岛国新加坡先天不足,没有天然资源,也谈不上人才济济。李光耀资政就曾指出,新加坡的华族,是中国广东和福建两省贫苦农工的后裔,祖先之中少有文人学士或达官贵人。 先天不足,我们只好以勤补拙。在各种各样的社会机制的鞭策下,我们发挥了巨大的冲劲,所得到的成绩胜过许多天生容量显然更大、文人学士显然更多的社会群体。 当国家建设有成,我们的文化精英开始反思各种社会现象时,却发觉竞争和压力造成不少反面效应,最明显的莫过于新加坡人的“怕输”现象。细数新加坡人如何“怕输” 已成了国人的一大工余消遣。为此,社会精英无不感叹“怕输”心理的根深蒂固。 因为怕输,新加坡人变得自私,也显得粗俗。这种反面效应,是各语文源流知识分子共同关注的问题。对于华校生来说,“与世无争,不为五斗米折腰”,是我们极为向往的精神境界。因此,我们对于竞争剧烈的现象,对于学校排名等政策,自然存有不少的疑虑。 然而,我们在反思排名和竞争的现象时,也不应忽略国际大环境里出现的趋势。全球化的冲击,加上世界经济的整合,使国与国之间在争取资金、人才和知识等经济资源时,展开空前剧烈的竞争。 配合这种趋势,国际上在20世纪末掀起了一种将国家排名的热潮。排名的意义,很多时候 Singapore, an island nation, is inherently deficient, has no natural resources and can not speak of talent. Lee Kuan Yew, a senior government official, once pointed out that the ethnic Chinese in Singapore are descendants of poor agricultural workers in Guangdong and Fujian provinces of China. Among the ancestors there are few scholars or noble officials. Inherent deficiencies, we had to groundwork. We have been able to exert tremendous momentum in spurring various social mechanisms and have outperformed many of the social groups whose natural capacity is clearly greater and whose number of scholar-bakers is clearly more. When the nation is well-established and our cultural elites are beginning to reflect on various social phenomena, they find that competition and stress have caused many negative effects. The most obvious one is that the Singaporeans’ “fear of losing” phenomenon. The breakdown of how Singaporeans “fear of losing” has become a great spare pastime. To this end, the social elite laments the deep-rooted “fear of losing” psychology. Because of the fear of losing, Singaporeans become selfish and appear vulgar. This negative effect is a common concern of intellectuals in all languages. For the Chinese school students, “fighting the world without fighting for the world” is our most desired spirit. Therefore, we naturally have many doubts about the phenomenon of fierce competition and policy on school rankings. However, we should not overlook the emerging trends in the international arena when we reflect on rankings and competition. The impact of globalization and the integration of the world economy have enabled countries to wage unprecedented and fierce competition in seeking economic resources such as capital, talent and knowledge. In line with this trend, a wave of national rankings has been set off in the world at the end of the 20th century. The significance of rankings, many times