Indranee says to stop thinking about social class but he wants SG to have natural aristocracy

Yours sincerely, (29 Oct), Minister in the Prime Minister 's Office Indranee Rajah informed participants to see "people as people".

"The intrinsic worth of a human being is not measured by how much money you have or the fact that you're a fellow human being," said Ms Indranee.

"At the end of the day, it's seeing people as people."

Both Ms Indranee and Senior Minister of State for Transport and Information and Communication Janil Puthucheary stressed the importance of not thinking of people in terms of social class, income or status at the dialogue.

"The starting position is recognizing that bias and recognizing the ease by which we can run down, even by using small words," Dr. Puthucheary said.

"As we get more prosperous, we keep finding reasons for pigeonhole people," he said. "Some people look at how other people dress, or what you drive … or if you take all of these are a result of stereotyping, bias and unconscious assumptions … and it's all wrong."

Lee talks about having natural aristocracy in Singapore

It is strange that Ms Indranee is advising Singaporeans about "seeing people as people" when her boss, PM Lee talked about having a "natural aristocracy" in the Singapore's system.

During a public dialogue in 2015, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, "You want to stand up, do not scrape and bow. But if you do not have a certain natural aristocracy in the system, people who are respected because they have earned and we level everything down to the lowest common denominator, then I think society will lose out … If you end up with anarchy, it does not mean that you'll be delivered with brilliance. "

He was responding to a question on communities that accepted challenges to authority, as seen in countries like the US, Sweden and Israel. These are also known for their dominance in innovation, science and technology.

If Ms Indranee 's and PM Lee' s statements were taken together, they seem to be saying that they are "people as people" because they are deemed to have "a certain natural aristocracy" because they have "earned that".