Social Issues and 'Reality' : 2 Views of the Family

The annual Pink Dot event at Hong Lim Park
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21580526-some-countries-consider-gay-marriage-elsewhere-attitudes-harden-fifty-shades-pink


AWARE Saga (2009)
http://we.are.aware.org.sg/2009/05/08/saga-per-the-economist/


The Health Promotion Board's FAQs on Sexuality
http://www.hpb.gov.sg/HOPPortal/gamesandtools-article/HPB055647


NLB's controversial removal of certain books (2014)
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/nlb-pulls-two-childrens-books-dont-promote-family-values


Constitutional challenges against Section 377A.
http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2007/10/377a-serves-public-morality-nmp-thio-li-ann/


https://pluralsg.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/parliamentary-debate-on-section-377a-part-6-indranee-rajah/

 

 

What do these examples or events have in common? What is the underlying politics to these significant social issues we have encountered during class?

 

Perhaps they all share a concern to reaffirm or protect the cherished ideals of 'family life' in Singapore.

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But what is a 'family'?


How would a more thoughtful reflection of the term help us to better critique the above events or refine our understanding towards unquestioned notions of what it means to be 'family'  in Singapore or elsewhere?

 

Students frequently commit the fallacy of subscribing to their OWN version of reality whenever they pen essays, resulting in a worldview is that totally absurd, outdated  or ill-informed.

 

What you see  / expect/ taught to accept may not be the realities as to how others choose to live their lives. Learn to question and reason and not merely assert your own point of view. The writer here makes a provocative claim on a taken-for-granted 'concept' and 'institution' present in every society around the world.

 

How would that impact your understanding of wider / changing social trends that affect the family in Singapore?


Do laws and social norms always tell you the 'truth' in what you see, know or live by? 


'Who' maintains and enforces them?


Should these simply be accepted without thought or question?


Can subtle forms of social injustice be seen in how we define, defend or uphold our notion of what makes a 'family' in Singapore?







http://sgconscience.blogspot.sg/2014/07/the-family-on-trial-two-views-of-family.html