25 May 14 Prime Minister Prime Minister's Office Orchard Road Istana Singapore 238823 Dear Sir, Officers Colluded With Neighbour Now that I sold my flat, I am not subjected to retaliation of noise from the neighbour. The new owner may need help. The office of ombudsman may have been raised in Parliament because of my complaint. The CUTS is at the Workers' Party's website and Help (69) in my blog. In brief, officers and the neighbour have a history going back to '99 when an eviction took place. An officer informed me of the eviction, four years later an insider stopped the neighbour, and another four years later insiders assisted me when the neighbour restarted their work. Officers denied there was eviction and abetted the neighbour. They enabled the neighbour to continue working a trade inside their flat since they restarted in Jun 07. A lessening of noise followed President (26) in Sep 11. Noise was adjusted down after News (31) and Citizen (32) in May 12, and again after By-Election (33) and Standpoint (34) in Aug 12. High officials finally caused them to reduce noise, but the affair needs a conclusion. I described events including many indirect references in the media. However, the authorities did not follow up with proper investigation. I showed collaboration between officers and the neighbour and an extensive network of contacts under the influence of an officer. The intent was to force me into selling my flat. I showed what could be done in Deliberation (37) and Meritocracy (41) and the direction it could take in Quote (20), Behaviour (23) and Popular Culture (58). Does the government let the affair passed? It is the responsibility of the-whole-of-government to stop the officers who protected the neighbour and high officials who prevented the authorities from taking action. It had been my complaint for a long time. The new owner needs not go through what I did from what is already known. The problem persists because no inquiry was conducted. Yours Sincerely, hh Observation 1. Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) began life around National Day, 9 Aug 12, after News (31) and Citizen (32). Although OSC looked to the next 20 years, it could have discussed the owner's case. 2. Another example is given in Moral Hazard (65) where no effective action could be taken. 3. A need for public dialogue could be seen from Punggol East (35) and Anonymity (59). 4. On 1 Sep 12 the Law and Foreign Affair Minister considered what could be an ethics law on unneighbourly act. His remarks is at Morality (39). 5. On 18 Sep 12 the Prime Minister said it was far better to suffer embarrassment and keep the system clean than to pretend that nothing had gone wrong and let the rot spread. He said the government was reviewing and tightening the system to maintain its high standard of honesty. His remarks in a speech given at CPIB (Corrupt Practice Investigation Bureau) is at Switch (38). 6. On 12 Aug 13 DPM Teo Chee Hean says in Parliament: "The Public Service does not tolerate wrongdoing and misconduct, and will take firm action in all cases, decisively and transparently. Every case is thoroughly investigated. If need be, a separate agency will conduct the investigation to ensure independence and impartiality." Errant officers who have not broken the law but where actions are serious enough to constitute misconduct are subject to disciplinary action either by the Permanent Secretary or the Public Service Commission. More of his remarks is at Item 14r, Comment (14). 7. On 7 Mar 14 The Business Times reported "MHA plans review panel to boost public trust. To underscore its intolerance of grave wrongdoings and misconduct by its officers, the Ministry of Home Affairs will set up an independent review panel to look into the findings of its internal probes of such cases. Mr Teo, who is also Coordinating Ministry for National Security, said that when directed by the minister, the panel will review the findings of internal investigations into cases of serious alleged misconduct by an officer in his official capacity; those include cases which have led to death or serious injury, perverted the course of justice or which are in the public interest." 8. On 8 Mar 14 Acting Minister for Culture, Communication and Youth announced a new tribunal would be set up to adjudicate difficult cases of dispute between neighbours. 9. In Item 4, a good underlying explanation may be found for the law on unneighbourly act to be implemented as most Singaporeans live in flats. If it is not an ethics law, it will not help the owner because of evasion by the officers and neighbour. In Item 5, to maintain high standard of honesty the government needs to explain how it is going to be effected. In Item 6, if the owner's case was investigated, what was the outcome. In Item 7, if an internal investigation was conducted of its officers concerning the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour, would the minister direct the review panel to look into the case. In Item 8, would the judge be able to stop the officers from stationing the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour to protect the neighbour from insiders and using noise to force the owner into selling his flat because he knew too much. 10. Evidence (21), Behaviour (23), Integrity (25), Committee (27) and Ombudsman (29) are on actions that could have been taken. 11. Continuous knocking from 7.00 pm to 8.45 pm during National Day Rally speech by PM on 18 Aug 13. Were the officers and neighbour telling the owner something? 12. Deliberation (37), Public Service (48), Openness (50), Governance (51), Anonymity (59) and Empathy (63) take a look at the problem and its resolution. 13. Morality (39), Liberty (52), Iron Cage (53), Ruler (55), Popular Culture (58), Diplomat (62) and Singapore (67) are on "doing the right things, and doing these things right". 14. Argument (44) and Perspective (45) are on reasonable approach to ethical conflict without personal opinion and cultural bias getting in the way. 15. Parkinson (40), Open Access (49) and Iron Cage (53) are on bureaucracy. 16. Principle (47) is on openness, accountability and tolerance as apply to the case. Anonymity (59), Open Source (60), Moral Hazard (65) and Corruption (66) are on openness. Search for word openness, accountability and tolerance in the postings. 17. Neighbour (4) is a problem yet to be resolved given what goes on between the officers and neighbour. 18. Case (19) is a community project. Do so by informing others and leaving your comment in the blog. 19. The owner wrote to the Council of Estate Agencies (CEA) and MPs on a related problem. House Selling 1 (70), House Selling 2 (71), House Selling 3 (72), House Selling 4 (73) and Request (75) show officers tried to block the owner from selling his flat at a good price. 20. On 11 Mar 14 The Business Times reported "HDB overhauls system for resale transactions. It is requiring buyers to first obtain the option to purchase (OTP) before asking for a valuation through HDB - and it will not accept valuation request from sellers. This pushes buyers and sellers into negotiating resale prices based on the latest transacted prices, instead of haggling over the COV as is done now. On the likelihood that there may be sellers who may fish for valuation reports through the HDB, the board said that it will monitor the new resale procedures. The HDB spokeswomen said, 'If there are salespersons who try to game the system to obtain valuations, we will carry out relevant investigations together with the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA)." 21. In Item 20, the owner thinks the problem is buyer and seller should be in direct contact during price negotiation. They could defer to their salesperson, if they engage one, for price information and assistance. 22. An extensive network of contacts in the administration has been the problem. In a cover-up the officers prevented the stopping of the neighbour who works a trade in the flat. They collaborated to force the owner into selling his flat and, when he did, to sell at below market price. As shown in the blog, the Government was unable to deal with the officers on the ground. 23. Endgame (74) and Committee (27) are on abusers and remedies respectively. 24. Lee Kuan Yew Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going Straits Times Press Q: What do you mean by a "strong system"? Is it another phrase for PAP continuing to be in power? A: Whether it's the PAP or any other government does not interest me. I'm beyond that phase. I'm not out here to justify the PAP or the present government. I want to get across just how profound is this question of leadership and people and the ethical and philosophical beliefs of the leadership and the people. Q: Not many people can understand that we're not a normal country. A: Denmark, Sweden can get by with mediocre governments, Singapore cannot. The civil service will go down. If at the core centre quality goes down, then in all the subsidiary organisations quality will also go down. You will no longer inspire. Because no man can judge a person accurately if that person is superior than he is. So we never ask somebody who's inferior to judge. Very seldom does an inferior person says, "He's better than me." Once you have weak people on top, the whole system slowly goes down. It's inevitable. 25. Sunday, 8 Dec 13. PAP adopts 8-point resolution to build better nation for all. With the theme, "Our New Way Forward, A Call to Action", the resolution emphasises that it will govern the country with integrity and never tolerate corruption. The last time a resolution was adopted was in 1988 at the party's first Convention when an eight-point Agenda for Action was revealed. 26. The following was reported in the Straits Times of 29 Mar 14 and 30 Mar 14: Singapore has a strong anti-corruption system and values but it is not the system that will continue keeping it clean. It is the people who run it who will do so, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. He made this point on Friday during a dialogue at independent think-tank Chatham House, while responding to questions from Mr Malcolm Rifkind, the chair, and an audience of academics, diplomats and London's intellectual elite. Mr Rifkind noted that the abhorrence of corruption went back to the days of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. Were there strains in the system now? Whether or not the People's Action Party (PAP) can continue to run the Government depends in how well it acquits itself and continues to build on the successes of the past, and on Singaporeans themselves, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Similarly, there can be no straight-line predictions that because the opposition has 40 per cent of the vote, it will not be long before it takes over government, he said, during a dialogue at Chatham House, a think-tank, yesterday. The exchange began when Mr Rifkind noted that the PAP had been in power for more than half a century and if this was healthy. 27. Postings in the blog anaudienceofthree and complainproper have been amended for unclear passage and bad grammar. Passages are added on hindsight. Postings at complainproper3 remains unchanged as it was first posted.
