
02 January 2007 . NewScientist.com news service. By Roxanne Khamsi.

"Prejudice is a disease we can never get rid of." Discuss

The word, "prejudice", is defined as an unreasonable dislike and distrust of people who are different from you in some way* . As for the word, "disease", it means something that is seriously wrong with society in this question* . The phrase, "can never get rid of", is defined as something that cannot be excluded in our life, irregardless of what is done. There are many types of prejudice, for example, prejudice against another race, against the opposite gender and against religion.

Personally, I do not agree with the statement, "Prejudice is a disease we can never get rid of." This feeling of dislike and distrust is a psychological factor, which can be changed through some ways, such as in the case of prejudice against the Whites and Blacks, prejudice can become non-existing with more interaction among these two groups of people.

In the United States, one of the reasons why there is still prejudice in the country is that there is insufficient interaction between the Whites and the Blacks. This is supported by an investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance (1). It was discovered that real estate agents steered Whites away from neighbourhoods with Black residents and they steered Blacks towards predominantly Black neighbourhoods. Therefore, due to the lack of interaction and communication, both groups will most likely, still make unfair judgements on the other group. In addition, this communication breakdown results in limited understanding between the Whites and Blacks, which is actually the root problem contributing to the problem of prejudice.

Hence, in conclusion, prejudice is a psychological factor found within the society and a serious problem which can be solved, with everyone, who is involved, playing a part in bridging the White and Black societies together.

* Definitions from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.
(1) Information taken from http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/index.html

Inspiring Quotes

• Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

---Thomas Edison

• Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.

---Roger Ward Babson

Let us not give up on what we do and persevere on.

First entry for GP

To get started, I'm going to introduce myself in this first blog entry.
First of all, my name is Peilin and I was from Paya Lebar Methodist Girls' School (Secondary). I am the youngest at home and I have 3 siblings; 2 sisters and 1 brother.
I love music, thus I joined chinese orchestra in primary school and concert band in secondary school. In addition, I like physical education very much too.
I do not exactly like campings, except camping with my family. I enjoy the company of my family very much as compared to that of my friends.
At this moment, I have no more idea on what to write about myself . Therefore, this is the end of my introduction. ^,^