Online games can enhance language acquisition. Discuss.

Possible arguments about online games and language

• Addictive
• Replaces social activity with friends and family
• Expensive
• Some argue that it can induce poor behaviour
• Can be used for education
• Can develop thinking skills
• Can enhance problem-solving ability
• Sharpen our reactions
• Develops a competitive spirit
• Can provide links to literature and film
• More active than watching TV
• Some online activities include working with others
• Can be bad for health – not leading an active lifestyle
• Can become divorced from reality
• May lead to crime if no money to buy equipment

How far is it true that art can be as useful as it can be beautiful?

Argument points for art can be as useful as it can be beautiful

• Interior decoration of all sorts
• Furniture
• Landscape Gardening
• Architecture
• Public sculpture
• Bridges
• Cuisine and presentation
• Clothes and fashion
• Receptacles e.g. pottery
• Advertising
• Engineering
• Jewellery
• Photography that raises awareness of contemporary issues
• Could mention art as therapy

Is ecological conservation bad for the economy?

The connection between ecological conservation and the economy has been a subject of severe disputation for decades. Market analysts and policymaking committees of every vantage point seem to concur that a strong linkage prevails between environmental protection and the fiscal state; the controversy arises over the sign of the correlation coefficient. Conservationists contend that environmental protection facilitates economic growth and generate employment whereas detractors argue that environmental protection tends to be adverse towards economic development. In the latter case, environmental regulation stands accused of precipitating an extensive array of disadvantageous monetary consequences and resulting in a loss of global competitiveness. The conviction that ecological conservation gravely impairs the economy has become the centrepiece in the series of attempts of late to annul environmental legislation which aims to amend environmental quality. Concurrently, there is some significance in these animadversions of environmental policies. This essay intends to examine a diversity of claims concerning the economic costs as well as financial profits of ecological conservation. I champion for ecological conservation although it comes with several short-term sacrifices of economic returns. In the long run, the merits of ecological conservation should outweigh the fiscal loss and it is wrong to consider ecological conservation bad for the economy.

            Each claims that environmental regulatory expenditure does significant economic detriment rest upon the hypothesis that the costs are substantial. After all, relatively minuscule environmental funding would not give rise to association with negative implications. However, there are numerous possible interpretations of the term “large regulatory budget”, determined by the context. One definition of the term is compliance figure that is disproportionately astronomical to lead to retrenchment, plant closures, and enervate international competitiveness. This clarification involves hefty regulatory funding approximate to the economic influence of firms. Critics chronically assert that conservation expenditure is overly substantial in a macroeconomic gist, deviating considerable state fiscal resources from productive pursuits into abiding by ecological policies. On the contrary, evaluation of states’ estimated ecological investments amounts to negligible single-digit totals respectively. Allocating two to three per cent of gross domestic product on ecological conservation is implausible to give rise to any major detrimental economic implications.

Bearing in mind the dire conditions of the ecology, environmental expenditures aggregate to a trivial amount relative to similar national priorities such as health care, education and military defence. Developed countries budget an average of 25 per cent of respective gross domestic product to protect individual health and the security of states, therefore it is pathetically meagre to invest only two to three per cent in the health of the ecosystems upon which the economy really depends. Considers surface since certain benefits such as enhanced quality of life derived from conservation efforts are non-quantifiable whereas there are perceptible tangible economic costs. Nevertheless, despite sizeable environmental protection costs, these regulations collectively yield significant counterbalancing advantages to society. In addition, characterizing these admittedly substantial funding indefinite values as a drain on the economy, siphoning off capital that could be consumed prolifically elsewhere, is off the mark. It is more accurate to infer these expenditures as the outcome of citizens’ demands for ecological quality ameliorations. Apportioning resources to meet the market for environmental regulations should not be surmised as economic inefficiency. Hence, given that ecological conservation produces considerable offsetting benefits and is publicly appealed for, the state should revise its disapproving standpoint.