26.5.14
72. Order
72. Request
25 May 14 Prime Minister Prime Minister's Office Orchard Road Istana Singapore 238823 Dear Sir, A Request In The Public Interest 1. My problem had to do with an officer at Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office. Since I wrote to him in '07 about a neighbour working at the upper floor, he and an extensive network of contacts had acted against me. Together with the neighbour, they used noise to force me into selling my flat. 2. When I began selling, two salespersons who were under their influence advertised in the newspaper to depress the price of the flat. With the first salesperson, I made my complaint to Council of Estate Agencies (CEA). With the second salesperson, I did not make my complaint because CEA did not reply to the first. However, I wrote to terminate their service and gave reason for doing so. 3. I got used to authorities not replying to my letters although I supported my case each time. In the case of the officers and neighbour, I described instances, sequence of events and assistance given by insiders. I showed cause and effect. 4. An investigation would have uncovered the truth, apportioned blame and stopped the neighbour. No such investigation was carried out because the officers had powerful connection in the administration. The officers had the neighbour increased noise and set others against me. Things did get better after a posting in my blog in Aug 12 but, when I began selling my flat in Oct 13 (Item 2), they were back again. To get back at me for complaining, they intended to depress price and caused me monetary lost. 5. A solution is the removal of the officers and repossession of the the neighbour's flat. Unless there is a better reason for not doing so, it should have been the decision to take because of collusion between the officers and neighbour. I showed the stationing of the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour allowed the neighbour to use the flat as a workplace. The-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour was still around and the neighbour had not stopped their work up to the time I sold my flat. From my description in the blog, re-occurrence of the problem is bound to happen because the neighbour is only biding their time by lowering the noise. They got their way many times before and they have no reason not to do it again. The officers being the reason the neighbour acted in this way. 6. The method is in two parts. In the first part, the neighbour adjusts down the noise after a complaint to HDB Branch Office. In the second part, officers from the Branch Office state in their letter their investigations reveal no excessive noise and noise inside the neighbour's flat is not under their control. The cycle is repeated until either the complaint stopped or the complainant sell his flat. It is foolproof. 7. The authorities would not budge when informed. The officers stationed the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour because they thought they could cover up past dealing and at the same time protect the neighbour from insiders. I had to blog about the going-on for three years, after having gone through official channels for two years, before there was an improvement. Until the neighbour could be stopped, there is no closure. 8. The case has set a bad precedence of how public complaint against the officers was handled, or rather, not handled. Yours Sincerely, hh Observation After the owner sold his flat, he sent "A Request In The Public Interest" to the PM. He hopes an investigation would apportion blame among the officers and repossess the flat from the neighbour. Text messages (not included in the blog) in House Selling 1 (70), House Selling 2 (71), House Selling 3 (72), House Selling 4 (73) and Request (76) clearly showed the influence of the officers over estate agents. The intent was for the owner to sell at below market price or sell back to HDB at even lower price. The text messages, which were emailed to MPs, enabled a message to be spread within the real estate community. It helped the owner sell his flat. Officers (3), Neighbour (4) and Civics (10) are on the officers, neighbour and insiders respectively. In Proving (24), the owner shows a case against the officers and neighbour.
71. Environment
Triggers Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want To Be
Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter
It’s the Environment
Most of us go through life unaware of how our environment shapes our behavior.
When we experience “road rage”on a crowded freeway, it’s not because we’re sociopathic monsters. It’s because the temporary condition of being behind the wheel in a car, surrounded by rude impatient drivers, triggers a change in our otherwise placid demeanor. We unwittingly placed ourselves in an environment of impatience, competitiveness, and hostility--and it alters us.
If there is one “disease” that I’m trying to cure in this book, it revolves around our total misapprehension of our environment. We think we are in sync with our environment, but actually it’s at war with us. We think we control our environment but in fact it controls us. We think our external environment is conspiring in our favour--that is, helping us--when actually it is taxing and draining us. It is not interested in what it can give us. It’s only interested in what it can take from us.
If it sounds like I’m treating our environment as a hostile character in our life dramas, that’s intentional. I want us to think of our environment as if it were a person--as imminent and real as an archrival sitting across the table. Our environment is not merely the amorphous space just beyond our fingertips and skin, our corporeal being. It’s not a given like the air around us, something we inhale and exhale but otherwise ignore as we go about our routines. Our environment is a nonstop triggering mechanism whose impact on our behavior is too significant to be ignored. Regarding it as a flesh-and-blood character is not just fanciful metaphor. It’s a strategy that lets us finally see what we’re up against. (In some cases, I advise giving our environment a name.)
Much of the time, however, our environment is the devil. That’s the part that eludes us: entering a new environment changes our behavior in sly ways, whether we’re sitting in a conference room with colleagues or visiting friends for dinner or enduring our weekly phone call with an aging parent.
Sometimes altering one factor can turn an ideal environment into a disaster. It doesn’t change us. It changes everyone else in the room and how they react to us. Many years ago I was speaking at an off-site gathering of partners from a consulting firm. Although my previous work with this firm had gone well, this time something wasn’t working. No give-and-take, no lively laughter, just a group of very smart people sitting on their hands. I finally realized that the room was too hot. Amazingly, by merely turning down the temperature in the room, the session got back on track. Like a rock star demanding red M&Ms in the dressing room, I’m now a bit of a diva about insisting on a cool environment for my presentation. I’ve learned how one tweak in the environment changes everything.
The most pernicious environments are the ones that compel us to compromise our sense of right and wrong. In the ultracompetitive environment of the workplace, it can happen to the most solid citizens.
I remember working at a European conglomerate with a top-performing executive named Karl. He had a dictatorial management style--obsessive, strict, and punitive. He was openly gunning for the CEO job, and he drove his staff mercilessly to further his career. His mantra was “Make your number.” He’d write off anyone who contradicted his “number” or said it was unrealistic. To those who remained loyal, he’d scream, “Do whatever it takes!” Not surprisingly, his team started taking shortcuts to make their numbers. Some went from borderline unethical to clearly unethical behavior. In the environment Karl created, they didn’t see it as moral erosion. They saw it as the only option on the table.
