... And the thing about liberal individualism is intuitive, it's attractive. Who doesn't want freedom, who doesn't want rights? … You don't have to earn these rights, these rights are by definition already possessed by you as a human being.
Sociologically speaking, that's a little absurd. You only become human *after* being socialised. You are always, always within the surrounding of the social. You are born into society… It is from that that you derive your identity as a subject. But that's not intuitive, in the sense that the moment you understand that, you find yourself, "Okay, I'm free". And that "I'm free" is not something you naturally desire, you'd rather have your freedom as rights…
Most Singaporeans, including all of you here, are actually very well-socialised. Most Singaporeans don’t really believe in individualism so much. They tend to be fairly accepting that… there will always be rules, and you will always have to abide by them…
It's difficult to teach sociology in America, because there will be strong reactions as to why they can't do this.
It's actually easy to teach sociology in Singapore, because most Singaporeans… will think "I can't do what I want, naturally, so I will do what I can do best". The government pragmatism is [ingrained]… You do the most within what you think you can do best at… The world that you live in becomes quite different from the American world...