As ecological conservation entails enduring efforts and financing, transitory drawbacks are to be expected in the short run. When governmental bodies embark on protection schemes in the early stages, implementation of laws and measures such as sound development and consumption of water resources, agricultural restructuring, biodiversity conservation, as well as urban forestation and landscape upgrading will lead to layoffs and plant closures. Firms, primarily pollutive and energy-intensive money guzzlers, will be displaced to countries with less binding guidelines. Furthermore, the high preliminary capital elemental to reform pollutive practices will inflate the cost of manufacture of exports hence enervating the competitiveness of local sectors in the global marketplace. For example, logging restrictions in the Pacific Northwest region in the United States has irrefutably retrenched the masses in the indigenous timber industry. However, it would be ill-advised to forgo introducing ecological conservation programmes due to several intermediate challenges. Thus, ecological conservation should be pursued despite the primary economic deficit.

Therefore, traditional economics shows that ecological conservation does not prompt irrevocable pervasive detrimental fiscal effects contrary to conventional wisdom. Nonetheless, detractors of ecological conservation raise moderately factual polemics. Pinpointing and deciphering these problem areas would be a laudable objective in ecological conservation hereafter. Administrations should repetitively scrutinize the marginal costs and benefits of ecological conservation course of actions as means to increase their net merits. There is undeniably leeway for development in ecological conservation but it is mercifully not the economic Frankenstein some would have us believe.

‘Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone’s opinion is of equal value.’ What is your view?

Some argue that everyone’s opinions are equally valuable because every human is equal and different. This is based on the ideal of the democratic process, where everyone’s opinions are given equal weight, and this collective wisdom is used to arrive at a reasonable decision or output. Such can be applied to a democratic voting process, where all citizens above a certain age are eligible to vote to decide a government, to the voting for a contestant in a talent competition, to the eyewitness identifications of a suspect, or even to simple, everyday affairs such as deciding on the place for lunch. Because every person is different and unique in their own way, and have different preferences and perspectives, they come from various viewpoints that may all be important for a certain matter at hand. For instance, a classic example that illustrates the effectiveness of collective intelligence is English statistician Sir Francis Galton’s 1907 observation of a contest in which villagers attempted to guess the weight of an ox. Although not one of the 787 estimates was correct, the average of the guessed weights was a mere one-pound short of the animal’s recorded heft. Since each person adds or contributes to the process in this own different/unique way, each opinion is of equal value and is equally considered for the enhanced, most comprehensive consensus/decision to be made.

However, in reality, while it is true that opinions are different, the accuracy of the opinion is also an important factor in deciding its value. Hence, not all opinions are equally valuable. Specifically, those given by people who are supposed to be more knowledgeable/professional, are generally considered to be more important, while those opinions by the layperson are less valued. Opinions are one’s subjective thoughts, not necessarily based on true facts or knowledge. But, if these are given by experts in a certain field, their opinions are inevitably given more weight, because they are more likely to be evidence-based, hence true and accurate. Compared to the layperson, who may not actually know much about the subject at hand, their opinion hence becomes less valuable because these may not be true or applicable to the situation. This is also one of the most common criticisms of the democratic process; when done on a large scale involving a nation or a state, should all really be considered equally to decide the government? It is only ideal if every citizen is well-informed and capable of searching and sieving for information that is accurate or true of their country, and such is made even more uncertain with the regulation and control of the media and other information sources that may only present bias views on a certain aspect. Untrue, biased, or irrelevant opinions may detrimentally affect the final decision made, so such opinions are considered less, or phased out, and hence not everybody’s opinion is of equal value.

Furthermore, in certain situations, differing opinions are, in reality, not desired. In fact, in a decision-making process, the different or conflicting views, especially if given by a minority population, may not matter as much. This is most true if the group is large, and many people are involved. Such is known as the phenomenon “groupthink”, wherein the group, participants will strive for consensus. Such will cause those with different or opposing opinions to cast away their ideas and adopt the opinion of the rest of the group. Instead of voicing their opinions, they remain quiet to keep the peace rather than disrupt the uniformity. This psychological response automatically means differing opinions are not even considered at all (as they are not said for consideration), and loses its real value in the decision-making process, even though it may have been a crucial factor. This psychological response has a physiology aspect to it as well. From the Emory University’s neuroscientist Gregory Berns, he found that when people take a stance different from the group’s, the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection, is activated. He calls this “the pain of independence.” Hence, if individuals instinctively mimic others’ opinions and lose sight of their own, their opinion, realistically, loses all its value, and as such, not all opinions are of equal value.

