Inconsiderate?

There's something to be said about Singapore society. Often, it is criticised for being inconsiderate. After thinking about it, this may not actually be true.

Certainly, all the outward appearances of inconsiderate behaviour is there, for all to see. People pushing their way through crowded areas, the elderly having no seats on the bus, and so on. If one were to conclude from appearances alone that Singaporeans are an inconsiderate bunch, well, fair enough.

But I suspect that the conclusion is not entirely accurate. When you boil it down, inconsiderate people simply don't care about how other people feel, how their actions might adversely affect others. In a nutshell, selfishness. Yet, Singaporeans seem particularly selfless when responding to various emergencies, like earthquakes and tsunamis. Hence, I have this alternative theory to this seemingly inconsiderate behaviour.

Singaporeans simply lack situational awareness. They simply are unable to process what is going on around them. Perhaps they are particularly self-absorbed, but this is doubtful. Most claim that they were not thinking about anything, but simply did not notice the old lady standing. Sound like an excuse, but it is not entirely implausible. It actually makes sense if you account for the fundamental maxim to Singaporean society, as engineered by the State: just follow law.

Singaporeans are conditioned to follow instructions, so much so that when there are no instructions, they literally freeze. There truly is quite an amazing lack of initiative in society. Everything is directed from the top down. Suffice to say, Barack Obama would have great problems campaigning here.

The conditioning to simply follow instructions carries an implicit idea, that someone else is monitoring the situation and taking responsibility for the outcome. Since someone else is observing the situation and the average Singaporean is supposed to do is follow the instructions, and there is in fact a disincentive to disobedience, the easiest way out is really to omit observing the situation for oneself.

A lifetime of conditioning to not having to make any situational observations for oneself leads directly to having very low situation awareness, and thus apparent inconsiderate behaviour.

P.S. The boy's not lazy, he's just stupid. Can you catch the similarity?