Dregs of Yore

The traditional values -- industry, integrity, independence, duty, bravery, resilience, sincerity -- have been dethroned, because these values make us different, and consequently, unequal, to the others who do not strive in their pursuit. They aim to create developed individuals. The modern values -- compassion, equality, open-mindedness, tolerance, freedom, and above all, humility -- have taken their place. They aim to create better societies. But it is the continual negotiation between these traditional and modern values that maintains the equilibrium of the microcosm and macrocosm, which now, is skewed. We live in times where self-negation and deprecation are clad in virtuous robes.  Preaching humility is one thing. One must show gratitude to one’s roots, to the hands that feed us, to our caretakers in the home and in the society, to the law, to luck, and above all to God. It is good to recognise the privileges (I hate that word) that one may have been born with. It is good to a...

A question to women: Can you stand in a group of four of your friends, other women of the same age and same urban background and freely be able to say that you increasingly suspect that your primary source of meaning will be marriage, familial responsibilities, managing a household, having children and taking care of them, feeding them, cleaning them, building them?  Or will your own friends ridicule you for not being more open-minded, professionally ambitious, or “empowered” enough, and not devoting your time, thought and efforts instead to career advancement? Will they consider you brainwashed by so-called patriarchal systems of thought and society, when in fact an entire generation of women have been raised with the notion that career will be the primary source of your meaning drilled into you from a young age? Are you indeed brainwashed if you have somehow jumped off that bandwagon, and begin to question in your late twenties, (very reluctantly and cautiously, and even with a ...