Lastly, opinions are not of equal value, because in reality, every human is actually not equal. Society inherent discriminates against certain groups of people, causing their opinions to become repressed and unheard. On the other hand, if it comes from a person in power or status, such opinions may be given more weight. This factor sometimes even overrides the accuracy aspect of the opinion. This is especially true in rigid societal systems with the hierarchical or patriarchal organization. For instance, in a hierarchal system, the population is separated into classes by birth, and the lowest classes are inevitably discriminated against and ignored.  In India, this is prominent with the presence of the deep-rooted caste system in their society, causing the existence of the class known as Dalits (untouchables). Even though the Dalits were also human like the rest of Indian society, they had the poorest standard of life, and were heavily discriminated against; for instance, they were not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls. Now, with certain societal progression and bans against discrimination, many Dalits have improved quality of lives, and broken professional barriers, but many more are still trapped in repulsed jobs, such as disposing of dead animals and cleaning sewers. In 2017, around 90 sewer-cleaners, all Dalits, were fished out dead from India’s drains, an activist group reports. Such shows that Dalits’ needs, opinions are still not entirely met for and heard, due to long-standing discrimination and repression. As such, not everybody’s opinions are of equal value; depending on who it comes from, values are assigned accordingly.

Should the word failure be used in education?

The word failure is employed in a few ways within the education system – it may be used as a concept to reflect the academic performance of a student, to grade a physical assignment or test, and even as a spoken criticism used by teachers on underperforming students. Education’s purpose, broadly speaking, is to transfer knowledge to students, and a means to gauge the degree to which the student has gained knowledge is through these tests and assignments. The use of this term failure is important, nonetheless, as part of education – it is important as a grading standard to both students and the school, and also serves as a means for students to improve. Its eradication then loses its benefits and also creates new problems for education systems.

Opponents of the term’s use would claim that its use as a concept is unfair because there have been many instances where children have been cast aside as “failures”, though they grow up to succeed eventually. However, the concept of failure is an important one because it is an invariable constant in everyone’s lives – teaching children of it and getting them to experience it is the first step to exposing them to the real world, as one cannot hope to succeed in all their endeavours. The blow to students whenever they encounter failure increases with time because stakes increase – not only is a matter of a single assignment but also rejection from job interviews, relationships and the like. Besides, the concept of failure does not vanish merely because the word is used – rather failure is something that permeates through all things competitive. Instead of fearing the word “failure”, the grade “E” becomes the replacement for it, which covertly refers to the failure of the student in that test. Having understood that failure cannot be avoided throughout life, dealing with it head-on by introducing the concept openly to students will teach students to confront their fears, and to improve themselves to prevent another “failure”. The concept of failure is something that must be embraced by students as life’s constant, and they must learn to deal with it appropriately – education cannot seek to hide these important concepts of life from students if it is to achieve its goals of transferring knowledge.

Critics would assert that grading assignments as a “failure” deal too great an emotional blow to growing children, and teachers should refrain from using the term within the educational structure. This would purportedly cause students’ academic performance to drop instead. Despite this claim, the importance of the grade supersedes the emotional loss. the value of the term is most evident in its meaning. Assignments and tests are meant to guide the process of education because it serves as a measure of the proficiency of the student in a specific area. For instance, a biology test tests the ability of the student to synthesise information given to him about the human body, to interpret graphs, and be able to identify certain traits and symptoms. Hence, a student who is deemed a “failure” in the test has not succeeded in obtaining the skills deemed by his teachers to be important. Not only does this mean that labelling the work submitted by the student to be a “failure” is a fair decision, but it also alerts the student to his insufficiency. Thus, using “failure” to grade a piece of work is fair and beneficial.

