ABSTRACT
The total set of conceptual terms of a governing ideology may be broadly sub-divided into the ‘operational’ and the overarching ‘utopian’ elements. The distinction turns on the difference between the conceptual elements which politicians actively use to rationalise the day-to-day operations of the state and those they use to define the ‘utopian’ features of their rule.1 In the PAP government, the umbrella, utopian element is a vision of a democratic society in the ‘final’ analysis; a democratic society with all that are conventionally taken as its desirable attributes, beyond the formality of ‘one person, one vote’ to the embodiment of a political culture in which individuals are respected as such and granted certain freedoms, and in which the collective good is balanced with individual preferences. All these are admissible within the utopian promise as matters of principle, even if the ‘final’ analysis is never arrived at.2 On the other hand, as elucidated in the previous chapter, the operant element is ‘pragmatism’ which enables the government to rationalise, from conception to implementation, state activities on a routine basis.
