Why I Think Singaporeans Just Need To Slow Down

SINCE the advent of the industrial revolution, speed and productivity has commanded a premium. Today in the age of globalisation, life has reached a frenetic mind boggling pace. Technology makes it all possible, e-mail on the go, tele-conferencing etc. The pace of work, life and play is imperceptibly ratcheted slightly higher without us really realizing it. I am reminded we can no more return to the quaint cottage industry days, than we can undo the internet. The age of speed is here to stay. But it doesn’t stop us from questioning this new order.

The hamster wheel is an apt pathos of life under this new order. For one it pokes fun at the imperative of speed but it also carries a serious message, one that suggests the future could be closer to dystopia than utopia. What’s the cost to this preoccupation with speed? There’s always a cost. Our sinews, muscles and brain cells can’t keep on getting larger and better to keep up with the culture of speed – surely something must give.

Is it any surprise these days, there’s a crisis in our preoccupation with speed? It’s a condition that affects people at all levels. From kids to university students and even managers, affecting both the affluent and the poor alike. Don’t assume for one moment you are immune just because it hasn’t hit you – it’s like artery clogging food. You don’t know it, till you’re lying flat on your back while everyone draws straws to see who will give you mouth to mouth. The fast forward life is reassuringly insidious, it creeps up on your like a cat burglar. Soon you too will be leading the glorious life of the battery chicken; checking your e-mail on the go while munching on sandwiches and trying to catch your broker before the stock market bottoms out. The fast forward brigade even have a word to describe this division of labor – it’s called multi-tasking, strategic rotation, skills upgrading etc. But whatever they dress it up to be. It just means you’re shifting to a higher gear – what’s happening here? Am I the only one that’s taking the time to smell the flowers? Or is there something really wrong with me? Or just maybe you’re the problem and you just need to seriously consider slowing down.

If I were asked to sum life in this age of modernity Albert Einstein’s dictum of fear would do quite nicely,

“The end of all civilization will be the point when technology exceeds humanity. After that, it’s downhill all the way.”

Have we reached the high watermark? Are we barreling inexorably towards a precipitous cliff? Why hasn’t someone put up an end of the road sign?

Let’s begin by asking ourselves how much damage has already been inflicted on our bodies, minds and spiritual development. For example what happens when we encourage children to learn speed reading? Yes I know they read faster, but can scanning really enhance their understanding? That’s to say does skipping phonics and diagramming sentences improve deep spirited discernment at a jugular level? I don’t know about you but I believe it’s hard if not impossible to read poetry speedily without missing out large chunks of its deeper meaning.

Ultimately the question really hinges on; what you define as “understanding.” I don’t deny for one moment someone who speeds read a textbook would in theory cover a larger text footprint than someone who reads slowly. But surely to equate quantity with understanding is just plain stupid. That’s only progress, if you deny the whole notion of quality against the quantity curve. It’s one that will ultimately militate against the whole idea of deeper understanding. I know this first hand because there are many instances when I find myself revisiting books I have read many a time and on practically ever occasion. I find myself coaxing out nuances and teasing out new meanings which previously escaped me. They’re of course small things, infinitesimal even but nonetheless, it all adds to up to the depth of understanding.

When Microsoft first developed power point – many managers heralded it as the beginning of accelerated understanding. According to industry experts this presentation tool would greatly enhance accuracy, understanding and improve managerial decision making. That only holds true if you believe. The complexity of business can be subject to simplification by compressing schools of thoughts and states of minds into baby food bullet point. I don’t for one moment deny power point improves the overall presentation with its endless options of bells and whistles. But it still doesn’t answer the question; does it really improve decision making and understanding. If understanding here refers to skimming superficially over concepts and ideas, by glossing over the glaring inconsistencies and contradictions – I have a word for form reductionism – its called “rail roading.” Nothing more than a derivative of watching TV, where your nose is pulled as you shuffle along roughly at a speed of a motorized wheelchair to a prearranged script. Others who are more critical of this sort of speed tool simply call it hypnotism. The failure of speed presentation falls flat because it predicated on the assumption its possible to build deep spirited trust and understanding that is supposed to replace stop and go dialogue where time and presentation isn’t as important as winnowing the underlying strata’s of the logic and content. That could be one reason why I haven’t attended a power point presentation in the last 5 years. I don’t want to be hypnotized; I just want a simple conversation over lunch.