Some would continue to argue that teachers must act as a form of encouragement for their students, and should not label their students as failures, which would cause them to be shunned. Instead, they should give encouraging grades which would instil positive attitudes. While it is true that teachers should not be careless with criticisms, most teachers are responsible with their words, and more often than not the word is meant as a tool for incentivising greater effort from students for them to attain better performances. On the other hand, the elimination of the term “failure” only generates the problem of grade inflation and decreased standards of education. To relieve themselves of the conundrum of having to give low scores, teachers would decide to reveal answers before a test, give more marks than is due, and award passing grades to even the lowest of scores. Keeping students blind to the world’s requirements is a huge problem especially in today’s hyper-connected, globalised world that requires competition with not just the local students but also those from all around the world. Hence, the forced removal of the term “failure” causes success and achievement to lose its relative meaning, and instead only fosters false hopes that will harm students in the future.

Only when we acknowledge our failure, can we identify reasons for our insufficiency and resolve these problems. Education should guide us in this direction, for failure is an inescapable situation that will exist, whether or not we use it as a word on assignments or on students’ performance in general. Its absence, however, only generates falsified confidence in students, beckoning them towards failure once they leave school. Therefore, failure should be used in education, both taught as a concept and as a remark to push students towards bettering themselves.

Efforts to save the environment are no more than empty promises. To what extent is this true?

As climate change begins to rear its ugly head, the call for environmental conservation has grown louder. If everyone consumed as many resources as Americans did, we could need 4.1 Earths to sustain the population of seven billion. Thus,environmentalists have been relentlessly campaigning for companies and countries to switch to green technology to satiate their energy or financial needs. However, some pessimists still concur that these efforts are futile, but I remain optimistic that humanity has realized the implications of global warming and is taking small steps to reduce their carbon footprint. Hence, one can contend that efforts to save the environment are certainly not merely empty promises.

Prima facie, it may seem obvious that the sheer number of international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are empty promises – as evident in the major fiasco of the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord. However, while international cooperation may be hard, regional bodies have been taking steps to be environmentally friendly because regional cooperation is more effective due to the fewer number of countries involved in the treaty. This is best manifested in the European Union’s (EU’s) environmental policies. Having the world’s largest and wealthiest consumer base, the EU has rolled out regulations on efficiency of motor vehicles and their emissions. Carmakers seeking to enter the market must meet these regulations. Toyota and Ford are forced to develop new technology to meet these regulations. Additionally, these regulations are applied to vehicles from the same manufacturers sold in other countries for product consistency, thus reducing worldwide emissions. Hence, it is conclusive that although international cooperation may come off as an ’empty promise’, pragmatic regional bodies like the EU have found ways to seize their opportunity to salvage this planet.

Besides regional cooperation, small communities in countries have come together to make changes in their ways of living to protect the environment, rendering the phrase ’empty promises’ fallacious. Benjamin Franklin once said,’when the well is dry, we will know the worth of water’. This quote has resonated well with many rural communities in developing countries that rely on agriculture or fishing for a living. In Thailand, depleting fish stocks in the Mekong River have severely affected the livelihoods of numerous Thai fishermen, driving home Franklin’s point about scarcity, prompting them to stop taking the environment for granted. Together with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), 14 villagers in Northern Thailand participated in the Thai Boon programme by setting up conservation zones around Mekong. Fishermen of villages like Ban Muang Choom observed that fishes were able to spawn inside the conservation zone, aiding in the historic protection of the ecosystem, resulting in significantly increased fish yields for fishermen. The economic benefits were a great incentive for the fishermen in Thailand, hence delivering promising benefits to the environment. It would thus be highly skewed for one to assume that humanity is completely incapable of saving the environment because of how multi-faceted this issue is, because even small communities like those in Thailand are doing their part to protect and conserve the environment.

