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