Eventually, the truth came out. The scandal cost the company tens of millions of euros and even more in reputational damage. Karl’s defense was, “I never asked my people to do anything immoral or illegal.” He didn’t need to ask. The environment he created did the work for him.
Other environment changes us even when we’re dealing one-on-one with people to whom we’d ordinarily show kindness. We turn friends into strangers, behaving as if we’ll never have to face them again.
Some environments are designed precisely to lure us into acting against our interest. That’s what happens when we overspend at the high-end mall….The environment of a casino or an online shopping site are even less safe. Very smart people have spent their waking hours with one goal in mind: designing each detail so it triggers a customer to stay and spend.
Other environment are not as manipulative and predatory as a luxury store. But they’re still not working for us. Consider the perennial goal of getting a good night’s sleep. Insufficient sleep is practically a national epidemic, afflicting one-third of American adults (it’s twice as bad for teenagers).
...I have one more piece of disturbing news. Our environment isn’t static. It alters throughout our day. It’s a moving target, easy to miss.
If we think about our environment at all, we probably regard it as an expansive macrosphere that is defined by the major influences on our behavior--our family, our job, our schooling, our friends and colleagues, the neighborhood we live in, the physical space we work in. It’s a borderless nation-state bearing our name that reminds us who we are but has no influence on our decisions or actions.
If only that were true.
The environment that I’m concerned with is actually smaller, more particular than that. It’s situational, and it’s a hyperactive shape-shifter. Every time we enter a new situation, with its mutating who-what-when-where-and-why specifics, we are surrendering ourselves to a new environment--and putting our goals, our plans, our behavioral integrity at risk. It’s a simple dynamic: a changing environment changes us.
The mother who, in the environment of her home, leisurely makes breakfast for herself and her kids before sending them off to school and transporting herself to work is not the same person who, immediately upon arriving at the office, walks into a major budget meeting headed by her company’s founder. There’s no way she could be. At home she is more or less the chief of her domain--and exhibits the behavior of an ultraresponsible leader, caring for her family, expecting obedience, assuming respect. It’s a different environment at the office. She may still be the same confident and competent person she was at home. But, witting or not, she fine-tunes her behavior in the meeting. She’s deferential to authority. She pays close attention to the statements and body language of her colleagues. And so it goes through her workday, from situation to situation. As the environment changes, so does she.
We Do Not Get Better Without Structure
Of all my coaching clients, the executive who improved the most while spending the least amount of time with me was Alan Mulally. And he was a fantastic leader to start with.
I first met Alan in 2001, when he was president of Boeing Commercial Aircraft, before he became the CEO of Ford Motor Company in 2006. When Alan retired from Ford in 2014, Fortune magazine ranked him as the third-greatest leader in the world, behind Pope Francis and Angela Merkel. He and I are now working together to help both nonprofits and major companies develop great leadership teams.
I have learned more from Alan than he has from me--in large part because I’ve had the opportunity to watch him apply some of the ideas we’ve discussed on a broad corporate canvas. No idea looms bigger in Alan’s mind than the importance of structure in turning around an organization and its people. I believe that the Business Plan Review (BPR) process that he has developed is the most effective use of organizational structure that I have ever observed. In my years of coaching and research on change, I have learned one key lesson, which has near-universal applicability: We do not get better without structure.
Alan doesn’t merely believe in the value of structure; he lives it and breathes it. When Alan arrived at Ford he instituted weekly Thursday morning meetings, known as the Business Plan Review, or BPR, with his sixteen top executives and the executive’s guests from around the world. Not an unusual move (what CEO doesn’t have meetings?). But Alan had some rules that were new to Ford veterans. Attendance was mandatory; no exceptions (travelling executives participated by videoconference). No side discussions, no joking at the expense of others, no interruptions, no cell phones, no handing off parts of the presentation to a subordinate. Each leader was expected to articulate his group’s plan, status, forecast, and areas that needed special attention. Each leader had a mission to help--not judge--the other people in the room.
So far so good. Every new leader tries to break down the existing culture with new ways of doing old things.
But Alan, who had spent his entire career building jet airplanes, had an aeronautical engineer’s faith in structure and process. To get talented people working together, he paid attention to details, all the way down to the granular level. He began each BPR session in the same way: “My name is Alan Mulally and I’m the CEO of Ford Motor Company.” Then he’d review the company’s plan, status, forecast, and areas that needed special attention, using a green-yellow-red scoring system for good-concerned-poor. He asked his top sixteen executives to do the same, using the same introductory language and color scheme. In effect, he was using the same type of structure that I recommend in my coaching process and applying it to the entire corporation. He was introducing structure to his new team. And he did not deviate, either in content or wording. He always identified himself, always listed his five priorities, always graded his performance for the previous week. He never went off-message, and he expected the executive to follow suit.
At first a few executives thought Alan must be joking. No adult running a giant corporation could possibly believe in this seemingly simple disciplined routine, repeated week after week.
But Alan was serious. Structure was imperative at a thriving organization, even more so at a struggling one. What better way to get his team communicating properly than by showing them step by step how great teams communicate?
Most executives quickly signed on. But a couple rebelled. Alan patiently explained that this was the way he’d chosen to run the meeting. He wasn’t forcing the rebellious ones to follow his lead. “If you don’t want to,” he told them, “that’s your choice. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you can’t be part of the team.” No yelling, no threats, no histrionics.
Alan’s first days at Ford are a testament to how willfully--and predictably--people resist change. This was the same Ford leadership team responsible for posting a record $12.7 billion loss the year Alan arrived, the same team asking the new CEO to go hat in hand to bankers in New York and borrow $23 billion to keep Ford operating. If any group was ready for a change, it was Alan’s team. Yet even with their jobs on the line, two of the executives were refusing to change their behavior in the BPR. It wasn’t long before these two resisters decided to become former Ford executives.
Why would executives be willing to pull the rip cord on their careers rather than adapt to such a simple routine? My only interpretation is ego. In the same way that surgeons reject the simple proven structure of a checklist for washing their hands, many executives are too proud to admit they need structure. They consider repetitious activity as mundane, uncreative, somehow beneath them. How could something so simple do any good?
To Alan simple repetition was the key--in fact, the essential element in structure--particularly the color code that encouraged division heads to highlight concerns in yellow and problem areas in red. In the same way that Daily Questions drive us to measure our effort every day and then face the reality of our own behavior, the executives would be announcing how they graded themselves every Thursday--without deviation. Self-scoring, whether a letter grade or Alan’s color coding, demanded transparency and honesty--what Alan called “visibility.” It encouraged everyone to take responsibility, which had an unexpected power in a public forum of CEO and peers. Everyone in the room could see if progress was being made. And the process never ended. The executives knew they’d be meeting again the following week, and the week after that, and so on. And Alan and the entire team would be there, listening to all the reviews and helping one another make progress. Alan’s message was impossible to miss. He was telling his team, “We know we will continue to make progress on our plan because we all know the real status, and we are positively committed to working together to accomplish the plan.”
Alan’s rigid format for the weekly meeting initially seemed like a burden to some executives. The repetition. The preparation. The time spent. Slowly they began to appreciate that they were being handed a gift.
They weren’t allowed to digress or stonewall or try end runs around painful subjects. They had ro face the reality of Ford’s dire situation. In making everyone repeat name, rank, priorities, and color-coded grading each week, Alan had given them a focused and purposefully narrow vocabulary. Everyone knew the plan. Everyone knew the status. Everyone knew the areas that needed special attention. This is how the executives discussed the only metric that mattered during Ford’s turnaround: How can we help one another more?