More importantly, it is imperative for us to understand that the quest for environmental conservation has become even more possible in the present epoch because of the rapid advancement of technology. This has allowed us to turn to other green methods of satisfying our energy needs. For instance, Norway is investing billions in developing carbon capture and storage technology. Southern cities in France like Bordeaux and Marseilles use nuclear energy to fuel 40% of their daily energy needs. In comparison, traditional fuel sources like oil and coal produce carbon dioxide when burnt, a greenhouse gas that would further exacerbate global warming. The concepts of geothermal and wind energy are also gaining traction globally. Thus, one can see the correlation between the rapid advancement of technology and its unprecedented positive impact on the environment. Hence, it would be ignorant of one to claim that all efforts to save the environment are just ideas with no concrete action because governments have been actively trying their best to exploit whatever resources at their disposal to ensure that at least some of these promises made translate into action and not just blame it on the complexity of this global issue.

On a less hopeful note, some detractors think otherwise. Playing the role of the devil’s advocate, they believe that while efforts to save the environment are not largely empty promises because of the aforementioned points, there are some instances in which we have to concede that these efforts are in fact empty promises. This is because governments have many trade-offs to make when pursuing environmental policies. These trade-offs often conflict with their economic policies, and hence regardless of the number of treaties that they sign, both the people and the government are innately profit-oriented and would disregard the environmental damages that they inflict. In March 2015, then US President Obama submitted an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution to the United Nations that would commit the US to reach a 26% to 28% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. This led to the US Environmental Protection Agency passing the Clean Air Act. However, would factories actually be willing to cut emissions, by increasing their cost of production by employing green technology, albeit at the expense of their profits? The answer is a resounding no, because of the inherently selfish desires of people. Thus, insofar as the people are not willing to work with their governments to save the environment, any form of intervention by the government would be merely an empty promise. Nonetheless, as I have elucidated earlier, it would be unfair to generalize all efforts to save the environment as purely ‘talk with no action’ because we must concede that in this interconnected world of today, countries are starting to get less self-centred, albeit obvious exceptions from emerging countries like China, and are trying their best to contribute to environmental efforts. Though it would indubitably take time for environmental promises to be translated into action, I believe that humanity is on her way to a green planet ion the distant future.

To sum it all up, the threat that humanity is posing to the environment is certainly a worrying one. We are constantly plagued with a myriad of humanitarian problems, so it would be harsh for one to assume that all our environmental efforts are just empty promises because we are tirelessly trying to deliver some of these promises, in small ways. International and regional cooperation is a sine quo non to addressing our environmental woes. As long as we can cooperate in small ways, like Thailand and Europe, I remain optimistic that efforts to save the environment are largely not empty promises.

The internet is a necessary part of our lives, but for some, it has become an addiction. Discuss.

The internet is a necessary part of our lives can be broken into Keywords as follows: ‘necessary’ and ‘lives’ and ‘addiction’ and ‘Discuss’.

  • Instant communication/retrieval of information
  • Democratised mass communication
  • Revolutionised the way we organise our social life (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace)
  • Changed the shape of entertainment (e.g. YouTube and iPlayer)
  • Financial transactions (e.g. banking/business/bill paying/shopping)
  • Distant family communication (e.g. email/Skype)
  • Always accessible communication (e.g. smartphones/iPhone/Blackberry)
  • Important to daily routines (e.g. school/leisure/need to check emails)
  • Spend too much time – damage and disruption to our daily life
  • On-line games and gambling/shopping/pornography
  • Social networking – only existing in a virtual world
  • Isolation and psychological damage; at the expense of other activities

One suggested topic sentence for Internet is a necessary part of our lives can be as follows: The Internet is playing an important role in human and social development.

If you are unable to come up with 3 other topic sentences (1 SV and 2 OV) despite the points listed above, then it is clear that you may need to read at least 2-3 articles before you can form a cogent thought on how the essay can come together.

The pursuit of money results in an ungracious society. Discuss.

