THINKING: ASK "WHY," NOT JUST "HOW"

13 Aug 1995

        The recent spate of articles on thinking sound a refrain that 
goes thus: Students and workers must be trained to devise "creative" 
solutions to "unexpected problems" so that Singapore would retain its 
competitive edge. Not surprisingly, this laudable goal has been well 
received. However, it is striking that the articles have focused almost 
exclusively on the problem-solving aspect of thinking. They have been 
remarkably mute on the boundary-challenging (otherwise known in the 
jargon as "theory-building") aspect of thinking. This is regrettable, 
since it is precisely the latter mode that is necessary for qualitative 
improvement; the former mode is capable of incremental progress only. 
This is especially true in the context of social issues.
        The problem-solving approach to social questions accepts the 
dominant organisational paradigm of society and seeks the best 
solutions within the constraints imposed by the assumptions of that 
paradigm. It is an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary, approach. 
Boundary-challengers, in contrast, seek to redefine the issues and 
devise novel solutions by questioning  existing social parameters. In 
reaching beyond the tried-and-tested, the latter approach is inevitably 
riskier. It is, however, arguably both necessary and desirable as we try 
to cope with the consequences of rapid socio-economic change.
        This is not to say that the boundary-challenging mode of 
thinking must be applied to all social questions. The result of such a 
dogmatic stance would be the undesirable erosion of social stability. In 
the main, most social questions yield readily to the problem-solving 
approach. However, there will be those that require for their solution a 
critical evaluation, and possibly reform, of the existing social paradigm. 
To be over-zealous in discouraging boundary-challengers invites social 
ossification as stability degenerates into stagnation.
        Therefore, in promoting the problem-solving aspect of creative 
thinking, we should not neglect the equally important boundary-
challenging mode. The Establishment is now committed to fostering 
problem-solving thinking in Singaporeans; whether it finds boundary-
challenging  acceptable is still open to question. Unfortunately, the 
evidence to date appears to indicate that boundary-challenging is a 
mode of thinking that is often labelled with the catch-all epithet, 
"Western liberalism," and frowned upon as "disrespectful."
        One effect of the reluctance to accept boundary-challenging is 
a dearth of ideals among our youth, as indicated most recently by a 
report stating that most young lawyers shy away from practising 
criminal law because it is not as lucrative as other branches of law. 
Social idealism fires a person to seek to improve society through 
fundamental social change. When that option is denied, it is not 
surprising that idealism vanishes. In pre-emptive answer to 
"pragmatics" who would scoff that this is little loss, recall that Max 
Weber, in Politics as a Vocation, noted that: "man would not have 
attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the 
impossible." Likewise, as it is probably impracticable to separate the 
two aspects of creative thinking, the goal of nurturing a generation of 
creative problem-solvers may prove elusive unless we recognise and 
welcome the contributions that boundary-challengers can make.