[알고보니] How did Korea become a ‘Conflict Republic’ (Interview)

Recently, in online communities, there has been a claim that Korea has been ‘recognized’ as the number one in the world conflict. The basis for this claim is a report published in June last year by King’s College, UK, commissioned by Ipsos, an opinion polling agency. A total of 23,000 people from 28 countries were surveyed, and the original goal was to compare how serious conflicts in British society were with other countries, but unfortunately, the most ‘popular’ country was ‘Korea’.

Korea ranked first in response rate of “severe conflict” in 7 items

According to the report, in 7 out of 12 conflict items, the highest proportion of Koreans answered “the conflict is serious”. This is why it is being said that Korea ranked first in 7 of the 12 conflict categories. 91% of Koreans answered that the gap between the rich and the poor was serious, which is tied for first place with Chile. What is particularly special regarding us is ‘gender, age, and education level (with or without college education)’. That’s twice the world average. Gender conflict, generational conflict, and educational background discrimination that we feel are regarded as particularly serious in Korea.

“Severe gender and age conflict” … nearly double the global average

At that time, the contents of the report did not receive much attention in Korea. So, why is it getting attention ‘now’? It seems that it has nothing to do with the fact that the divisions and conflicts in our society have intensified during the presidential election, and the people’s sensitivity to it has increased. looked for this report and other similar investigations. As a result, we were able to collect similar conflict-related reports published by the British BBC and the Korean Federation of Industries. All the reports coldly point out how serious the social conflict in Korea is by comparing it with other countries.

Why did we become a ‘self-proclaimed’ conflict republic? To get a perspective and perspective on this, I interviewed Professor Kim Nuri of Chung-Ang University, who has consistently raised this issue in the public forum. The team decided that the short interview quoted in the broadcast was not enough to fully convey the awareness of the problem, so the original interview is summarized.

◆ Why are there so many conflicts in Korea?

◇ [김누리 교수/중앙대학교 독어독문학과]

Korea is a mysterious country. People don’t know that. It’s wrong with education. There are many reasons, but the biggest one is ‘division’ in my opinion. In the midst of the division and the Cold War, Korea became a deformed country, and the people living in it became very sick people. It has accumulated, so it is now a very strange country.

BBC Report “World’s No. 1 in Gender Disparity, No. 2 in Age Disparity”

◆ Politics and ideological conflicts seem to be related to division, but what is the relationship between generational and gender conflicts?

◇ The problem in Korean society is not that there is a difference in ideology, but rather that there is no difference in ideology. The problem is that in Korea, they are all the same, and there is no difference in ideology. What is the ideological difference between Yoon Seok-yeol and Lee Jae-myung? There is no difference. At best, it’s always the wives that make the difference, whether they’re corrupt or not. Why is Korean politics like this? There is no difference in policy or ideology. So, in the Moon Jae-in administration, the people who served as the Prosecutor General and the Chief of the Audit and Inspection Service then go to the other side and come out as candidates.. The person who previously served as the vice chairman next to Moon Jae-in goes over there once more to mentor Yun Seok-yeol. There is no other country in the world with such a stupid structure. In other words, the two categories are the same. That is to say, there is a huge vested political class in which only substitutions are made within themselves.

So, no conflict can be resolved. The truth is, conflicts do not have to be resolved in the public sphere where rational debate is possible through ‘competition between different groups’. Korea doesn’t have that. Simply put, it’s one. As the early water polo and the conservative oligarchy ruled for 70 years, the people completely lost their political imagination to imagine a different world. Which of the two is the less bad though, I’m now thinking of it as my own choice each time.

◆ If the ideological difference is not large, why does the conflict keep growing?

◇ It is because there is no difference in ideology. There is no difference in ideology, but players have to be replaced inside. So it’s more noisy.

◆ Are you saying that it might rather abet or encourage conflict?

◇ It’s a play. They already know how to survive in this structure. It’s all sensoryly aware that a more intense conflict works to the advantage of changing their powers. So, demonizing the opponent more. That’s paradoxical. They demonize each other because they are the same.

◆ Is there really only one thing that sets you apart?

◇ That’s right. The conflict intensifies because there is only one way to say Chinese discrimination.