Where money is coveted, the pursuit of it necessarily involves evil deeds which tear families apart and destroy society, or so the quote ‘money is the root of all evil” suggests. This adage has been widely depicted on the silver screen. The depiction of moral degeneration that accompanies the pursuit of money in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ which casts Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort, the stockbroker, who became more immoral the richer he got is one example. These downright unkind acts have admittedly occurred in real life, but it is not necessarily inevitable that society is therefore devoid of kindness and consideration of others. To debunk that, several commonly held assumptions about the pursuit of money have to be evaluated.

To claim that the pursuit of money necessarily results in a society devoid of consideration for especially the less fortunate is to assume that such endeavours seek to benefit only the individual and disregard the impact on the rest of society. The pursuit of money is assumed to be a single-minded end pursued without regard for the means adopted. The Lehman Brothers Minibond saga is often cited to illustrate how in a desperate bid to sell these structured investment products, financial consultants chose to omit critical information about risk exposure to retail investors, many of whom were elderly and less educated. This example underscores the merciless and even underhanded corporate tactics employed in a bid to meet performance targets. To agree with this is to allow an over-generalisation to obliterate the corporate philanthropic endeavours in society. These philanthropic acts are not random sporadic feel-good efforts but coordinated and sustained corporate initiatives. Encouraging corporate social responsibility has in fact become an integral part of many companies’ culture and values. MasterCard runs financial literacy programmes to educate the public to promote financial inclusion and literacy so that the layperson could also benefit from financial services. The DBS (Development Bank of Singapore) has backed numerous community development initiatives. DBS nurtures social enterprises that creatively and effectively address social needs and provide jobs, goods and services to the disadvantaged and marginalised. With responsible corporate philosophy, the pursuit of money does not necessarily result in a cold-blooded pursuit of money. Graciousness is evident when corporations pursue money yet also give back to society in a win-win partnership.

A second assumption is that competition for limited funds is exclusive and it necessarily aims to drive out competition. Graciousness stands in the way of unfriendly and even hostile tactics to drive out competition. Classic examples of ungracious behaviour towards those that society deems to be a threat can be seen in hostility towards unwelcomed immigrants, often regarded as competitors for scarce jobs and whose appeal lies in their willingness to settle for lower pay. This is evident in the hardening of attitudes towards immigrants among the British. Those surveyed indicated that the resentment towards immigrants arose from the belief that they came to claim welfare benefit for which the British have to fund. This assumption fails to recognise the real cause of the hostility and reluctance to be inclusive. It is not the pursuit of money that drives such ungracious behaviour towards immigrants; it is the insecurity borne out of fear that the privilege and rights that come with citizenship are compromised by the presence of a large population of immigrants. These ungracious acts should be addressed, not by regarding it as an inevitable consequence of the pursuit of money, but as a reflection of a need for clearer policy communication of how immigrants benefit the British economy. According to a report released this year on London’s economic future commissioned by its mayor, the pressure to reduce immigration is threatening London’s status as one of the world’s leading cities. It is understandable for ungracious acts to manifest due to growing insecurity in the face of competition that threatens bread-and-butter issues. However, to attribute it to the inevitability of pursuit of money is to disregard the deeper underlying cause of the insecurity which, when addressed, could temper emotions and reduce the incidence of ungracious behaviours.

It is also assumed that because the pursuit of money seeks to maximise profit and stretch every single dollar, all eyes are trained on the bottom line and exploitative acts are ignored or even deemed justified. This mentality is said to manifest in a less empathetic society and in extreme situations, have a dehumanising effect on how labour is regarded: labourers as money-making tools. Regarded as such, workers’ exploitation is evident. Sweatshop exploitation of workers and abuse of live-in domestic workers are not unheard of depictions of an ungracious society’s treatment of menial labour. The tragedy of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh drew the international spotlight on an industry where workers are not just subjected to harassment, violence and abuse, but whose basic guarantees of safety have also been thrown to the wind, to the extent that a building can collapse on top of thousands of workers. Closer to home, news reports of unkind treatment of domestic helpers are not unheard of. Yet, for a very long time, Singapore society fails to recognise such ungracious acts practised in theirs and their neighbours’ homes. Are these acts an inevitable outcome of the pursuit of money? Could the lives lost at this garment factory not have been prevented? Has society been so bent on making every dollar paid to the domestic helper count that it would not even allow her a day off a week? Thankfully not. What is witnessed is a twin trend of ground-up initiatives to check such behaviour and both national and international efforts to institute safeguards. Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) in Singapore is one non-profit organisation that seeks to improve social attitudes towards transient workers and advocate the protection of migrant workers. Increasingly, we also see society being more forthcoming in showing appreciation to construction workers in the form of lunch treats on special occasions. Even as the Singapore society strives to develop her economy and pursue money, there are visible efforts by pockets of people in the society to counter acts of ungraciousness and drive the development of a gracious society. Laws are also important to ensure inclusivity and check exploitative acts in the absence of natural graciousness in society. A combination of civil group advocacy and legislation will act to counter the development of an ungracious society even as society pursues money, however obsessively.

