re: "A paragon of virtues" (Postbag, December 31)
Dear editor,
Apart from the error of equating traditional with virtuous, as if slavery, sexism, racism and other traditional evils were made good merely by the fact of being traditional, there is a more serious mistake revealed in Burin Kantabutra's thoughtful letter pointing out the PM's failure to practice what he preaches.
As the example of Jatupat Boonpatararaksa and others constantly remind us, the PM general's list of 12 Thai Values are self-contradictory: Thai law often criminalizes honesty, making it impossible to legally practice both Value number 2 (honesty) and Value number 8 (respect the law). But this is no surprise: the PM's 12 Values of Thainess were made up to reform education by replacing solid virtues such as critical thinking, respect for facts and healthy truth seeking, things the Buddha calls "right understanding", with mindless respect for authority based on tradition.
The 12 Values of traditional Thainess as listed by the PM are not fit for decent people to live by, but are, like so many hoary traditions serving repressive status quos, themselves in urgent need of critical reform.
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on January 1, 2018, under the title "Being Thai" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1388722/being-thai
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