That’s one of structure’s major contributions to any change process. It limits our options so that we’re not thrown off course by externalities. If we’re only allowed five ministers to speak, we find a way to make our case with a newfound concision--and it’s usually a better speech because of the structural limitations (most audiences would agree).
Behaving Under the Influence of Depletion
The social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister coined the term ego depletion in the 1990s to describe this phenomenon. He contended that we possess a limited conceptual resource called ego strength, which is depleted through the day by our various efforts at self-regulation--resisting temptations, making trade-offs, inhibiting our desires, controlling our thoughts and statements, adhering to other people’s rules. People in this state, said Baumeister, are ego depleted.
Baumeister and other researchers have studied depletion in myriad situations. At first, they studied self-control--our conscious efforts to restrain an impulse in order to achieve a goal or obey a rule--often by tempting people with chocolate. They found that trying to resist a chocolate cookie lowered people’s ability to resist other temptations later on. Like fuel in a gas tank, our self-control is finite and runs down with steady use. By the end of the day, we’re worn down and vulnerable to foolish choices.
Structure is how we overcome depletion. In an almost magical way, structure slows down how fast our discipline and self-control disappear. When we have structure, we don’t have to make as many choices; we just follow the plan. And the net result is we’re not being depleted as quickly.
Alan Mulally must have known this intuitively with his highly structured Thursday BPR meetings. High-achieving, headstrong executives have many behavioral choices in a meeting: What they say, whom they challenge or interrupt, in what terms they report progress, what they omit, how much cooperation or surliness they want to display. The choices, even in a meeting with familiar colleagues, are mind-numbing. Alan’s structure took all of those choices off the table--and in doing so protected the Ford team from themselves. The BPR meetings started at 8 a.m. and often lasted several hours. If executives had been allowed to freewheel for so much time, their collective depletion in the last hour would have been palpable. Being handcuffed by Alan’s rules minimized the depletion, kept them fresh and at their best with a full tank--and they didn’t even know it.
If we provide ourselves with enough structure, we don’t need discipline. The structure provides it for us. We can’t structure everything obviously--no environment is that cooperative--but all of us rely on structure in small ways some of the time.
I can’t have enough structure in my day. I only wear khaki pants and green polo shirts to work (to add discipline to my shaky fashion sense). I pay a women to call me with my Daily Questions (to discipline my self-awareness). I delegate all travel decisions to an assistant and never question her choices (to discipline my time). It’s an irresistible equation: the more structure I have, the less I have to worry about. The peace of mind more than compensates for whatever I sacrifice in autonomy.
I appreciate that not everyone is as eager to cede control of their lives as I am. Some people are mavericks. They chafe at the imposition of any rule or routine, as if their self-generated discipline is morally and aesthetically superior to externally generated discipline, I get it. We like our freedom. But when I consider the behavioral edge that structure provides, my only question is “Why would anyone say no to a little more structure?”
Observation
Passages from Triggers:
One of the greatest instances of denial involves our relationship with our environment. We willfully ignore how profoundly the environment influences our behavior. In fact, the environment is a relentless triggering mechanism that, in an instant, can change us from saint to sinner, optimist to pessimist, model citizen to thug--and make us lose sight of who we’re trying to be.
The good news is that the environment is not conducting a cloak-and-dagger operation. It’s out in the open, providing constant feedback to us. We’re often too distracted to hear what the environment is telling us. But in those moments when we’re dialed in and paying attention, the seemingly covert triggers that shape our behavior become apparent.
71. Government
The World Until Yesterday Jared Diamond
State authority
Citizens are dissuaded in two ways from resorting to violence: by fear of the state’s superior power; and by becoming convinced that private violence is unnecessary, because the state has established a system of justice perceived to be impartial (at least in theory), guaranteeing to citizens the safety of their person and their property, and labeling as wrong-doers and punishing those who damage the safety of others. If state does those things effectively, then injured citizens may feel less or no need to resort to do-it-yourself justice, New Guinea-style and Nuer-style. (But in weaker states whose citizens lack confidence that the state will respond effectively, such as Papua New Guinea today, citizens are likely to continue traditional tribal practices of private violence.) Maintenance of peace within a society is one of the most important services that a state can provide. That service goes a long way towards explaining the apparent paradox that, since the rise of the first state governments in the Fertile Crescent about 5,400 years ago, people have more or less willingly (not just under duress) surrendered some of their individual freedoms, accepted the authority of state governments, paid taxes, and supported a comfortable individual lifestyle for the state’s leaders and officials.
State civil justice
Once the state has resolved that first step of determining whether the defendant is legally liable in a civil dispute, the state then proceeds to the second step of calculating the damages owed by the defendant if the defendant is found to have breached the contract or been negligent or liable. The purpose of the calculation is described as “making the plaintiff whole”--i.e., insofar as is possible, to restore the plaintiff to the condition that she would have been in if there had been no breach or negligence. For instance, suppose that the seller signed a contract to sell to the buyer 100 chickens at $7 per chicken, that the seller then breached the contract by failing to deliver the chickens, and that the buyer as a result had to buyer 100 chickens at a higher price of $10 per chicken on the open market, thereby forcing the buyer to spend an extra $300 above the contractual amount. In a court case the seller would be ordered to pay to the buyer those damages of $300, plus costs incurred in securing the new contract, plus perhaps interest for the lost use of that $300, thereby restoring the buyer (at least nominally) to the position in which he would have been if the seller had not breached the contract. Similarly, in the case of a tort, the court will attempt to calculate the damages, although that is more difficult to calculate for physical or emotional injury to a person than for damage to property. (I recall a lawyer friend of mine who was defending a motorboat-owner whose motorboat propeller had severed the leg of an elderly swimmer, and who argued to the jury that the value of the severed leg was modest because of the victim’s advanced age and short expected remaining lifespan even before the accident.)
Superficially, the state’s calculation of damages seems similar to compensation negotiated in New Guinea or among the Nuer. But that is not necessarily true. Whereas the standardized compensation for some New Guinea and Nuer offenses (e.g., 40 to 50 Nuer cows for taking a person’s life) could be construed as damages, in other cases non-state compensation is calculated as whatever amount the disputing parties agree on as the basis for putting behind them their injured feelings and resuming their relationship: e.g., the pigs and other goods that my Goti Village friends agreed to pay to the clans that had killed the father of my Goti friend Pius.
State criminal justice
Having thus compared state and non-state dispute resolution systems with respect to civil justice, let’s now turn to criminal justice. Here we immediately encounter two basic differences between state and non-state systems. First, state criminal justice is concerned with punishing crimes against the state’s laws. The purpose of state-administered punishment is to foster obedience to the state’s laws and to maintain peace within the state. A prison sentence imposed upon the criminal by the state doesn’t, and isn’t intended to, compensate the victim for his injuries. Second, as a result, state civil justice and criminal justice are separate systems, whereas those systems are not distinct in non-state societies, which are generally concerned with compensating individuals or groups for injuries--regardless of whether the injury would in a state society be considered a crime, a tort, or a breach of contract.