It assumes that the pursuit of money and graciousness are mutually exclusive notions. The two endeavours are deemed to be at odds because while one seeks to accumulate wealth, the other seeks to share the wealth, thereby reducing rather than increasing one’s possession of it. In fact, they can be complementary and the pursuit of money, in turn, encourages acts of graciousness. The pursuit of money is perhaps necessary to engender a gracious society as it places more individuals in positions to exercise grace to uplift society. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs demonstrates that when the physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, individuals seek to fulfil higher-order needs of love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation, with the highest level being self-transcendence when the self only finds its actualisation in giving itself to some higher goals, in altruism and spirituality. Love and belonging, esteem and self-transcendence are concomitants of acts of graciousness when the individual looks beyond the self to enrich the lives of others. The public outpouring of support in words or in-kind whenever disasters strike, as seen in the regional aid for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, or Nepal’s earthquake; and the generous donation garnered at the last minute to make it possible for the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum to purchase the three dinosaur fossils to contribute to the education of natural history heritage are all evidence of how wealth amassed is used to display care and consideration for others.

While there are seemingly persuasive grounds to suspect that the pursuit of money must mean giving little consideration to others, they are premised on debatable assumptions that the pursuit is singular, the tactics employed are cut-throat and the pursuit is an end in itself. This pursuit does not necessarily breed evil because of the existence of social and legal mechanisms to counter any such evil and to cultivate desired graciousness. We should also not doubt the human capacity to both seek to enrich the self and others at the same time.

Can international peace and stability really be attained today?

The First World War was supposed to be the ‘war to end war’. Just one hundred years ago, millions died in one of the deadliest conflicts in history. World War I did not bring the end of warfare. World War II had similar casualties but nothing really changed. With the rapid advancement of technology, the spread of questionable religious beliefs and growing inequalities, the world has witnessed even more bloody conflicts in the 21st century in Syria, Libya and Yemen. One must acknowledge that people and countries place self-interests first, and would result in whatever means to fight for their rights or gain dominance. It is evident that international peace and stability is unattainable in this highly interconnected world of today.

One may naively presume that with more international cooperation, wars would ease. However, some conflicts are driven by religious beliefs makes it all the harder for international peace to be attained despite cooperation in international trade. Furthermore, countries always strive to show their dominance to the world and tend to employ violence to satire their selfish interests. All countries face a constant struggle to survive and will indiscriminately threaten others to pacify national interests. Territorial disputes are the best manifestation of conflicts due to self-interests. These disputes are still prevalent today, among two or more countries in a bid to preserve their sovereignty.

The quest for international peace and stability today is also a futile once because inequalities still prevail all over the world, and marginalised groups often take to violence to fight for their rights, or are in fact victims of violence why the majority. The truth of the matter is that, when countries came to a consensus on human rights, there was much ambiguity, and thus, we currently live in a world where international peace is practically impossible because governments themselves do not exactly know what rights to grant to their people, and as a result, there are factions who feel that they are deprived of their rights.  The sheer scale of inequalities in the world, from the racial discrimination in the US to the sexual discrimination in Nigeria to the vast income disparity plaguing both nascent and developed nations, conflicts are inevitable. Hence, international peace and stability is not totally attainable today.