The truth remains accelerated or speed anything and it doesn’t matter whether it is food or just home renovations doesn’t really mean all that much when you begin the peel off the veneer of artificiality. There is no scope to discern the varying hemispheres of nuances or even the latitude to coax out the contradictions that adds to the truth. All that needs time and if you ever conducted a job interview before the best way to do is by inviting that prospective candidate over for a BBQ and ask him to bring his wife and kids along. You be amazed how much you can find out about a man’s capacity to manage himself and others by just the way he turns over a T-bone – I kid you not!

Psychologist and Philosophers are only starting to realize how speeding reading, math, cooking etc has resulted in what they refer too as the “paradox of the learning deficit.” When people speed read or speed date or speed anything they may not necessarily understand anything beyond the superficial and much of it has to do with how we are typically hardwired as humans.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. If on Monday I explained something complex to you like the theory of relativity (which I don’t understand myself but do a pretty good job of pretending too) and you were tested on it immediately. You wouldn’t do as well as another person who went through the same lecture rested or did something completely unrelated after the learning experience. That’s to say the second test subject would perform significantly better than you after a period of rest.

One of the reasons accounting for this anomaly according to Dr Chandra is because the brain has networks which need time to develop slowly to make the necessary connections which leads to a higher level of understanding.

As Dr Chandra says:

“There is a whole lot of networking that goes into the process of deep understand, a lot of it has to do with the qualitative aspects of how we relate to the subject matter by typically projecting either our personal experiences to the subject. For example if I were to learn a mathematical formula how to make my air-conditioner more efficient on a hot day and if I were tested on it immediately, I would never be able to perform as well as someone who had the time to lie on his bed and wonder why isn’t it cold? Is my computer heating up the room? Or is it my blanket? Or maybe I am wearing the wrong type of pajamas, that sort of analytical processing will definitely add a competitive advantage to a test subject who took the same test a few days latter. What he’s actually doing subconsciously is synthesizing knowledge based on the information he has been given.”

Since the advent of globalization, certain ideas have become dominant speed as I mentioned forms one of these yardsticks. A derivative of this naturally leads to simplification and their combined effects are nothing less than insidiously corrosive to the deeper understanding. If only one considers that children, students, scholars and even managers are regularly neurologically “programmed” to only register simple speed friendly cues more “competently.” Instead of taking the time to recruit their higher brain functions such as imagination and intuition – we can argue all we are really doing is systematically dumbing down people on a mass production scale.

That’s one of the reasons why academics like Dr Moretti, of Stanford University, is promoting what he coins “distant reading,” which attempts to reverse much of the damage inflicted by speed reading on literature. As he states:

“What we need to understand is the (flaw in) system. These days even professors need not read books at all! (The subtitle of one lecture he gave in Germany says it all: “How to Talk About Literature Without Ever Reading a Single Book.”) It is impossible to understand the rationale for such a relegation of reading to graphs and charts except as a way of institutionalizing large-scale bureaucratic analyses of literature. That is poison.”

Dr Chandra echoes the same sentiments only from a different perspective,

“If you look at generally at schools, corporations and even bureaucracies, these days what happening is a progressive shift towards machine language. Specifically binary language where everything is defined in terms of “1” or “0” – now this may be very good if you are applying those sort of mechanical logic to strip mining or manufacturing nuts and bolts where you can pretty much define the whole world as “yes” or “no” –“black & white” – “right” or “wrong” –“reject” or “pass” etc.

But when it comes to certain vocations like teaching kids how to think out of the box, or even something as qualitative as literature, law, journalism or music or even advanced research all you are doing is dumbing them down to a level where an engineer is no more a technician and a lawyer is nothing more than a delivery boy. In the long run its doing more damage than good and we see this sound bite culture everywhere. For example, newspapers articles in the last 10 years are 25% shorter. Even books are getting wafer thin. I think the drop of is about 37%. And the reason for this is because sound bite culture encourages dyslexia or something close to it, but I just call it impatience and in the long run that will work against the knowledge pool – that’s why the movement to slow down is so compelling – it’s a way of seeing the grey between the black and white – a means of redefining the binary into gradations and that is really how the world is.”

All this suggest there might be real tangible advantages in slowing down. Just because globalization is inevitable doesn’t deny the reality that precisely because its inexorable more and more people these days are opting out of their hamster wheels to enjoy the benefits of slow food and do absolutely nothing except build sand castles with their kids by slow holidaying. The case for reading a book slowly may you may take the twice the time but its one that undeniably enhances the deeper meaning when one discerns words beyond their mere dictionary meaning. Besides where is the fun of it all when you have to rush to do something or for that matter anything – it’s something to think about next time when you find yourself walking too fast.

(By darkness – psychology /socio/political – EP 999272 -2007 – The Brotherhood Press 2007)

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