Advantages and their price
With that as background, let’s now recognise three inherent advantages of state justice when it functions effectively. First and foremost, a fundamental problem of virtually all small-scale societies is that, because they lack a central authority exerting a monopoly of retaliatory force, they are unable to prevent recalcitrant members from injuring other members, and also unable to prevent aggrieved members from taking matters into their own hands and seeking to achieve their goals by violence. But violence invites counter-violence. As we shall see in the next two chapters, most small-scale societies thereby become trapped in cycles of violence and warfare. State governments and strong chiefdoms render a huge service by breaking those cycles and asserting a monopoly of force. Of course, I don’t claim that any state is completely successful at curbing violence, and I acknowledge that states themselves to varying degrees employ violence against their citizens. Instead, I note that, the more effective the control exercised by the state, the more limited the non-state violence.
That’s an inherent advantage of state government, and a major reason why large societies in which strangers regularly encounter each other have tended to evolve strong chiefs and then state government. Whenever we find ourselves inclined to admire dispute resolution in small-scale societies, we have to remind ourselves that it consists of two prongs, of which one prong is admirable peaceful negotiation and the other prong is regrettable violence and war. State dispute resolution also has its own two prongs of which one is peace negotiation, but the state’s confrontational second prong is merely a trial. Even the most horrible trial is preferable to a civil war or a cycle of revenge murders. That fact may make members of small-scale societies more willing than members of state societies to settle their private disputes by negotiation, and to focus those negotiations on emotional balance and the restoration of relationships rather than on vindicating rights.
A second advantage or potential advantage of state-administered justice over do-it-yourselves traditional justice involves power relationships. A disputant in a small-scale society needs to have allies if his bargaining position is to be credible, and if he really wants to collect those cattle that the Nuer leopard-skin chief has proposed as appropriate compensation. This reminds me of an influential article about Western state justice, entitled “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law”--meaning that mediation in states takes place with both parties aware that, if mediation fails, the dispute will be settled in court by the application of laws. By the same token, compensation negotiations in small-scale societies take place “in the shadow of war”--meaning that both parties know that, if the negotiation is unsuccessful, the alternative is war or violence. That knowledge creates a non-level playing field in small-scale societies and gives a strong bargaining advantage to the party expected to be able to marshal more allies in the eventuality of war.
Theoretically, state justice aims to create a level playing field, to offer equal justice to all, and to prevent a powerful or rich party from abusing her power so as to obtain an unfair settlement. Of course, I and every reader will immediately protest: ”Theoretically, but …!” In reality, a rich litigant enjoys an advantage in civil and criminal cases. She can afford to hire expensive lawyers and expert witnesses. She can pressure a less affluent adversary into settling, by filing extensive discovery motions in order to drive up the adversary’s legal costs, and by filing suits that have little merit but that will be costly for the other party to contest. Some state justice systems are corrupt and favor wealthy or politically well-connected parties.
Yes, its unfortunately true that the more powerful disputant enjoys an unfair advantage in state justice systems, as in small-scale societies. But states at least provide some protection to weak parties, whereas small-scale societies provide little or none. In well-governed states a weak victim can still report a crime to the police and will often or usually be heard; a poor person starting a business can seek the state’s help in enforcing contracts; a poor defendant in a criminal case is assigned a court-paid lawyer; and a poor plaintiff with a strong case may be able to find a private lawyer willing to accept the case on contingency (i.e., lawyer willing to be paid a fraction of the award if the case is successful).
Still a third advantage of state justice involves its goal of establishing right and wrong, and punishing or assessing civil penalties against wrong-doers, so as to deter other members of the society from committing crimes or wrongs. Deterrence is an explicit goal of our criminal justice system. In effect, it’s also a goal of our tort system of civil justice, which scrutinizes causes of and responsibility for justice for injuries, and which thereby seeks to discourage injury-provoking behavior by making everyone aware of the civil judgments that they may have to pay if they commit such behaviors. For example, if Malo had been sued for civil damages for killing Billy under an effective state justice system, Malo’s lawyer would have argued (with good chances of success) that the responsibility for Billy’s death did not lie with Malo, who was driving safely, but instead with the mini-bus driver who let Billy off in the face of on-coming traffic, and with Billy’s uncle Genjimp, who was waiting to greet Billy on the opposite side of a busy road. An actual case in Los Angeles analogous to that of Billy and Malo was that of Schwartz v. Helms Bakery. A small boy was killed by a car while running across a busy street to buy a chocolate doughnut from a Helms Bakery truck; the boy had asked the driver to wait while the boy ran across the street to his house to fetch money; the driver agreed and remained parked awaiting the boy on that busy street; and the court held that a jury should decide whether Helms Bakery was partly responsible for the boy’s death, through the driver’s negligence.
Such tort cases put pressure on citizens of state societies to be constantly alert to the possibility that their negligence may contribute to causing an accident. In contrast, the private negotiated settlement between Billy’s clan and Malo’s colleagues provided no incentive to New Guinea adults and mini-bus drivers to reflect on risks to schoolchildren running across streets. Despite the millions of car trips daily on the streets of Los Angeles, and despite the few police cars patrolling our streets, most Los Angelenos drive safely most of the time, and only a tiny percentage of those millions of daily trips end in accidents or injuries. One reason is the deterrent power of our civil and criminal justice system.
But let me again prevent misunderstanding: I’m not praising state justice as uniformly superior. States pay a price for those three advantages. State criminal justice systems exist primarily to promote goals of the state: to reduce private violence, to foster obedience to the state’s laws, to protect the public as a whole, to rehabilitate criminals, and to punish and deter crimes. The state’s focus on those goals tends to diminish the state’s attention to goals of individual citizens involved in dispute resolution in small-scale societies: the restoration of relationships (or of non-relationships), and reaching emotional closure. It is not inevitable that states ignore these goals, but they often do neglect them because of their focus on the state’s other goals. In addition, there are other defects of state justice systems that are not so inherent, but are nevertheless widespread: limited or no compensation through the criminal justice systems to victims of crime (unless through a separate civil suit); and, in civil suits, the slowness of resolution, the difficulty of monetizing personal and emotional injuries, the lack of provision (in the U.S.) for recouping of attorney fees by a successful plaintiff, and the lack of reconciliation (or often, worse yet, increased bad feelings) between disputants.
We have seen that state societies could mitigate these problems by adopting practices inspired by procedures of small-scale societies. In our civil justice system we could invest more money in the training and hiring of mediators and the availability of judges. We could put more effort into mediation. We could award attorney fees to successful plaintiffs under some circumstances. In our our criminal justice system we could experiment more with restorative justice. In the American criminal justice system we could re-assess whether European models emphasizing rehabilitation more and retribution less would make better sense for criminals, for society as a whole, and for the economy.
Observation
1. Extract from The World Until Yesterday,
“Maintenance of peace within a society is one of the most important services that a state can provide. That service goes a long way towards explaining the apparent paradox that, since the rise of the first state governments in the Fertile Crescent about 5,400 years ago, people have more or less willingly (not just under duress) surrendered some of their individual freedoms, accepted the authority of state governments, paid taxes, and supported a comfortable individual lifestyle for the state’s leaders and officials.”
2. Right from the start there were evidence against the neighbour and officers, but as the authority did not give a reply, he blogged. He continued to blog as officers caused troubles during and after he sold his flat. The situation is better left to the Government to resolve since the problem lies with the officers. Officers had pushed for mediation through the Community Mediation Centre with the neighbour, but he thinks it is both a civil and criminal case involving officers with the neighbour.
Please refer to Report (1), Justice (18), Evidence (21), Standpoint (34), Deliberation (37) and Wealthy Families (71) for details of the case.
