What do you think?
Rate this book
The Asian Modern: Culture, Capitalist Development, Singapore
How does one comprehend the phenomenon of the modernization of an Asian society in a globalized East Asian context? With this opening question, the author proceeds to give an account of how the modernization processes for postcolonial societies in Asia, such as those of India, Malaysia, and Singapore, are fraught with collaborations and conflicts between different socio-political, historical, economic, and cultural agents.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published December 30, 2007
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 20, 2024
If ever there was an advert for cultural studies, this would be it. Let this work be a Rorschach test on one's attitudes towards cultural studies.
As for me, I thought there were thought provoking points on Singapore's frustrating attempts to define its culture.
First, the work makes clear that Singapore's touted distinctions from the West (orderliness, cleanliness, no hedonism, neat haircuts, puritanical sensibilities), was just that, a distinction without a difference. The highlight of Singapore's discourse was the assertion of Confucian values (and later the more 'accommodating'/CMIO friendly Asian Values). However, Singapore continues to be an integral and compatible component of the global capitalist order. Indeed an interesting parallel can be drawn between Singapore's attempts at highlighting its own Protestant Ethic and Victorian Britain's frequent moral panics as it attempted to articulate a common morality in capitalism's nascent days. More intriguingly, perhaps there is a parallel to be made between the frivolous, decaying West and Singapore's own attempts (especially post Asian financial crisis and the need to still attract Western capital in the age of financialisation and globalisation) to rebrand itself as a vibrant playground for the global elite, and concerts for all of you.
Next, culture, in the instances when it was analysed was seen mostly as necessary to maintain national competitiveness within global capitalism. It explains especially why Singapore's early cultural articulation seemed to have a deterritorialised quality to it, with an abstracted focus on progress (and on occasion even challenging the West that Singapore's path to socialism was actually more collectivist, and hence superior), and an almost deliberate neglect of its connections to the rest of the region. The earlier mentioned 'Asian values' discourse marked an attempt at reterritorialisation. Concrete manifestations include religious studies curricula that filtered out folk beliefs and promotion of billinguialism. We still see that even with attempts at local rootedness, there is a tendency to strive for orderliness. What's clear is that both approaches were deployed primarily to maintain order and uniformity, with Asian values seen as as a way to instill collectivism without also implicating welfarism.
The work also points out the essentially 'have your cake and eat it' approach through the attempts to define culture. The authorities had wanted to promote traditionalism, but only within the confines of the family (mothers in particular) and one that emphasised values and would not evoke cultural memory and the history of a past way of life, and issues of power and dispossession (e.g., old Chinatown).
In concluding the work, the writer interestingly asks if there is a way for the Singapore authorities to achieve its cultural objectives in a more efficient manner? He offers the possibility of learning to rely on a more hands-off Foucauldian governmentality (think 'sinkie pwn sinkie' behaviour online) in Singapore, or does the state still prefer to adopt a direct, statist disciplinarity?
The writer affirms that, at least for the reasons of economic dynamism, the state is open to cultural expression, but concludes that its preference for heavy handedness complicates efforts. He surmises
This was a good, although challenging read. (Why Cultural Studies, why?) A good (and more materialist, contextualised) pairing would be Liberalism Disavowed, by Chua Beng Huat.
As for me, I thought there were thought provoking points on Singapore's frustrating attempts to define its culture.
First, the work makes clear that Singapore's touted distinctions from the West (orderliness, cleanliness, no hedonism, neat haircuts, puritanical sensibilities), was just that, a distinction without a difference. The highlight of Singapore's discourse was the assertion of Confucian values (and later the more 'accommodating'/CMIO friendly Asian Values). However, Singapore continues to be an integral and compatible component of the global capitalist order. Indeed an interesting parallel can be drawn between Singapore's attempts at highlighting its own Protestant Ethic and Victorian Britain's frequent moral panics as it attempted to articulate a common morality in capitalism's nascent days. More intriguingly, perhaps there is a parallel to be made between the frivolous, decaying West and Singapore's own attempts (especially post Asian financial crisis and the need to still attract Western capital in the age of financialisation and globalisation) to rebrand itself as a vibrant playground for the global elite, and concerts for all of you.
Next, culture, in the instances when it was analysed was seen mostly as necessary to maintain national competitiveness within global capitalism. It explains especially why Singapore's early cultural articulation seemed to have a deterritorialised quality to it, with an abstracted focus on progress (and on occasion even challenging the West that Singapore's path to socialism was actually more collectivist, and hence superior), and an almost deliberate neglect of its connections to the rest of the region. The earlier mentioned 'Asian values' discourse marked an attempt at reterritorialisation. Concrete manifestations include religious studies curricula that filtered out folk beliefs and promotion of billinguialism. We still see that even with attempts at local rootedness, there is a tendency to strive for orderliness. What's clear is that both approaches were deployed primarily to maintain order and uniformity, with Asian values seen as as a way to instill collectivism without also implicating welfarism.
The work also points out the essentially 'have your cake and eat it' approach through the attempts to define culture. The authorities had wanted to promote traditionalism, but only within the confines of the family (mothers in particular) and one that emphasised values and would not evoke cultural memory and the history of a past way of life, and issues of power and dispossession (e.g., old Chinatown).
In concluding the work, the writer interestingly asks if there is a way for the Singapore authorities to achieve its cultural objectives in a more efficient manner? He offers the possibility of learning to rely on a more hands-off Foucauldian governmentality (think 'sinkie pwn sinkie' behaviour online) in Singapore, or does the state still prefer to adopt a direct, statist disciplinarity?
The writer affirms that, at least for the reasons of economic dynamism, the state is open to cultural expression, but concludes that its preference for heavy handedness complicates efforts. He surmises
The PAP is willing to liberalise without democratizing. They will not see that greater democratization and its possible relationship to a ‘ground-up’ entrepreneurial and cultural dynamism can co-exist while being kept within limits with the tools of governmentality, in immanent relationships of domination’.
This was a good, although challenging read. (Why Cultural Studies, why?) A good (and more materialist, contextualised) pairing would be Liberalism Disavowed, by Chua Beng Huat.
March 23, 2018
How has Singapore progressed from a backwater tip of a peninsula to a colonized and progressive present. Mr Chua charts the distant history of our British masters to the PAP present? How has our island become a slave nation state to the pursuit of the economic forefront and what have we lost, gained and tried to reclaim. A very interesting take on how a small island provokes debate on what constitutes post modern construction. Are our HDB nothing more then lifeless concrete blocks or are they a practical albeit tasteless scurry to house. Are we really influencing China just before they take off in the late 80s? Are we compromised due to heavy handling and still top down social engineering? I really wanted to continue, but the language is just not accessible to the layperson who just wants an enlightened read. Like the previous review, 4 chapters and I had to give up. There's only so much reading back and forth just to understand a point which could have been made in simpler narrative. Is this for everyone who wants a slice of our past, or is this for a select academic few? Has a Professor of English lost his way?
April 23, 2011
I only read 4 chapters of this one -- yes, I read in bits -- which lit major doesn't? but anyhow, fairly entertaining. Nothing completely original, but it was stating things in a very clear manner. Despite being Singaporean, I know jack-ass about criticism ON Singapore, so I can't really comment more...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews