New ways to understand life in a pandemic Aaron Maniam

here to share his take on policy poetry

and pandemic response please welcome

Aaron Mannion I tell him Aaron it is so

good to see you and I want to leave you

the floor and get you to set out your

take for us so please take it away Helen

thank you so much and it’s really good

to be here with you it is late in

Singapore as you said but it’s a

wonderfully worthwhile way to be with a

wonderful community I think I wanted to

start by making this connection between

poetry and policy that you you mentioned

all my life I’ve been trying to find

ways to connect the two of them because

they’re both such key parts of what I do

and over time what I’ve realized is

actually the core tool of the poet the

metaphor or the image is actually a key

part of so much of our lives including

public policy if we look at what’s going

on now in our responses to the the

corona virus or Cove it 19 pandemic one

of the most dominant images out there is

the images of war we talk about

flattening the curve we talk about

defeating the virus now we ask ourselves

what happens when you have to put people

on quarantine those are all images of

war when you think about it just as in

the rest of our lives when we talk about

defeating an argument that really is the

idea that argumentation is war and it’s

an interesting one because the war

metaphor while very useful for imposing

public order and making sure that people

understand the gravity of the situation

is still limited somehow because I find

myself asking who is the victor in this

war who do we have to defeat what is the

enemy here we might need to live with

covert 19 we might not be able to defeat

it entirely and what does that long-term

future that long-term life with covert

actually look like I find myself

wondering about questions like where is

the Solidarity the collective investment

in our future here because that’s not

always

in the idea of a war so then I got to

asking myself well maybe there are other

images other metaphors out there there

are better ways to characterize what

exactly this whole situation we find

ourselves in is like maybe covert 19 is

a journey because a lot of people do ask

us right we ask ourselves at least where

are we going

what will the post kovat wall or world

with Corbett look like what is this

destination that we’re all headed to but

even there I think there are limitations

with that metaphor because there’s

something sentimentality to the idea of

a journey and I think we need to be a

little bit more hard-nosed with

ourselves when we try to figure out what

exactly this future with covitz

might look like some of us are also

traveling in very different types of

vehicles or very different kinds of

containers if we are indeed on a journey

some of us are in very very high-class

luxury liners others are in boats others

are in overall flotilla some of us are

in much less sturdy dinghies and those I

think highlight some of the inequalities

that we face which the pure image of a

journey the pure metaphor of a journey

doesn’t actually capture so I got to

thinking well maybe we can think about

Corbett 19 as an ecology right maybe we

can use the ideas and images of biology

to actually work a little bit harder at

understanding what’s going on and here I

think we start to find more interesting

material to deal with because if we

accept that we’re dealing with an

ecology then we start to realize that

yes this virus is a critical part of

nature it is a natural phenomenon and

it’s something that we need to learn to

deal with we realize that there are

unequal effects out there and these

unequal effects actually are also being

seen in the different responses that

people have to the whole situation that

they’re in

because some of us are dealing with

covert 19s trauma some of us are

experiencing it in extremely severe

terms while others well–perhaps

experiencing it in less severe terms not

even as trauma but potentially it’s as I

put a potentially quite negative

positive experience

you know something that allows them to

actually enjoy

time to exercise time with family time

to be an introvert and these are all

things that we need to try and really

figure out because it’s these

inequalities that I think are some of

the most interesting aspects of the

current crisis that we find ourselves in

and I think the singaporean example is

one that is trying to flesh out these

images we’re trying to deal with the

warlike aspects of Corbett 19 but we’re

also trying to deal with the ecological

aspects the fact that there are these

different these different effects these

differentiated consequences for the

different people who are experiencing

this that’s why in one of our responses

in addition to doing things like in very

detailed testing and contact tracing

we’ve also put out four different

supplementary budgets in the in the year

to actually support people who are

experiencing the most severe of these

differentiated effects we’ve put out a

huge amount of money a total of 93

billion Singapore dollars which is about

66 billion u.s. dollars to support

people in job preservation to support

people in training to support people who

are interested in acquiring digital

skills so that they might actually be

able to ride the wave of this

transformation in a way that enables

them to be much more positively placed

to deal in with a world that has kovat

much more endemic in it there are also I

think much more interesting images in

the ecological idea when we start

thinking about the collective effects

the collective efforts that are out

there in the covert 19 responses because

what we find is that we need to

experience kovat as a situation where

they can be mutual care where

communities come together to support one

another in the kinds of responses that

they need to put out to the situation

that they find themselves in we have

ways of being connected to each other as

we have in nature that are not always

obvious to an individual person

operating in an atomized way now of

course the ecological metaphor is also

limited it’s not complete because what

I’ve realized as I examine more and more

of what’s going on in both my country

and other parts of the world is that we

capture the interdependencies

these interpersonal interconnections but

we don’t always capture relationships

when we look at these metaphors and what

I’ve realized is any individual metaphor

is always going to be limited the war

metaphor is limited the journey metaphor

is limited and the ecological metaphor

while it is more rich than the other two

is also limited because it doesn’t

always capture some of the deep

community elements the mutual

responsibilities that we can have which

are nonetheless part of the overall

responses that we’re trying to make in

Singapore so my parting initial shot at

least in this conversation is to say

that the poet in me recognizes the roles

that metaphors can have in our responses

to Cove in nineteen the policymaker

recognizes that each of these metaphors

is useful for highlighting particular

aspects of our situation but each of the

metaphors is also limited and what we

need is therefore a complex mix of

metaphors to allow us to highlight the

individual parts of the problem and the

challenges that we face which are most

interesting for us and it’s only when we

put these metaphors together the

metaphor of war of journey of ecology

and potentially others as well that

we’ve get to a really sophisticated

understanding of the kind of situation

that were in I’ll leave it at that for

now and see what sorts of questions we

get and I’d love to see how we can

deepen the metaphors that we explore in

the rest of this conversation Erin thank

you so much and sorry that I

unexpectedly disappeared halfway through

as you were talking but I wanted you to

have the whole screen I promise I was

listening to every word okay so I’m

going to just right away in with a

couple of questions as they’re as we

collect them in the end from the

comments thread and the first thing I

want to ask you is to talk a bit more

about four budgets because four budgets

seems like a lot to roll out and I

wonder like how different is that from

your kind of normal way normal means of

business and how did you how did you

sustain the change that these budgets

then meant for kind of your work it just

seems like you’re describing and

Manas that many governments would kind

of aspire to longingly but not

necessarily know how to implement and

roll out at such speed so I wonder if

you can talk a little bit more about

that no Helen that’s a really

interesting question because in each

normal fiscal year we’d have one budget

and and I say we because this is the

result of a highly complex machinery

there’s a metaphor as well a highly

complex doublin government machinery

that’s in play all the time and in a

normal year we’d have one budget but

this year given the deep exigencies that

we found the community facing we thought

it was necessary to supplement that with

enough support for different groups of

people to actually be able to ride some

of the waves of the Aquatica the

pandemic and the crisis effects that it

has engendered first of all what we try

to support is individual citizens right

to make sure that there is a base level

of support given to each person in

Singapore and that has ranged between

$300 to $600 in in one of the waves of

the budget and there’s a renewal in some

cases for those who need it the most

we’ve also tried to support enterprises

companies of different sizes to make

sure that they can engage in job

preservation because what we found is we

need to preserve jobs in every crisis

we’ve been in before whether it’s the

global financial crisis or the SARS

crisis in the early 2000s all the

economic crises following 9/11 what we

found was in each case especially when

you’re a small globally open economy

like ours you need to have the ability

and the wherewithal to respond really

quickly when there is recovery or

transformation eventually to a new

equilibrium and in that case we need to

make sure that jobs are preserved

because if the jobs are let go of then

actually companies will find it much

more difficult to ride the waves of

recovery later on so job preservation

has been key and we’ve encouraged people

to go on training to go on internships

or trainee ships that allow the

companies to actually preserve jobs in a

way that actually encourages the

upskilling

of the human capital whom they work with

and that works for them we’ve also tried

to make sure that we support the least

digitally connected the elderly in some

cases families with lower incomes and in

a lot of cases you know people who

manage some of our micro and small

enterprises because the interest to go

digital for them is

often the least well-developed and in

those cases we put out a huge amount of

money to actually support the

transformation that they can make to go

digital for two reasons one its publicly

safer in terms of health when we don’t

have to deal with cash and we can deal

with as many contactless modes of

payment as possible and a wonderful

ancillary benefit that comes from that

is the fact that these digital

transformations actually stand people in

very good stead later on we’ve been

benefitting from the fact that in the

past we’ve put away a fair amount of

reserves that have allowed us to dip

into these so that we can actually fund

some of this in all these different

budgetary measures but probably the most

important thing that I wanted to say

here is that the focus on each of the

budgetary measures is not just relief

you’ll notice from everything I’ve

described that the focus is much more

about long-term transformation it’s

about putting people on a footing

whereby in the long term as they use the

wherewithal of these reserves and

accumulated savings over generations we

can actually use that to put ourselves

in a better position for transformation

in the future Wow

that truly is building back better Wow

I’m curious you know you recognize the

limitations of one single metaphor but

I’m also curious with in your

conversations how much of this how much

of this like these ideas around

metaphors and the power of language or

mean explicit and how much is this you

kind of tracking this and kind of

observing how people are speaking and

then kind of adjusting and adapting to

see how you can shift the conversations

or is this something that is explicitly

part of the discussions it’s an

interesting question I think depends on

who we talk to you know there are some

folks I think for whom the idea of

metaphor based thinking comes much more

naturally you know and and they’re there

often you know in people who are engaged

in writing of some kind very often you

know those who are involved in helping

to draft speeches although we find that

many of our leaders work on their

speeches themselves because they want to

exercise a huge amount of ownership and

investment in it I think the the

language that’s there it has always been

a recognition that the language is key

and that language actually shapes the

over

discourse so people need not call it a

metaphor based understanding but I think

there is that knowledge that when we

look through different frames or through

different lenses if you like that’s an

equally powerful way of framing this we

actually can see different things and

people have understood that when you

frame things from the point of view of a

machine then what you will see are the

more mechanistic interactions with it

within it and I’ve used the image of the

government machinery earlier on we’ve

heard the metaphors of war a great deal

but in some of the speeches that we’ve

heard from our leaders what we’ve also

noticed is you know there’s images of

how they tell us you will not walk alone

when you fall you will be helped you

will be assisted to get up again and now

that’s the metaphor of the journey

coming out right through again and and I

think what we found is this mix of meta

first does come quite naturally to a

whole range of different members of the

leadership and when we put that together

we get a fairly rich composite picture

of the kind of situation we’re in I

would add we don’t want to abandon the

war metaphor entirely because while I

like I said there is no clear enemy

there is no sense of what victory might

actually look like we do want I think

the the huge sense of urgency that comes

with a war metaphor then that can drive

and rally a society well that I think

can actually be quite powerful and so

there are benefits from the war metaphor

that we find useful as well particularly

when you marry with the ecological

metaphor that I mentioned earlier I’m

gonna bring on tea because I know that

questions are pouring in and while I

will happily talk to you all day I’m

gonna see what she has to ask you can

tell Meredith how are you it’s um it’s

really interesting to hear you can use

language in this way and talk about

metaphor and we do have questions from

our community because they are so

engaged and would love to ask you a few

things the first one I’d like to ask is

from Patrick Adams and his question is

the most resilient ecology in nature for

example is usually the most diverse how

do we use this moment to make sure

diversity is part of the world’s

recovery yes that’s such a powerful

question right there you know and we’re

seeing situations where you know the

identity diversity

in so many societies is being really

stretched thin right and then where we

need to actually strengthen it a lot

more I think one aspect of it comes from

recognizing that each of us whatever you

know the sophistication of our mental

models and assumptions is never going to

have a monopoly on truth we need to

recognize that we have to value the

diversity of that other’s brief and what

that means it’s recognizing both their

identity diversity is right their

ethnicity the languages that they speak

all of which will frame their thinking

in certain ways but also recognizing

their cognitive diversity the importance

of people coming from disciplines like

engineering and history and public

health and economics and law and all

contributing to a bunch of richer

understanding in totality of the sort of

situations we’re in

I think even that very basic step of

making sure that the teams we operate in

are s diverse as possible making sure

that in terms of gender in terms of

discipline in terms of age that they are

spread wide that is already a wonderful

help because it means that in each of

the areas where we exercise influence we

are exercising some of that diversity

and in each of us does that then

actually the macro effects become much

more powerfully felt because there will

be a natural diversity in that direction

as well thanks Patrick for that question

thank you for that very insightful

answer we also have a question from a

Vida Lani and she’s really looking at

the next generation what’s the role

responsibilities do young people have

and the new normal which should our

message be to them you know I suppose

one has to define young at some point as

well right and there is the definition

that the UN adopts you know below 45

there’s a young at heart as well which I

think is just as important a form of

both cognitive and identity diversity

and and we do want to make sure that

their their views are brought in

particularly I think in two ways one is

there can be an inherent newness in some

of the ideas that young people breathe

because they will be have been exposed

to different things folks out there who

are less than 25 at the moment years of

age they’re going to have been born

digital natives in a lot of ways you

know be the concepts of

using smartphones is unalienable eaters

and they may have been before so I think

the ideas that they bring in can be much

more embracing of some of the new

benefits that technology can bring to us

while at the same time recognizing that

there are pitfalls in technology as well

and making sure that we try and govern

or manage or regulate those as best we

can

there’s a second aspect about youth that

I think is important because it’s not

just the ideas themselves but a certain

experimental mindset that can be brought

to the approaches that they employ I

think we’re going to be living in a

world where tried and tested approaches

right looking at precedents of the past

are going to be much less effective than

before we’re going to find that the

effects of precedents wears thin and

what we need therefore is a much more

agile more iterative approach whereby we

prototype tests fast fail fast and then

respond to the feedback that comes to us

from the ecosystem that we’re testing

those ideas in and I I do find that

there are a lot of young people very

willing to run these experiments are

only young people there are some folks

you know who are of a certain vintage

who are also willing to experiment but

the preponderance of experimentation I

find does happen with younger people and

that ability to sit in the messiness of

iteration and the messiness of being

perpetual drafts and what in progress

that I think will be one of the most

powerful things we can have because even

now right none of us knows what this new

reality is going to look like we don’t

know if we will have a post kovat world

or a coded endemic world or a world

where kovat becomes part of the ambient

noise of our public health situations

each of those things requires different

sets of responses and to be in a space

like there is now to learn and

experiment and try different things as

we prepare for those futures that I

think is what experimentation will

actually help us to do yes I think I’m

gonna jump in Oh

Jory I’m going to jump in because the

questions that there are so many of them

and so I’m just going to jump in with

one from one of our TED fellows

presenter can you further the ecology

metaphor more in an

ecological landscape it seems the poor

are treated like ants and the rich are

Birds how do you see class playing out

the new ecological metaphor yeah

prasanta thank you for that question

because that’s exactly what I meant when

I said that the metaphors are invariably

limited I a pure ecology has a food

chain in it right you talked about ants

and birds you know there is a hierarchy

of predators that we pray and pray that

consume vegetation that is a natural

part of the life rhythms of an ecology

but I don’t think it’s something that we

should accept as a natural part of the

life rhythms of a society and a

community because we live in community

we don’t live in a pure ecology so while

the ecological metaphor is very useful

the bit that I find it doesn’t quite

quite capture which I alluded to earlier

is the fact that there are moral

relationships between us there is a

sense in which each of us can be

responsible for others and that’s I

think what has prompted some of the the

more interpersonal society based actions

that Singapore’s responses have had you

know when we talk about downloading

contact tracing apps this is not just

about doing it for a technical reason

it’s doing it because it helps keep

other people safe

and keep ourselves safe when we talk

about people staying at home this is not

just a self-imposed isolation that is a

technical thing to do to visit to defeat

a virus it’s done because it helps

everybody to be safe and one of our tag

lines is that the safety of all depends

on the contributions of everyone right

that kind of moral relationship I think

doesn’t get captured in an ecological

metaphor so we need to use the metaphors

for what they tell us but bear in mind

that each metaphor is going to be have a

certain amount of limitation as well

and we have a question from lower floor

Colcord and it’s about your home your

home country does Singapore have any

learnings for America I think that’s a

very timely question about mitigating

this differential covent impacts on

minority populations

you know Singapore has a deeply

multicultural situation and sets of

circumstances we are one of the most

religiously and culturally diverse

countries in the world we have a 75%

Chinese population we’ve got about 25%

of the population who are comprised of

Malays and Indians and numerous other

minority groups we’ve got many new

minorities coming in as well I would add

though that a lot of Singapore situation

comes from the fact that we’re very

densely and urbanely packed right we

were a very very urban City based type

setting and that means that the way in

which we deal with diversity is not

going to be the same as a much larger

entity like the u.s. which has multiple

types of urban spaces right the big

cities and the conurbations but also

smaller towns what I would say has been

really critical for us is to make sure

that there is a sense of unity in

diversity that there is an overall

commitment to that’s what I would call a

civic nationalism a set of common values

like multiculturalism and meritocracy in

what we do but what’s also been

important is to recognize that within

there it’s important for cultures to

have space to express themselves right

there is freedom of religion this

freedom of expression for history and

culture and traditions that different

communities have and what we found is

that within that kind of broad unity and

diversity structure what we then see is

situations where you have the diversity

is kind of playing with one another I

come from a family that’s deeply mixed

actually my dad is half ethnic Tamil

half Eurasian because he’s got some

Portuguese descent if you go back to the

1500s my mother is part Pakistani part

Malay and has a smattering of Chinese

from my great-grandmother who was

adopted when she was a baby by a Muslim

family so I’ve had a long time to kind

of make peace and not just make peace

but you learn to celebrate my in

eternal diversities and what we find is

that lately there are more and more

people like me in Singapore there are

more intermarriages and even where there

aren’t intermarriages there are so many

more friendships because of the common

spaces that we’ve created to allow for

those different communities to interact

with each other we actually have a

system whereby we don’t allow the

creation of enclaves and ghettos in

public housing which the state

subsidizes there is a mix in each of the

the overall apartment blocks that that

exists we make sure that everybody goes

to schools that are diverse there are a

small number of Chinese medium schools

but even within them there are a good

number actually an increasing number of

non ethnic Chinese students who go there

because they want to learn Mandarin well

we make sure that when people do

national military service which is our

internal system of conscription you know

that people are mixed as well and there

was an image that a friend of mine wants

to put forward to me where he said that

after a certain number of weeks in the

Sun everybody is brown right and then

everybody and this color of the skin

starts to matter a lot less and so it’s

these common spaces that become so

critical I think to allow for the sorts

of interaction that allow for the

diversities that that are so critical

for a good ecology and a rigorous

ecology to exist but those diversity

–zz don’t exist by chance they need to

be managed through deliberate policy and

a deliberate maintenance of those common

spaces the latest challenge of course is

the online common space right to make

sure that within those digital spaces we

also preserve the sanctity and the

protection for minority groups and we

try to make sure that ethnic minorities

that there in terms of gender we do make

sure that the right protections are in

place that cyberbullying doesn’t exist

and that we allow for the fact that if

there are nefarious things going on

there we have means to respond as well

put those together I think what you get

is an overall ecosystem or an ecology

within which the diversity can function

and we can actually start to then

transcend the ecological metaphor and

make sure that the moral relationships

amongst these communities is also well

established so I think we have time for

one more comment one more question and

this one is from

Stephen Patrick I was living on an

island frame your metaphors that is such

a great question now you know Singapore

is an interesting conundrum because we

are a state we’re a city we’re an island

and we’re all of those things at the

same time which means that unlike many

other cities which have the benefits of

large national hinterlands in many

cities which don’t have to take care of

their national security we do actually

have to look at that and I would say

that actually it’s not just the island

that’s important but it’s the Pfister

interconnection amongst the city-state

an island that really does affect how we

approach a lot of our policymaking and

kind of approach being Singaporean

because the city the city aspect of what

we do is where we know we need to be

open to the world we need to be open to

ideas and to people because that’s how

cities thrive right they don’t thrive by

locking themselves up and turning

themselves into fortresses but because

we’re a state we also need to be

cultivating a certain sense of national

identity we want to send some mutual

solidarity and commitment to nationalism

in terms of values like I said and as an

island we need to be constantly open to

a whole range of influences from outside

the most obvious of those is physical

right the transshipment goods that we

have always been a hub for were the

first ways in which our island nature

actually helped us to get in connection

and get in touch with the rest of the

world because we are at the connection

of multiple trade routes in the world

and we were very convenient entrepot

port for a good number of shipping

powers but the modern equivalent of that

is to be a hub and an entrepreneur

for the digital space right for the

virtual space for ideas and for people

to come as well and that’s why we will

find that if you come to Singapore the

expatriate community is actually fairly

large there are people who found that

even they come here adjusting is a lot

easier because there are ready

populations who have already assimilated

other members who were different from

them but that within that there is a

certain amount of not just tolerance but

also celebration of the overall

diversity that people face so when you

put the

overall kind of cosmopolitanism of a

city with the deep nationalism of state

and the general openness to ideas people

and flows of goods that an island has

that I think is often what makes up the

core psyche of a Singaporean I think

your next job may be with the tourist

board I’m not sure sound Aaron thank you

so very much what a pleasure it was to

speak with you that was so interesting

and you are the best thank you so very

much

thank you for having me Helen thanks so

much this was well worth staying out

past midnight for oh thank you