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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:53 am Post subject: |
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Edited, double post.
Last edited by On the other hand on Fri Mar 04, 2005 8:40 am; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:54 am Post subject: |
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| People generally have a need to obey and follow authority and be part of a group. The Koreans have a stronger need because Korean culture is hierarchical anyway. They don't look at political decisions rationally, nor do they question the validity of the decision. They act on their emotions, because they haven't developed the means to participate rationally with debate and question and answer sessions. |
You make some interesting observations, Medic. But I'm not sure how you can tie in being part of a hierarchy with following emotions.
The day-to-day workings of a hierarchy, assuming it is long-established, are not based on emotional appeal. If the Confucian social order is based on family and age, and IF that social order is replicated in the political sphere, then the Confucian is going to follow whoever happens to be above him in the age/family social structure, regardless of the emotional appeal of that person.
I've discussed politics quite often with Koreans, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "well, I'm voting for Mr X because he is older than Mr Y". Here in Gwangju, it seems to break down into a combination of ideology and hometown appeal. People liked Kim Dae Jung because he was involved in the Uprising, and is seen as having fought for the interests of Joella province. And they voted for Roh Moo Hyun, not because he was the older or more educated candidate(he wasn't), but because they saw him as Kim's successor and as the more ideologically left-wing candidate(Gwangju's a left-wing town). And as far as I know, his support in Joella spanned accross the generation gap, to include older people who we would expect to be more tied in to Confuican values.
I don't doubt that there are a lot of older conservative people who would still prefer their leaders to be elderly and graduates of the best schools. But even then: if the Uri party nominated a left-wing presidential candidate who was 70 years old and had graduated from SNU, I don't think you'd suddenly see all the older right-wing GNP supporters crossing the floor to vote for the guy, even if the GNP candidate was in his forties.
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| nor do they question the validity of the decision. |
If that's the case, why then are there divisions of public opinion on the issues? Shouldn't Koreans all be agreeing with whatever the government does, if no one questions the validity of decisions? |
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Len8
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Location: Kyungju
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| Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 1:46 am Post subject: |
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Medic said
"People generally have a need to obey and follow authority and be part of a group. The Koreans have a stronger need because Korean culture is hierarchical anyway. They don't look at political decisions rationally, nor do they question the validity of the decision. They act on their emotions, because they haven't developed the means to participate rationally with debate and question and answer sessions "
Koreans seem to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to fads. They do follow what everyone else is doing in masse, just because everyone else is doing it. Koreans have it drummed into them to follow authority figures like teachers, civic leaders, buddhist clergyman and so on. They therefor want to be the same as everyone else when it comes to things like fashion, and sending their kids to hogwans. The authority figure has become what everyone else is doing, and someone has said that they follow the new authority figure like a bunch of lemmings |
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