By Derek da Cunha
Dr PJ Thum’s appearance before the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods was absolutely calamitous for him. He looked distinctly uncomfortable right from the start. In going through his background, we now learn that he is not a Research Fellow in History, but in Anthropology, at Oxford, a switch which he confirmed was made since last year. So, why in his written submission to the Select Committee did he state categorically that he is a Research Fellow in History? It seems that he fell at the very first hurdle in the first minutes of his almost six hours before the Committee. After that many would have found little purpose ploughing through the rest of the video clips of his testimony.
Anyone who read his written submission would know that Dr Thum had made events prior to the advent of the Internet, let alone social media, its centerpiece, in spite of the fact that this was a committee looking into Deliberate Online Falsehoods. It is a major misjudgment, and not his first. (See below.)
It is easy for some people to be beguiled by an individual who comes across as suave, sophisticated and with an ineffable air of superiority. But it only comes with experience to realise that in the field of the social sciences it is a fool’s errand to behave with conceit and 100% certainty.
In the campaign during GE2015, Dr Thum helped out at The Online Citizen (TOC) as a commentator notwithstanding the fact that his scholarly expertise is as a historian on 1950s and 1960s Singapore and Malaya. That would have raised some eyebrows among academic purists. Personally, I don’t have much of an issue with that (not least because my own research interests are eclectic) as long as the person knows what he is doing.
But if Dr Thum knew anything about electoral politics it is that when a commentator suddenly injects himself into an election campaign and takes a stand on an issue, he should ensure that he does not annoy or anger the voters he is supposedly trying to sway. Here, the basic issue is that Dr Thum decided to take his expertise as a historian to place himself front and centre in the GE2015 campaign. The attached, which is numbered paragraph 6 of my unsubmitted prepared statement to the Select Committee, is self-explanatory.
In his remarks at the launch of his new website in September 2017, Dr Thum said that the intellectual work he and his associates engage in “makes a difference”. I would not dispute that. But I would also suggest that by injecting himself into the GE2015 campaign he might have also made an unintended difference.
Undoubtedly, what I have written will not find favour with Dr Thum’s followers/fans, i.e., those who will still stick by him and not start to distance themselves from him in spite of his Select Committee fiasco. They can still hope he puts himself forward as a candidate at the next general election. Indeed, he could perhaps be part of a so-called “Dream Team”, together with Dr Paul Tambyah and Dr Chee Soon Juan, to contest Holland-Bukit Timah GRC. I cannot say with 100% certainty how such a prospective electoral venture will pan out.
http://www.straitstimes.com/…/shanmugam-grills-research-fel…
http://www.todayonline.com/…/shanmugam-takes-historian-task…
Dr PJ Thum’s appearance before the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods was absolutely calamitous for him. He looked distinctly uncomfortable right from the start. In going through his background, we now learn that he is not a Research Fellow in History, but in Anthropology, at Oxford, a switch which he confirmed was made since last year. So, why in his written submission to the Select Committee did he state categorically that he is a Research Fellow in History? It seems that he fell at the very first hurdle in the first minutes of his almost six hours before the Committee. After that many would have found little purpose ploughing through the rest of the video clips of his testimony.
Anyone who read his written submission would know that Dr Thum had made events prior to the advent of the Internet, let alone social media, its centerpiece, in spite of the fact that this was a committee looking into Deliberate Online Falsehoods. It is a major misjudgment, and not his first. (See below.)
It is easy for some people to be beguiled by an individual who comes across as suave, sophisticated and with an ineffable air of superiority. But it only comes with experience to realise that in the field of the social sciences it is a fool’s errand to behave with conceit and 100% certainty.
In the campaign during GE2015, Dr Thum helped out at The Online Citizen (TOC) as a commentator notwithstanding the fact that his scholarly expertise is as a historian on 1950s and 1960s Singapore and Malaya. That would have raised some eyebrows among academic purists. Personally, I don’t have much of an issue with that (not least because my own research interests are eclectic) as long as the person knows what he is doing.
But if Dr Thum knew anything about electoral politics it is that when a commentator suddenly injects himself into an election campaign and takes a stand on an issue, he should ensure that he does not annoy or anger the voters he is supposedly trying to sway. Here, the basic issue is that Dr Thum decided to take his expertise as a historian to place himself front and centre in the GE2015 campaign. The attached, which is numbered paragraph 6 of my unsubmitted prepared statement to the Select Committee, is self-explanatory.
In his remarks at the launch of his new website in September 2017, Dr Thum said that the intellectual work he and his associates engage in “makes a difference”. I would not dispute that. But I would also suggest that by injecting himself into the GE2015 campaign he might have also made an unintended difference.
Undoubtedly, what I have written will not find favour with Dr Thum’s followers/fans, i.e., those who will still stick by him and not start to distance themselves from him in spite of his Select Committee fiasco. They can still hope he puts himself forward as a candidate at the next general election. Indeed, he could perhaps be part of a so-called “Dream Team”, together with Dr Paul Tambyah and Dr Chee Soon Juan, to contest Holland-Bukit Timah GRC. I cannot say with 100% certainty how such a prospective electoral venture will pan out.
http://www.straitstimes.com/…/shanmugam-grills-research-fel…
http://www.todayonline.com/…/shanmugam-takes-historian-task…
