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ryleeys
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: Columbia, MD
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 Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 8:38 am Post subject: |
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| Blind Willie wrote: |
To play Devil's Advocate for a second:
Confucian society= Roughly 3000 years and still going.
Rugged American Indvidualism= About 200, forecast looks gloomy. |
Why is the outcast gloomy? |
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Blind Willie
Joined: 05 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:49 am Post subject: |
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| ryleeys wrote: |
| Blind Willie wrote: |
To play Devil's Advocate for a second:
Confucian society= Roughly 3000 years and still going.
Rugged American Indvidualism= About 200, forecast looks gloomy. |
Why is the outcast gloomy? |
Democracy only works when all elegible voters vote. That less than half vote in America and Canada now, with continuing decreasing numbers means that people are no longer interested in maintaining that democracy.
Without a functioning democracy, there can not be any rugged individualism.
Well, there can be, but they usually get tossed in to the ovens. |
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ryleeys
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: Columbia, MD
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| Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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I don't think democracy has any requirements about the number of people voting to work...
If only 3 out of 300,000,000 people vote, then those 3 decide who wins... as a democracy, it is a person's right to choose not to vote. |
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Len8
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Location: Kyungju
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:28 am Post subject: |
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They say that Korean culture is shame based because it is collective. The culture of western countries is said to individualistic, and guilt based. the korean collectiveness is very arrogant, because they often act as though other races aren't worth the time of day. They can also be quite brutal in there treatment of others as well as their own. Have seen the way Koreans treat their own workers, and sometimes have to wince. They sometimes try to treat foreigners the same way, and will get away with it too if you let them.
Because Korean culture is shame based Korean people feel chagrin if they are found to be doing wrong whereas someone from a western country (provided he's not a psychopath) will feel a pang of regret and remorse. People in shame cultures continue their bad behaviour unless they become conscious of somebody elses'es gaze.
They also see the collective side of their culture as a way to communicate with as fewer words as possible. It's aslo dangerous, because people in collective cultures lose track of how the rest of the world is behaving, and they also see it as an extension of themselves. They also think they are moral and safe from danger. An almost religious sacred dogma, and this is a big reason for a lot of corruption that abounds in korea |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:56 am Post subject: |
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They can also be quite brutal in there treatment of others as well as their own. Have seen the way Koreans treat their own workers, and sometimes have to wince. They sometimes try to treat foreigners the same way, and will get away with it too if you let them.
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I dunno. Everything I've read about western capitalism in the early modern phase leads me to think that workers weren't exactly being treated like kings, to say the least. Child labour, the violent busting of strikes, press barons paying thugs to bash rival paperboys over the head, etc etc. I think the sleazy stuff you see going on in Korea today has more to do with a particular stage of economic development than it does with any "guilt/shame" cultural dichotomies.
People will find all sorts of justifications to exploit others, but at the end of the day those justifications are just window dressing. If a Korean hagwon owner wants to shaft his employees out of their plane ticket in order to make his car payments, he'll rationalize it as saving face("a man of my standing can't endure the humiliation of losing his car"). If a turn-of-the-century robber baron wanted to do something similar in order to buy a new house, he'd probably have trotted out Calvinism("God wants me to have this house because I've worked hard all my life") or Social Darwinism("I'm stronger than my employees so I can do what I want to them for the good of the species"). |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:09 am Post subject: |
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OTOH, I agree with you. The fact that you are pointing to the Western World of 100 years ago speaks volumes about Korea today.  |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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| OTOH, I agree with you. The fact that you are pointing to the Western World of 100 years ago speaks volumes about Korea today. |
Thanks. And I wasn't really defending Korea, so much as I was defending Korean culture against the charge that it is responsible for the workplace problems you see here. My point was that the problems have more to do with economic development than with culture. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand ( ) one could put forward the argument that Korea's industrial developement is so far behind because of cultural reasons. |
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Len8
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Location: Kyungju
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| Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2004 5:00 am Post subject: |
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| They say that under Park Chung Hee Korea adopted an export policy at the expense of the general well being of the people, and that the drive of the Korean people to this end has still not abated. They have only shifted it to being very materialistic, and competive. They have no time for a quality life. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 2:32 am Post subject: |
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| Len8 wrote: |
| They say that under Park Chung Hee Korea adopted an export policy at the expense of the general well being of the people, and that the drive of the Korean people to this end has still not abated. They have only shifted it to being very materialistic, and competive. They have no time for a quality life. |
i agree- quality of life and liesure time must rank near the bottom of the average korean's list of priorities. They will not rest until they've become "number 1" in the rankings...or at least gone as far as they possibly can economically. The time is nigh. if reunification occurs, it would spark an entirely new development phase all over again.
give it another 20 years and i guess they might just consider enjoying a recreational lifestyle. The 5- day week has just begun to be implemented, so its happening slowly. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 2:55 am Post subject: |
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| Len8 wrote: |
| Because Korean culture is shame based Korean people feel chagrin if they are found to be doing wrong whereas someone from a western country (provided he's not a psychopath) will feel a pang of regret and remorse. |
What a sweeping generalization, and load of poppycock! There are many Koreans who have values and avoid wrong-doing because they know it to be wrong. Likewise there are many Westerners who would commit criminal acts and not feel any remorse until s/he is caught.
For one example many people here act like uncaged animals in Korea, when they would never act that way back home around people who know them. |
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ThisCharmingMan
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 3:43 am Post subject: |
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| kiwiboy_nz_99 wrote: |
| On the other hand ( ) one could put forward the argument that Korea's industrial developement is so far behind because of cultural reasons. |
And you could say the most developed nations could have developed even sooner or further if it wasn't for thier cultural reasons. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 8:29 am Post subject: |
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kiwiboy_nz_99 wrote:
On the other hand ( ) one could put forward the argument that Korea's industrial developement is so far behind because of cultural reasons.
Thischarmingman wrote:
And you could say the most developed nations could have developed even sooner or further if it wasn't for thier cultural reasons. |
You'll get no argument from me there. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:02 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
kiwiboy_nz_99 wrote:
On the other hand ( ) one could put forward the argument that Korea's industrial developement is so far behind because of cultural reasons.
And you could say the most developed nations could have developed even sooner or further if it wasn't for thier cultural reasons. |
This gets us into serious chicken-egg territory. My own view is that culture springs from economic circumstances, and not vice-versa. Otherwise, I can't see how you account for cultural change. Does everyone in a Confucian society just suddenly get the idea that Confucianism is a bad thing, and decide that they should industrialize becuase that's more suitable to the non-Confucian society that they want? I don't think so. More likely, the economic effects of industrializtion make the old Confucian strictures less applicable.
But of course in any period of rapid economic change, you do have those who cling onto the old cultural norms, standing in front of history and yelling "stop", as it were. But how much influence they have in the long run is debatable. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:11 am Post subject: |
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| But why did some cultures develop technology and trade and so on while others remained agricultural? I say it's to do with culturally formulated patterns of thinking. |
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