71. Bully
趙之楚《霸凌（二）》2017/6/9
✽ ✽ ✽
中文因為是「單字單音」說起來很容易產生「混肴、誤解」，因而產生了兩字或四字的組合「詞彙」。詞彙的組合原則有「同音組合」與「同義組合」：
「同音組合」又分「雙聲」與「疊韻」兩類：
兩個字的「聲母」相同，稱之為「雙聲」；譬如：琵琶、流連、玲瓏…
兩個字的「韻母」相同，稱之為「疊韻」；譬如：落魄、盤桓、侷促…
「同義組合」就是將兩個「字義相同、或相反」的字組合成詞：譬如兄、姐向人介紹說：這是我「兄弟」（詞意相反），其實就是「這是我弟弟」的意思；而「霸凌」則是一個「同義組合詞」。
霸凌現象，不論是發生在何時、何地，都是人類，或獸類的「原生態」行為，「強凌弱，眾暴寡」是不學而能的，是出於「人心」的自然表現。
趙之楚所說的「人心」，不是「人心不古」的人心，而是來自《尚書》中所說的：「人心惟危」的險惡人心，趙之楚認為，這種「險惡」之心，是與生俱有的與禽獸無異的「食色」本能，也就是人的「獸性」部分。
就事論事，從「行為現象」看，「霸凌」現象是人類社會，不分種族，不分膚色，不分語言、文化，不分古今，甚至是「古勝於今」，常有的，普遍存在的現象，正是《進化論》所說的，為了追求自我的生存，所表現出的「弱肉強食」的「原生態行為」…
既使是「人文精神」高度發達的現代，仍認為「緊急避難」（處於生死關頭，為求自保，作出傷害他人）的行為，仍是法律與道德都認可的。理由就是「強者生存」。
「原生態」的相對詞就是「文明」。甚麼是「文明」呢？就是脫離原始的，以求自我生求存為主導的「人心」，「弱肉強食」的「暴力行為」模式，進入以「道心」為主導的，「扶傾濟弱」的，具有「惻隱、羞惡、辭讓、是非」四心的「文明行為」，或人之所以稱之為人的行為。
趙之楚說的「道心」，是來自《尚書》中所說的：「道心惟微」的「道心」，也是孟子說的，缺一就是「非人」的：「惻隱、羞惡、辭讓、是非」四心。或稱之為「良知良能」，也就是民間常說的「天地良心」，也是人與生俱有的DNA的一部分，與神無關，與宗教無關，神與宗教只是鼓勵人發揚「道心」，或使「惟微」的「道心」不致泯滅而已。
這一丁點兒「惟微」的，「時明時暗」的「道心」，正是人類「趨善行為」（由野蠻進入文明）的主要驅動力。
凡是具有「可馴服性」（本能以外的「學習」能力）的動物，多少都有一丁點兒「道心」，只是人稍微多一丁點兒，所以人的「進化過程」比其他動物快的多。
說的更明白些，就是遠離「無異於禽獸」的，以「人心」（人性的罪惡部分）為主導的貪婪社會，進入以「道心」（人性的善良部分「良知良能」之心）為主導的和平、和諧、互助的社會。
創立宗教的人，與其他「著書立說」的學者一樣，書一寫成，一流傳開，創立者、或原作者，都無法因應時代、環境的變遷，隨時作出適宜的「解釋」，就是在耶穌基督傳道說教的當時，13門徒，對耶穌基督宣講的道理，後來稱之為《聖訓》，或《聖經》，已經各因理解不同，而有不同的說詞，越往後分歧越嚴重，越巨大…
尼采說「上帝已死」，並沒有否定上帝的存在，而是說「上帝頒布《聖訓》之後，祂對自己說的話，就喪失了管轄權、解釋權。祂的聖訓（聖經）成了別有用心者（使徒們），作為達到自身目標的工具，加以利用，予以踐踏。就像中國古代詩人常說的：「天若有情，天亦老。」這個天就是「上帝」。
耶穌基督布道時，應該也會像孔子那樣「因才施教」，因為《聖經》中常有對同一件事，前後有不同的說法。後世信徒就撿對自己有利的，作對自己有利的「斷章取義」的解釋，自立門派，取神而代之！
「因主耶穌之名」做壞事（騙財、騙色、發動戰爭）的人還少了嗎？正如羅蘭夫人說的：「自由，自由，多少罪惡假汝之名而行。」
古今多少戰爭，不是假「宗教之名」而行的？
孔子對門徒「問仁」這樣的同一問題，就有因人、因時而作不同的回答：
樊遲問仁。孔子說：「仁者先難而後獲，可謂仁矣。」
樊遲是為孔子駕車的御者，為人憨厚，前後一共三次問仁，孔子的回答每次都不同。
顏淵問仁。孔子說：「克己復禮為仁。一日克已復禮，天下歸仁焉。為仁由己，而由人乎哉！」
顏淵，在孔門弟子中，屬於「德行科」的榜首人物。孔子對這位高足是讚了又讚：「賢哉回也！一簞食，一瓢飲，在陋巷，人不堪其憂，回也不改其樂；賢哉回也！回也其心三月不違仁」。顏淵死後孔子甚至說：「噫！天喪予！」意思是：「後繼無人了！」
有弟子勸孔子不要太過悲傷，孔子說：「是嗎？我不為這樣的人悲慟，將為誰悲慟？」
仲弓問仁。孔子說：「出門如見大賓，使民如承大祭。己所不欲，勿施於人。在邦無怨，在家無怨。」
仲弓就是冉雍，屬於「政事科」，孔子認為他是可以做南面王的人物，孔子的回答就含有殷殷之望。
司馬牛問仁。孔子說：「仁者，其言也訒。」司馬牛又問：「其言也訒，斯謂之仁已乎？」孔子說：「為之難，言之得無訒乎？」
司馬牛姓冉名耕，字伯牛，魯國人，在孔子學生中，屬「德行」科。
樊遲問仁。孔子說：「愛人。」
樊遲問仁。子說：「居處恭，執事敬，與人忠。雖之夷狄，不可棄也。」
子張問仁於孔子。孔子說：「能行五者於天下，為仁矣。」「請問之？」曰：「恭、寬、信、敏、惠。恭則不侮，寬則得眾，信則人任焉，敏則有功，惠則足以使人。」
子張，姓顓孫，名師，是一位有志從政的學生，曾向孔子「學為官之道」。孔子利用他問仁的機會，教導一些為官之道。
孔子的教學原則，不只是「因才施教」，而且據有「導向作用」。對同一個弟子，不同的時間問同一個問題，也有不同的答案，譬如樊遲就問過三次甚麼是「仁」，而答案卻各不相同。
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Observation
Article in Chinese on the subject of bully「霸凌」.
71. Wealthy Families
Help, I’m Rich! Kees Stoute
Raising Wealthy Children--So Many Obstacles
Before it makes sense to start thinking about how you can avoid having the proverb “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” apply to your family situation, it is important to gain insight into the typical challenges that rich families have when raising their children. In this chapter we take a closer look at the patterns that we observe with regard to children growing up in a wealthy setting.
Why is it so challenging to raise children with healthy, strong, determined characters, which they need to be successful and ultimately happy in their own right? We observe a few patterns. A relative large number of wealthy children:
1. Tend to be isolated from society, often leading to loneliness.
2. Live with high and pressurizing expectations.
3. Are struggling with self-esteem issues.
4. Are “suffering” from the abundance of choice.
5. Struggle with a mismatch between appearance and being, between outside and inside, between form and substance.
6. Show symptoms of egocentrism.
It is obvious that none of these contributes to happiness. And as we believe that happiness is key to wealth preservation, this is worrisome. We need to understand better why these patterns occur, which is the objective of this chapter.
