Video Interview Transcript
Prof Kanti Bajpal, Director, Centre on Asia and Globalisation and Wilmar Professor of Asian Studies, LKY School:
You know, I think the thing very often is that academic life chooses you, you don’t choose it.
Every academic, every professor, at the end of the day, we are in search of the truth. So truth with a capital “T” is what it’s all about.
That has to be your goal and motive — to get as close to the truth about something that you care about and to be convincing about it. And, so I think it’s the greatest motivation — to unmask the myths, the falsehoods, to make clear what is unclear — I think this is what every academic lives for.
And when you can part the curtain slightly and throw light on something, that’s brilliant.
I think striving for the truth means you are going to come at things, you are going to unravel things, unveil things that people will not like, because they have got used to think of things in certain ways.
And so, you get blowback and sometimes, it can be very offensive.
I think it’s just one of the hazards of being in this field. You have to stand up for it and we are not saints and we are not heroes but we are dedicated to trying always to get as close to the unvarnished truth and destabilizing what we think are untruths and facing up to the consequences of unmasking what’s wrong and what’s not correct.
The idea is not to offend others and to hurt them but to show them a reality they haven’t taken account of.
If I write for the press or in a more popular way, people have written to me, sometimes very hatefully, even threatening violence and clearly governments sometimes come back at you and so politicians, ordinary folks — you get a whole range of people who could object to what you write and I have faced all of them.
James Crabtree, Associate Professor in Practice, LKY School:
Well, one of the things you learn when you when you come to university is that your ideas are going to get challenged.
So, yes, getting used to having your ideas toughened up a little bit by criticism is part and parcel of what's valued.
So one of the things I do at the school is teaching. It’s one of my primary focuses and I suppose one of the things you learn as soon as you start it's that the students are going to try and pick holes in your argument.
These are bright, intelligent, ambitious, young people. So given they have an instructor in front of them, one of the best pieces of sport is to try and pick a hole in the argument. That can be difficult sometimes.
The first time it happens, you think, my goodness, you shouldn't be doing this to me. But you learn in a sense, you learn to be better. And what you do, you learn to be better prepared. And you also learn that, you know, in the end if a student finds a hole in your argument, then there's no shame in that either.
Jennifer Dodgson, PhD Candidate, LKY School:
I’ve put things online criticising sanctions, and I've had sort of high profile academics attack me for it when it was just me tweeting something. I'm not super worried about it to be honest. For every person who hates my point of view on sanctions, there's someone who thinks, wow, that's really right.
A contrarian is necessary just to rebalance the system. Because if everyone else is just agreeing automatically, even if the people disagreeing are wrong, then that's still shakes things up. And, and as I said, maybe one of them in a million will be right and will revolutionize everything.
Dr Alfred Wu, Associate Professor, LKY School
If you want to have sustainable economic growth, you need to spend more money on social policies.
You need to have a coalition and solid academic findings.
You need to speak to government officials and also to policy makers.
You need to reach out, you need to talk to people. So my approach or like my generation's public policy scholars approach is very much proactive. We engage different stakeholders.
For example, when we have this kind of surveys like opinion surveys — so we ask people what kind of public spending you want, uh, based on different priorities. Many people argue that we need more money on public housing in (in the Hong Kong context). Through these findings, we can share the ground sentiment with the greater public.
Nowadays, you can see that a government official will actually respond to your suggestions. So it means that while they are not actually saying “I follow your advise”, but at least they understand your challenge. That's a big step I would say.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
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