Degenerate?
Many people say it, many enlistees claim this to be true. Our time in National Service deprives us of our cerebral needs. In other words, NS makes you stupid.
I believed this for the longest time. It seems perfectly logical, if you are trained to follow orders like a machine... you'll naturally be moudled into a grunt.
A prime example was probably in P.Tekong. As a fresh Recruit, we are pushed around by the overwhelming sgts. As my own friend puts it, we really 'loose so much' in terms of thinking and sophistication. Sgts tell me to do: I follow. Its a sensor-shoot cycle. You hear an order, you execute it, you see and enemy, you shoot. No wonder, why so many youths claim to have their intellect levels lowered and vanishing individuality upon entering the service.
But take one moment and think about it. What does being under an overall control have to be with one self's being? This is a common misunderstanding that many people have and I want to shed my view upon this matter.
We, especially the guys, have played strategy games. Be it C&C, Starcraft or DOTA. In it, we have control over unit. Our minions are like what they are, unit. Each produced and spawned from a template. There is no individuality between specimens within a type of unit, there is only different kinds of units. In other words, all your soldiers are monotonously banded and streamed. Within each band, everyone's profile is homogenous. These are grunts without any identity. They are mere assets.
Now, flip the table around. We are now the soldiers. We might therefore view BMT as the pre-production stage. After our posting, we are streamed into bands, just as how masses of war units are produced. Taking this into assumption, we might therefore think that a homogenous profile is expected among the whole platoon, or even brigade. Drones will be purely drones, Harvesters will be purely harvesters. In the same way, an infantry man will always be and expected to become part of a homogenous infantry-man-profile. This therefore, makes you homogenous. A lack of identity, a lack of say. You become an asset not a person.
But think about it. Games are games. This is reality. Personalities of people are as endless as the colours in the rainbow. Directives have never been imposed for us to adopt a same profile. Other than our uniforms, we are perfectly free to maintain ourselves. Uniform and drills symbolise unity and perhaps uniformity but it does not mean homogenity.
Many of us, tend to use the excuse of following orders to switch off our minds. Does screaming superiors really force us to discard our identities? It never served this purpose and it never caused us to loose ourselves. We merely let this be an excuse for us
I believed this for the longest time. It seems perfectly logical, if you are trained to follow orders like a machine... you'll naturally be moudled into a grunt.
A prime example was probably in P.Tekong. As a fresh Recruit, we are pushed around by the overwhelming sgts. As my own friend puts it, we really 'loose so much' in terms of thinking and sophistication. Sgts tell me to do: I follow. Its a sensor-shoot cycle. You hear an order, you execute it, you see and enemy, you shoot. No wonder, why so many youths claim to have their intellect levels lowered and vanishing individuality upon entering the service.
But take one moment and think about it. What does being under an overall control have to be with one self's being? This is a common misunderstanding that many people have and I want to shed my view upon this matter.
We, especially the guys, have played strategy games. Be it C&C, Starcraft or DOTA. In it, we have control over unit. Our minions are like what they are, unit. Each produced and spawned from a template. There is no individuality between specimens within a type of unit, there is only different kinds of units. In other words, all your soldiers are monotonously banded and streamed. Within each band, everyone's profile is homogenous. These are grunts without any identity. They are mere assets.
Now, flip the table around. We are now the soldiers. We might therefore view BMT as the pre-production stage. After our posting, we are streamed into bands, just as how masses of war units are produced. Taking this into assumption, we might therefore think that a homogenous profile is expected among the whole platoon, or even brigade. Drones will be purely drones, Harvesters will be purely harvesters. In the same way, an infantry man will always be and expected to become part of a homogenous infantry-man-profile. This therefore, makes you homogenous. A lack of identity, a lack of say. You become an asset not a person.
But think about it. Games are games. This is reality. Personalities of people are as endless as the colours in the rainbow. Directives have never been imposed for us to adopt a same profile. Other than our uniforms, we are perfectly free to maintain ourselves. Uniform and drills symbolise unity and perhaps uniformity but it does not mean homogenity.
Many of us, tend to use the excuse of following orders to switch off our minds. Does screaming superiors really force us to discard our identities? It never served this purpose and it never caused us to loose ourselves. We merely let this be an excuse for us
posted by F I S at
9:24 pm
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