Isolation
A relatively large number of wealthy children live isolated from society. It might seem as if they have many friends, but be careful: Having plenty of friends and more than 500 friends on Facebook does not mean that you can’t be lonely. Famous pop-star Rihanna, who is usually surrounded with many people, once said: ”Being famous isn’t always what it seems to be. People looking in from the outside believe that being rich and successful brings happiness. This is not true. Fame is lonely. It is difficult to made true friends in the music business, because you can’t trust anyone.” The same applies to wealth. There are a few factors that explain why this is the case.
Many wealthy children have protective parents: “The world is a dangerous place.” Among high-net-worth (HNW) parents we frequently see a tendency to overprotect the child. This type of protection is basically driven by fear. When educating their kids, such fear can manifest itself by warning the kids against the big, bad world and consequently keeping them away from all these dangers. Huge walls are built around these kids, resulting in their not knowing what is out there and gradually developing a strong sense of being different from all those against whom they are protected (virtually the whole world). In an effort to explain and understand why they are different, these wealthy children believe that nobody can understand them or maybe that they are superior compared to all those who do not form part of their ecosystem (which could manifest itself in snobbish behavior). Regardless of how they explain their difference from others, the outcome is the same: They alienate themselves from their environment making it difficult to develop deep and meaningful relationships.
Being raised with the lesson that the outside world is dangerous and always trying to take advantage of you, no matter how true this often could be, basically means that you are taught to live your life with low levels of trust. “Why are they so nice to me? Because of my money and/or social status? Better not take the risk.” Growing up with a high level of distrust creates cynicism.
The main advantage of being able to trust and feel trusted is that it lowers anxiety levels. This stems from an internal, relaxing peace with oneself and one’s environment, which explains why there is a strong correlation between trust and happiness. Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for Happiest Places in the World, concludes: ”Trust is a prerequisite for happiness. Several studies have found that trust--more than income or even health--is the biggest factor in determining our happiness.” A good illustration of high levels of stress and unhappiness as a result of absence of trust is “paranoia,” which is a common and one of the most debilitating manifestations of distruat.
“Wealthism” sets wealthy children apart. “Wealthism” refers to a belief that wealth is the primary determinant of human qualities and capacities and that these financial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular class. Wealthism is a prejudice, a form of discrimination, which comes with the usual envy and hatred. Apparent envy and hatred leads to a sense of being different; and we just saw what happens with kids who have to explain for themselves why they are different.
Being treated differently just because you are born rich is difficult to bear for a young kid. One mechanism is not to talk about it: Who wants to talk about money when it changes perception others have of you? Money becomes taboo. Being different is not easy to deal with for children, often leading to isolation and loneliness. And complaining about being treated differently--not because of who you are, but what you are--does not help, as the environment does not show much sympathy and support for someone who has the means to live without sympathy and support.
Parents in wealthy families are often controlling, workaholic, perfectionist, and narcissistic, which could lead to the children feeling unloved. A relatively high percentage of HNW families consist of parents who are more than usually controlling, workaholic, perfectionistic, or even narcissistic, as this often is the very reason why they became so successful in the first place. A workaholic parent works 18 hours a day, seven days a week--certainly a way to made it bigtime. The problem with such a schedule is that there is not much time left for the kids.
Similarly, perfectionist parents will be good at what they do, as they tend to impose high expectations on themselves. The downside is that with perfectionists there could be be a tendency for the kids to feel that their parents’ love has to be earned by good performance. In other words, the love feels conditional.
Then there are the controlling parents. The urge to control mostly finds its origins in feeling of inadequacy, insecurity, weakness, fear, feelings of being unloved, and feelings of worthlessness. The subconscious assumption is that if you feel powerful and in control, these feelings will most likely subside (or even disappear). People with a strong drive to control tend to be successful as they display characteristics that seem to be easily confused with managerial qualities. Strongly controlling parents usually have difficulty developing two-way communication with their children and are tempted instead--in an often rigid manner--to ensure that the children are doing what they consider the right thing.
Narcissistic parents have a strong, almost obsessive focus on appearance and an insatiable hunger for attention: What you do or have is much more important than who you are. Authenticity is replaced by a “false self,” a mask (in an effort to hide vulnerabilities). This drive to shine often leads to personal success, but again, often at the expense of the children. The main downside is that it often comes with low levels of expressed love, high parental absenteeism, and the (implicit) lesson to value appearance more than authenticity, which in turn comes at the expanse of the capacity to love or be loved.
In short, the very reasons why many people become (financially) successful are the same cause their kids to doubt being loved by their parents.
Children tend to be deeply hurt when they feel unloved by their parents, ultimately affecting their self-confidence and self-worth. “If my own parents don’t love me enough to be there for me, how can I expect others to love me and be there when I really need them?” Once a child is subconsciously stuck in such a belief, it will automatically lead to distancing himself from others, and therefore to (a destructive, negative type of) isolation. It might lead to the (again, subconscious or even unconscious) decision never to be hurt again, which could in turn lead to a desire to control (see earlier), which once again is not healthy as it affects the ability to develop meaningful, intimate, and lasting relationships and thus contributes further to isolation and loneliness.
Some of the absent parents realize that they don’t have the time or the ability to give love and out of guilt compensate for that by granting every whim. However, that has the potential to make things far worse as it could lead to what is commonly referred to as “spoiled kids,” whereby spoiled is defined as a style of education that deprives children of the opportunity to learn that not every wish in life can be satisfied. As a result these kids don’t develop the ability to delay gratification or to tolerate frustration. If things don’t go the way they like, they throw a tantrum or ”resign” altogether. To put it more dramatically, they end up without the knowledge of how to take the basic everyday steps of living. Therefore they won’t be prepared for a life that will include the frustrations inherent in self-discipline, achievement, and deep relationships.
This in turn contributes to a delay of maturity, which in the end has the potential of developing into a sense of worthlessness. Again, this is not an ideal foundation for developing meaningful, lasting relationships and certainly does not contribute to happiness.
A high sense of entitlement ultimately leads to wealthism-fueling behavior. Many kids from wealthy families feel entitled to the wealth of their parents. In his article “The Path of Altruism: A Reflection on the Nature of a Gift and Its Consequences in Leading to Entitlement or Enhancement” (2005), James E. Hughes explains how “entitlement” implies a level of dependency. The entitled spend much time defending their rights to the things they did not create. They tend to live negatively in the sense that they don’t manage to find their own purpose and calling as a free person. They live in fear of losing their “rights.” They become so attached to the things to which they are entitled that they live in the delusion that they could not exist without those things, thus turning them to victim-thinking with an ever-deepening loss of self-awareness and personal freedom. This kind of (mostly subconscious) thinking might lead to a negative, almost defensive approach to life, preventing the children from taking the kinds of risks needed to develop their own talents and purpose.
The problem here is that dependency and happiness are negatively correlated: The more dependent someone is on someone or something, the lower the level of (perceived) personal freedom, the lower the likelihood of experiencing true happiness. In other words, the more money becomes a purpose rather than a tool, the more it has the quality (like any other addiction) of weakening character and mental strength.
Among the entitled we may find two common traits fostering isolation and loneliness. First, there are the entitled individuals who suffer from feelings of superiority; they barely display the virtues of gratitude and humility. A second observable trait of entitled behavior is the sense of having a low level of accountability: The law applies to the people, not to me. Both feelings of superiority as well as low levels of accountability lead ultimately to a negative, probably even hostile social milieu (fueling wealth), ultimately driving the child in the direction of isolation and loneliness.