FKI report “Conflict at the top, conflict management at the bottom”

◆ If so, are the parties to the conflict, such as women and men, the victims?

◇ You have to look at it in a slightly different context. Korea is a system in which water polo and conservatives have divided power and ruled for 70 years in a 4-6 or 6-4 format. In other words, “a system in which conservatives and progressives compete with each other” is a huge lie. I can’t understand Korean society from that perspective. That’s one frame.

The second thing we misunderstand is that “Korean society has gone through a military dictatorship and is now a democratized society” is a lie. Today’s Korean society is not a democratized society, but a society that has transitioned from a military dictatorship to a capital dictatorship. Capital dictatorship differs from military dictatorship in the way it is governed. They do not dominate with physical violence. As Thomas Piketty recently wrote quite accurately in his book Capital and Ideology, capital dictatorship governs through language and ideology. In Korea, this is most clearly observed.

To rule through ideology is to rule through language. A ‘Slave Overseer’ was planted inside me. I planted all the notions of capital in me, so the fact is that Korean society is ruling in a way that takes care of itself and exploits itself. Such self-exploitation is called ‘self-development’ in Korea. In the way capital dominates, I have never seen such a successful case of ideological domination as it is in Korea. The strategy of capital is often called ‘transfer (轉嫁)’. It continues to impute the fundamental contradiction between capital and labor. in a different form. Exploitation of copper by capital is a fundamental problem, and this problem is constantly being addressed to the younger generation of men, saying, “You are being subjected to so many disadvantages because of those women” and “You are the older generation, the older generation, the old folks in their 5s and 60s. That is why they are suffering like this.” And even within the workers, regular and irregular workers are divided into regular and non-regular workers to fight among themselves. By transferring it in this way, the capital is completely lost (in the conflict). There is no other country in the world where we can rule so easily as the capitalists in Korea do.

“Korea’s rich and poor conflict is serious” 91% … World’s No. 1

◆ Does the political power also take advantage of such conflicts in each camp?

◇ No. Politics is now completely dominated by capital. It’s the minion of capital. There are 300 people sitting in the Korean National Assembly right now? Of those, 294 are supporters of a free market economy. Except for 6 people. What is a free market economy? They’re not trying to make laws that support the free domination of capital.

◆ So, do other developed countries have more ways to control the capital dictatorship than we do?

◇ Of course. No other country in the world has so many MPs in favor of a free market economy. Germany had 640 seats in the last session, and none of them supported a free market economy. It’s a shocking story. We’re 99% in favor of a free market economy, so why not? Are you saying that we need to ensure that capital can freely conduct its own activities in the market? The state should not intervene. So what happens to the market? The capitalist market is basically likened to a beast a lot. If left free, they will eat all humans. That’s Korean society right now. So now the suicide rate is not the number one for 18 years. It also has the highest worker mortality rate. I’ve been in second place three times and I’ve been number one in the world for 23 years. Long working hours are among the highest in the world. I work 800 more hours a year than Germany. Working more than 4 months. where is this country However, the viewpoints of seeing this are not good right now. Why is there no point of view on this? Most people who do economics or sociology come from studying in the US. America doesn’t have this view.

◆ (In the report) The United States is also at the top of the list of conflicts. Not like Korea.

◇ The United States is also serious. The same goes for America. The United States is also a conservative two-party system. The US Congress is like us. It’s not as extreme as we are, but there are a lot of supporters of a free market economy. However, in Europe, the political forces supporting a free market economy usually have a political weight of 5-10%. If you release it to a free market economy, the beast will run around and eat all the humans. So you have to control it. In other words, the social market economy, which is fundamental in Europe. It’s so natural. This time, Jae-myung Lee and Seok-yeol Yoon changed, but it doesn’t mean anything. It has no meaning in terms of the framework of change in Korean society.

It doesn’t change at all whether it’s Lee Jae-myung or Yoon Seok-yeol. There is only a slight change in the order of such distribution between the powers within the vested interests, but nothing changes for the really socially disadvantaged living in Korean society.

◎Writing/Composition: Kwon Hyein

※ [알고보니]is a fact check corner of MBC News.