Response to “Culture Is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew”

In his article Culture is Destiny, journalist Fareed Zakaria performs an in-depth interview with Lee Kuan Yew, a political figure who is widely recognized as one of Singpore’s founding fathers. Throughout the interview, Lee, who served as the first Prime Minister of Singapore, continually underscores the difference between Western and Eastern culture as a way of demonstrating the important role that culture plays in determining a country’s political and economic structure.

While Lee admires the American political system for its open relations between people and the level of accountability held by public officials, he criticizes the American government for giving its citizens too much unrestricted freedom. He believes that granting citizens too much freedom has led to a chaotic, disorderly, and unstable society plagued by drugs and violent crimes. Lee argues that America’s political system is built on this false notion that humans are capable of governing themselves while Asian countries have built political systems based on the absolute truth of how humans actually act in the real world. Lee asserts that the “breakdown of civil society” and “diminution of personal responsibility” in the United States is a direct result of the loose political structure that stems from this false idea Westerners have about human nature. 

Rather than depending on an idealized version of how humans would act in a perfect world, Lee believes that political systems should be built on collective community values. Lee believes in building laws centered on the idea of a family unit, which he considers to be the building brick of society. Because of this belief, he is hesitant about America’s system to center the government on the government itself. Instead, Lee argues that it is more effective to build a system based on the family unit and cultural values. For instance, in Singapore, China and other East Asian countries, the existing “cultural backdrop, belief in hard work, filial piety, and loyalty” have enabled citizens to thrive under a more rigid structure. I think the idea of a family unit as the building block of society is particularly interesting and important because it demonstrates how deeply familial and community ties are entangled with political and ideological beliefs. I also found Lee’s mention of evolution and genetics to be especially helpful for bringing full circle the notion of how biology and history interacts to weave a collective culture in East Asia.

I think Lee’s argument about American freedom versus East Asian culture of family, order, and structure is especially relevant in the context of the COVID pandemic. When COVID-19 broke out in early 2020, many Asian countries instituted a mandatory mask and vaccine mandate to ensure that citizens worked together to slow down the spread of the virus. Their efforts were seen as tough by many Americans, but it was a necessary approach that allowed people in Asia to quickly regain “the maximum enjoyment of his freedoms” because of slow infection rates. On the other hand, the United States’ loose system and emphasis on individual freedom led to a prolonged pandemic that has cost people more of their freedom.

It’s interesting that while Lee criticizes America for its emphasis on individualism and individual freedom, many of his approaches to build political loyalty in Singapore are essentially placing active agency into the hands of Singaporeans. For instance, he mentions that he offered Singaporean citizens a choice to learn either English, Malay, or their native tongue in schools rather than imposing one national language like the United States does. This is because Lee believes in integration rather than the practice of assimilation, which he considers to be a flaw in the American system. Lee talks about how it is ultimately “what people do with their lives that determines economic success or failure” which seems to me to be a very individualist approach as opposed to the collectivist culture that he had been talking about throughout the interview.

I’d like to see Lee’s argument of Western and Eastern cultural differences framed in the context of gender and socioeconomic status in East Asian countries. I think the role that gender plays in maintaining the family structure is implicit, but I would like to see what Lee thinks about the role of gender in upholding political systems throughout history, especially in regards to his thoughts about the vote of the “family man” (119). I’d also like to get more clarity on what exactly Lee thinks defines a region or a country’s culture, because Lee talks about culture throughout the interview as if it’s stagnant when in reality, culture is an ever-changing force of national identity being molded continually over time. He mentions language, religion, and community ties when talking about what makes up a culture, but I would like to see him probe deeper into how immigration forces might create a shared humanity and shift a country’s cultural beliefs to be either more united or more divisive. 

Quotes:

• “It is my business to tell people not to foist their system indiscriminately on societies which it will not work” (page 110)

• The expansion of the right of the individual to behave or misbehave as he pleases has come at the expense of an orderly society” (110)

• “Eastern societies believe that the individual exists in the context of the family. He is not pristine and separate. The family is part of the extended family, and then friends and the wider society” (113)

• “Governments will come, governments will go, but this endures. We start with self-reliance. In the West today it is opposite” (114). 

• Nobody here really believes that the government can provide in all circumstances. The government itself does not believe it” (115) 

• “The World Bank report makes the hopeful assumption that all men are equal. They are not” (117)

Questions: 

• Is culture the only defining factor that can determine a country’s destiny? Could there be other driving forces or physical manifestations of ideology that could determine the direction that a country is headed towards? 

• To what extent do you think that freedom can be balanced with order and structure? Do you think it’s possible to have both in our current society?