However, the natural corollary to the aforementioned arguments would be for apologists to contend that while international peace is largely unattainable today, there is a hint of hope. This could be attributed to the fact that international cooperation has been happening at unprecedented levels, and hence countries might turn to negotiations instead of violence to settle disputes. Furthermore, the establishment of regional bodies could mean that countries will be less motivated to use force and instead settle their conflicts peacefully so that they can enjoy perennial benefits from that regional body. The notion of international peace may seem like a plausible one. However, one must also understand that some countries are only effective insofar as the countries are willing to accept aid and understand the significance of preserving peace in that region.

Nonetheless, one could still assert that with the rise in surveillance technology today, it would be easier for governments to spy on clandestine groups who are planning a war, thus making international peace possible.  The Patriot Act in the US also makes it legal for the government to access electronic accounts such as email accounts of suspected terrorists. However, to presume that this could lead to the complete establishment of world peace would be highly ignorant, because terrorist groups, for example, have bases all over the world and it would be technically impossible for technology such as drones to track down these terrorists.

The notion of international peace is a multi-faceted one. There have been numerous developments over the 21st century that proved hope for a better tomorrow. However, an indubitable fact of humanity is that we are all actually myopic individuals who only want to satisfy our own needs. Furthermore, there are still countries living in a dystopia, where violence is rife. Their governments have too many issues on the plate to resolve, and so there are still factions in those societies who feel that they are deprived of rights and thus turn to violence. It is naive to believe that war may one day become a thing of the past.

Rehabilitation, not punishment, should be the purpose of the justice system.’ Discuss.

Some argue that the punishment should be the purpose of the system. For the one who committed the crime, payback should be brought back to him/her via the justice system. This form of retributive punishment also marks an objective expression of abhorrence towards violations of law. The degree of punishment should be determined by the severity of the crime. For instance, petty crimes which are should involve a fine, counselling or a short 30-day jail term. While more serious crimes, which involve violent crimes like murder, rape and other aggravating crimes should incur many years or a life sentence. Punishment should clearly enforce the concrete message that crime is wrong and that criminals, who violate the law, will be brought to order. If there is no punishment, then it means there are no consequences for the wrong that has been committed. Under the causality principle, every cause has an effect, and every action should have a consequence. This should be especially true for the actions of criminals, which violate and detriment the laws or rules of society out of their own choices or decisions. Hence, punishment, being the thing that most clearly and concretely illustrates the abhorrence towards and payment or consequences of crime, should be the purpose of the justice system.

Critics may disagree with the above stand. If punishment is the purpose of the system, the only message it is sending out is that the justice system is an unforgiving one, which will ultimately lead to its own stagnation and demise. Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye will eventually make the whole world blind.” In a situation as that of a crime committed, with punishment, nobody benefits. What has happened has already happened. It is a lose-lose situation, not capable of bringing true comfort to the victims of crime, nor giving the perpetrator of the crime his/her appropriate closure. On the other hand, if there are developments towards rehabilitation, at the very least, with a forgiving mindset, the criminal is given the potential to possibly fit back into society and redeem oneself again, and that could be a possible benefit out of the entire situation. While punishment is still necessary to some extent to show that wrongdoings have consequences, but, in the end, can the criminal gain anything out of it? The practical answer is, No!

Defenders of punishment argue that punishment should be the purpose of the system, because it also has deterrent properties, and can subsequently best maintain order in society. With the presence of punishment, it prevents potential criminals from becoming actual criminals. Even for offenders are less likely to repeat their crimes again, as they become “Once bitten, twice shy”. Since prevention is better than cure, punishment, being able to prevent crime, thus best maintains law and order in society, and should be the purpose of the justice system. Specifically, with punishment, it spells out what is acceptable and unacceptable within the law, serving as the “threat” as to what will happen if the law is breached. Countries like Singapore that maintain a strict system of punishment have clearly demonstrated that punishment does help contain crime, particularly socially damaging crime like drug trafficking. Punishment should be the main purpose of justice. It is a simple and effective message.