Singapore is a fascinating place. I always found it interesting for three days at a time. The food is global, largely Chinese and spectacular. The city and everything in it is clean and highly functional.
The one thing everyone I know says
about Singapore is that it is culturally dead. I'm not sure what we
mean by that, since Singapore invites every theater, art, music and
other performance group to visit. It probably refers to the lack of
indigenous aesthetes.
The reason for the absence of indigenous aesthetes is that Singapore is a trading center. It is an island with no natural resources or agriculture. It has virtually no industry. It is so much a trading center that the imports and exports are far greater than the GDP which is obviously the residual of the net exports.
To me, as you can see from the title of this blog, pro commerce, particularly industrial commerce is based on diversity and meritocracy. What we call art-culture is the by-product of diversity and meritocracy. Singapore is nearly all Chinese, not diverse like most entrepots. Without the specialization that goes with industry, and the necessary meritocracy neither get much weight in Singapore. I think meritocracy is necessary for attracting interesting and artistic people. To put it another way. Just because someone is your brother or your cousin doesn't mean they create interesting art.
Industrial commerce requires diversity and meritocracy to thrive. So does art-culture.