A sense of being different, superior, or misunderstood, a low level of trust toward others, a decision not to be hurt again, a hostile, jealous environment each lead in their own way to higher levels of isolation and loneliness. The main consequence of living an isolated life is that the child misses an opportunity to develop the understanding and strength of character that are needed to successfully navigate the larger social milieu. That could very well deprive them of the opportunity to become successful in society, thus contributing to a sense of unhappiness….
Conclusion
We discussed six patterns that we observe specifically among the rich, potentially having a significant impact on the development of the next generation. These observations might be partly overlapping and probably not exhaustive, but they serve as a valuable illustration of the kind of (often powerful) psychological forces that are at work in wealthy settings.
We may downplay these patterns or insist on a much more nuanced or elaborate and in-depth description of the patterns, but the fact remains that whereas being born in a rich family comes as a blessing, the wealth can become a source of deep unhappiness.
When you sense unhappiness, what do you do? Address it or deny it? An additional problem of being rich is that you have the means to suppress and deny it. However, denial hardly ever solves a problem. Instead it ultimately leads to the manifestation of one or more symptoms of unhappiness, such as depression, anger, resentment, boredom, emptiness, low self-awareness, lack of interest, looking for quick fixes, addictions (alcohol, drugs, sex, work, gambling, spending, eating, etc.), thrill seeking, narcissism, and perfectionism.
All the described manifestations of unhappiness have in common that they make it very difficult to form intimate and lasting relationships, thus deepening the sense of unhappiness.
The proverb “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” is not used to mock the third generation; it is not stupidity or incompetence that leads to the demise of family wealth. The key message of the proverb is that there are invisible forces at work that have a debilitating effect on character building. These invisible forces, which we refer to as the “wealth trap,” make it very difficult to pass on the first-generation mentality and values to the second and third generation--precisely the mentality and values that brought financial success to the family.
Once caught by the wealth trap, the wealthy child runs the risk of being driven toward isolation and loneliness, toward an unreasonable pressure to meet high expectations, toward a sense of low self-esteem, toward a tendency to stall decision making as a result of having too many choices, toward a desire to pretend (i.e. to be the person he wants to be or he think he should be rather than to be who he is), toward a high level of egocentricity, and so on. All of these directions have in common that they affect mental strength to the extent that wealthy children may lack the will, perseverance, determination, ability, and focus needed to live a successful and fulfilled life, thus leading to a form of decay combined with (or maybe causing) a reduced ability to develop meaningful, lasting, and deep relationships. This is not the ideal context for developing happiness.
Raising happy children in a wealthy setting is not easy. Like an invisible virus waiting for its opportunity to infect and weaken you, the wealth trap is always somewhere nearby.
A Basic Concept of Happiness
As we consider happiness to be a key indicator of whether the wealth trap is actively working to validate the shirtsleeve proverb, it is important to develop a concept of happiness. Richard Layard, a leading psychologist with many publications on the topic of happiness, identifies the following seven happiness ingredients:
1. Family ties
2. Financial situation
3. Work
4. Social environment
5. Health
6. Personal freedom
7. Philosophy of life
The first five ingredients are rather evident and won’t require much explanation. The last two are possibly a bit vague and deserve some elaboration.
Personal freedom refers to the ability to think and act independently from others (e.g., government, society, parents, etc.). As mentioned earlier, any form of dependency affects our personal freedom and with that indirectly our happiness. This also applies when people are dependent on wealth. We saw, for example, in the case of children who feel entitled, that in fact they are to a large extent dependent on money, which de facto affects their personal freedom. This could reach a stage where they think and act like “slaves” of the money that instead should have served as a powerful tool to foster further happiness. Ultimately this lack of personal freedom, this master-slave relationship with money, will loosen the connection to the true, authentic self. As a result the wealthy child might become too distracted from developing a profound inner sense of security and well-being and approach life increasing from the outside in.
The philosophy of life refers to a slightly more complex happiness ingredient. It basically means that if people are not clear about their purpose, values, and vision, they lack direction. And without direction there can’t be focus. Without direction and focus, life will be drifting away, which obviously does not in any way contribute to sustained happiness.
Purpose refers to why we are here. Some people define their purpose by answering the question “For whom do I want to be on this earth and what or how can I contribute to their lives?” Another possible question to discover one’s purpose is “What would I do if I had no fear?” The answers to these and similar questions should come from an inner voice, which we called earlier “our authentic self.”
Our values are what is important to us and therefore constitute our moral compass, our priorities. Values influence the choices and decisions we make in our lives. Values work hand-in-hand with purpose as the two combined give us the unwavering belief in what we stand for and ensure that we live our life by design, and not someone else’s making.
Vision refers to how we see ourselves in the future from a family, a career, an individual, and a community point of view. What do we want our future to look like?
Once again, by uncovering our purpose (Why are we here?), our values (How do we fulfill our purpose in a rewarding manner?), and our vision (What do we want our future to look like?), we have a strong and well-anchored sense of direction. The stronger our awareness of our purpose, values, and vision, the more anchored our life choices and decisions are and the more we live our life in accordance with our inner voice or authentic self. We will become almost immune to distractions, which is the essence of focus. The more focus we have in our lives, the easier it is to reach a high level of happiness.
It is understandable why philosophy of life, the least tangible of all, is a scary ingredient of happiness. But scary or not, it is an ingredient. Work, financial situation, and health all are tangible, “hard” ingredients of happiness, but philosophy of life is “soft” and seemingly vague. Many people prefer to avoid having to deal with these kinds of soft topics. But running away from an essential ingredient of happiness most likely also means running away from the ability to experience happiness.
How does the wealth trap, as described in the previous chapter, relate to the seven ingredients of happiness? In Figure 19.1 we present an overview, which is not claimed to be exhaustive.
This is obviously only a brief reflection on happiness (as well as on the connection of happiness with the wealth trap). There are thousands of articles, books, and organizations addressing this theme, which illustrates on the one hand that it is considered an important topic to many people, and on the other hand that this topic is a source of confusion, questions, and uncertainty, making people thirsty for any piece of information, insight, and guidance on happiness.
Observation
Similar dynamics are at play where wealth and high office allow unfair treatment of citizens. A form of entitlement where officers with connections are more likely to get promoted and act above their rank.
Constitutionally there is separation of powers, but when such relationships are practised extensively the whole system could be stalemated.
Examples could be found in Mistakes (72), GE2015 (50) and Authority (16). There is no reply from the Prime Minister’s Office, no reply from the President’s Office and no reply from the Public Service Commission respectively.
In Singpass (23), Assurity (23), Defect (23), CPIB (78), CPF Life (78), CPF/HDB (78), CPF 2 (78), CPF 1 (78), there were no attempt to address the issues except for one instance when officers were by-passed and the Silver Housing Bonus approved. And so with Real Estate (77) and House Selling 1 (70), where a real estate company and Council of Estate Agencies respectively did not address issues in their replies.
It all started from a complaint to Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office about a neighbour working a trade in their flat in 2007. Early postings refer to letters from the owner to Head of Pasir Ris Branch Office (HBO), Members of Parliament and various government departments including the media, but all without effect because HBO has all the connections to block the complaint.
He hopes the Second Reading of the constitutional amendments to the elected presidency could resolve the problem. In Constitution (61), passages from The Constitution of Singapore A Contextual Analysis 2015 are quoted to better understand how his case could come to be. The unresolved case having to do with dishonesty and corruption of public officers.
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