Guest Post: Elitism in Singapore

WRITTEN BY: IVAN
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In the dawn of the twenty-first century, elitism has become widespread amongst many students in Singapore, including those from non-elite schools. From the blog posts of Intellectual Snob to the Wee Shu Min elitism scandal, elitism has bred dissatisfaction. Yet, the question that we have to ask ourselves is: Why is elitism such a common sight in our nation?

First and foremost, Singapore’s education system has become increasingly competitive over the years. Due to the high emphasis placed on education by parents and schools, many students have strived to attain high grades so as to prove themselves superior to others who do not perform as well as them. Consequently, this causes the idea that achieving success in the aspect of having good paper qualifications would equate to being on a higher level in the social hierarchy. From a psychological point of view, this idea is often embedded in the subconscious mind of many students and graduates, which is the platform for which beliefs form and character builds.

In many students, there is a presence of an inferiority complex that is caused by a lack of self worth, often evoked by the presence of others who perform better than them in studies. This causes them to compensate for their feelings of inferiority and hence start acting superior, which arises from the instinct of self-preservation. Often, this causes them to become what we know as elitists, and explains why elitists can also materialize from non-elite schools. Of course, inferiority complex can plague students from elite schools, but it is relatively common in the non-elite ones.

In today, the constant race-to-riches has caused many to strive for academic excellence in order to get a high paying job. It is the mentality of equating success to a high salary that exists in many elitists which causes them to chase grades. When this happens, these people usually dismiss others who are not as work-directed as they are to be deemed as people with “no future”. Often, having a standardized education system prevents people to have truly groundbreaking ideas by which new business models are based upon. As such, people without a proper education would not think like the millions of other graduates, and might dare to deviate from the current thinking, which is where many creative and “out-of-the-box” ideas originate. Yet, many do not come to realize this fact.

Through this, the entire concept of success has changed. Many intellectuals often work in a job that they do not enjoy, and only do it for the sake of monetary reasons. Holding many meetings and having to fly from one country to another every few days has often caused job dissatisfaction. Even so, these people believe that they are successful, given the high salaries that they have. Is this true success? No, it is not. However, many elitists simply have the idea that it is being etched into their minds, and leads them to believe that they are better off than their lower-salaried counterparts.

In the advent of a dividing social class, elitism plays a major role in shaping our future. With many people disregarding the nation’s problems and acting only for their own interests at heart, elitism causes many to lose the spirit of teamwork and leads to a failure in cooperation as a nation. Although the problem is relatively small-scale at this point in time, elitism has the potential to cause major problems in the future. On the other hand, elitism has already caused some disharmony between the two social classes.