Sunday 19 October 2014

Basis Of Singaporean Spirit - People Power: The 4 Types of People

[This is part of the book: Basis Of Singaporean Spirit - People Power, click here to go to the main page]

There are many ways to categorise people, and how you categorise really depends on what you want to discuss.



In this book, I am going to discuss the problems we faced in this World today, so I am going to use 2 attributes to categorise people: Intelligence & Humbleness.

For simplicity, Intelligence can be either smart or not smart; Humbleness can be either the preference of being known or the preference to stay unknown.

So this gives us 4 types of people:
* Type 1 – Smart and Want to be Known
* Type 2 – Smart but Do Not Want to be Known
* Type 3 – Not Smart and Do Not Want to be Known
* Type 4 – Not Smart but Want to be Known as Smart

To really understand why people do what they did, and to better understand the list of problems that we had today, we need to understand the 4 types of people in this World.

Type 1 – Smart and Want to be Known
These are the people who are smart and know that they are. Therefore, they felt that if their talents are not put to good use, it will be a big waste and they will die with regrets.

These people are very eager to make full use of their talents and desperately want to leave a name for themselves. However, in doing so, they could end up being ruthless.

An extreme case of Type 1 person is Cao Cao[i] (曹操). When he was young, a famous character evaluator once described him as:

清平之奸贼,乱世之英雄
Meaning: "A treacherous villain in times of peace and a hero in times of chaos."

Too bad, as the saying goes:

一山不能藏二虎
Literally: "One Mountain cannot host Two Tigers."

If there are more than one Type 1 persons at the same time and at the same place, there will be bloodshed.

Looking back at the history of Singapore, are there any events that you can relate to the above?

Type 2 – Smart but Do Not Want to be Known
Generally, this type of people is much smarter than Type 1, and they preferred to keep a low profile. They would rather spend time enjoying the peace and tranquillity than to spend it in politics and meaningless fights.

An example of Type 2 person is Zhuge Liang[ii] (诸葛亮), nickname: "Sleeping Dragon" (卧龙). If not for the turmoil during his time, we would not have heard of him today.

Type 2 persons can make huge accomplishments and leave a very good name for themselves, but only if the circumstances are really bad.

You can never apprehend their thoughts and capabilities. These are the people who can help to build an empire, yet will not end up as a threat to Type 1 persons – A highly sought after talent, but you must be able to inculcate the values and purposes of his role and contribution in order for him to support you.

Type 3 – Not Smart and Do Not Want to be Known
These are the vast majority of people. They know they are average and contented being so. They typically do not have great achievements, but are contented being who they are. These people are what we termed as "commoners".

Type 3 persons can easily be found everywhere.

Type 4 – Not Smart but Want to be Known as Smart
These are the people, who thought that they are smart, but in fact, average or even below average. 

These people typically fight to lead in anything and others had to come and clean up their shits. These are what we termed as "trouble makers".

Given their urge to be in leadership positions, as you might already expect, they are mostly concentrated in the political landscape. Therefore, Type 4 persons are also commonly known as "politicians".

To identify them, simply throw a stone into the parliament, it is more likely that you will hit one than not.

Type 4 people are the major cause of problems in today's World. They often came up with a lot of 'tips and tricks' that they felt was so ingenious, but actually caused much bigger problems for everyone.

So Which Type Are You?
If you think that you are Type 1 person, well, with absolute certainty, you are one of the Type 4 persons that had given us so much trouble. Please, we beg you, could you help us by not trying to do so much?

If you think that you are Type 2 person, well, you are just a happy Type 3 person. Anyway, being a Type 3 person is also great, in fact, who would want to be a Type 2 when you can already enjoy the peace and tranquillity of Type 2?

If you think that you are Type 3 person. Yes, you are. Congratulation to you as you are a typical Type 3 person – contended being who you are. But remember, continue to stay low and you can still enjoy life to the max. However, once you become too eager, you could drop into Type 4.

Well, if you think you are Type 4 person, don't despair. At least you are much better than those Type 4 persons who think that they are Type 1. The first step in solving problem is to identity the problem, which you just did. Next, you just need to be more humble. Once you achieved that, you can easily move up the scale.

In case you are wondering what type Calvin Cheng belongs to, well, he is a typical Type 4. Do you remember the recent comments he made about buying more MRT to solve the reliability issues and all the other issues are bread-and-butter? 

What he was trying to do, apart from PLP, was trying to show to the World how 'SMART' he is that he can "see and summarise" all the problems into those. Imagine if the government is as stupid as him thinking it is so, then we will continue to have huge problems, thus the need for me to rebut him on his silliness. 

Of course, he belongs to the more stupid Type 4, getting himself into more shit such as exposing his earlier price-fixing scandal. Interestingly, it is 'no-big-deal' for him and that leads us to ponder over the selection criteria of NMP.



[i] Cao Cao was a warlord and one of the central figures of the Three Kingdoms period of China History.
[ii] Zhuge Liang was a famous statesman and military strategist during the Three Kingdoms period, and is a classic example of famous people from ancient China. He was known for his wisdom and his strategies in winning battles.

[This is part of the book: Basis Of Singaporean Spirit - People Power, click here to go to the main page]

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