Are the Koreans and Asians more generally ‘culturally incapable of politics’? Obviously a loaded question. Part of it depends on how one understands Asian culture; part of it depends on how one understands politics.

I have found that, in my limited experience, East Asians are probably more adept at politics than perhaps any other people in the world. If for Buddhists, “life is suffering”, for East Asians, “life is politics”. There is a constant positioning and maneuvering in almost every area of life outside of the most casual settings. My opinion is that this is rooted in the East Asian experience of reality reflected in Daoism, the Yi Jing, etc. Reality has an uncertain and undulating quality to it that can be intuited and manipulated to a degree, but is ultimately unfathomable. Westerners, on the other hand, grow up with the expectation that reality is stable and grounded in scientific logic or God’s love.

I think there are obvious drawbacks to both positions. It leads to inconstancy among East Asians punctuated with extreme emotional reactions on occasions and to self-righteousness and arrogance in Westerners, punctuated by moral crises when their certainties and systems collapse.

The constant negotiation that defines life in East Asia is certainly a kind of politics, if politics is understood as a kind of horsetrading. It tends towards zero-sum thinking. I think in the West, however, there is a different tradition of politics rooted in ideas of republicanism and constitutionalism (also known as the “rule of law”). These were the parts of Western civilization that Herodotus identified as separating the West from the East.

Put in another way, for Westerners, politics is (ideally) a process for achieving the common good, whereas in the East, it is horsetrading. The systems designed for achieving the common good in, say, Confucianism are not politics–there is no common participation in decisions–but governing by a sage and/or king. In Plato’s Republic, we can see something similar, but it is worthy to note that Plato did not believe his Republic was possible and that his mode of thought and teaching was the dialogue that often ends inconclusively. For Confucius (at least the one reflected in the Analects), there is no such give and take and no pattern for politics in the (I would say) “higher” sense.

This is not about language, it is about culture. Calling someone Hyung (big brother) is not just a word. It has to do with the confucian respect to the elders.

It is important to remember anytime you read a book about culture, whether it is Breen’s type of cultural analysis or simply a documentation of customs such as the Culture Shock! books, that these books are one person’s perspectives. While these books do not contain universally true observations of the cultures, they show different ways to view the cultures they discuss.

Although I doubt that Breen’s comments about the detriments of Korean Confucian culture are true of all Koreans or all aspects of the culture, I find it difficult to believe that his criticisms are totally off the mark, or that all of the aspects of Korean culture he discusses are NOT affected by them.

As for the language issue, it is true that the language does not necessarily reflect the mindset of the speakers, but it is true that it contains grammar that constantly reminds speaker of his or her position relative to their interlocutor. That has to effect Korean perspectives on interpersonal relationships in some way. You can’t possibly tell me that relationships in Korea are the same as relationships in English-language cultures.

I consider myself well-educated, with a degree in American history. I have visited Korea several times to visit relatives in my life, and I can tell you this.

Even though Breen can claim he has lived in Korea longer than I have, and could probably tell me many facts and figures about Korea than I could ever know, he is not Korean, has not been raised in a Korean family, and therefore could never understand Korea as the Koreans do. Breen projects his Western frame of mind onto interpretations of culture. Just because he is disgusted and uncomfortable about society in Korea doesn’t mean they are faulty and problematic. They are just faulty and problematic for the Westerner trying to understand and live in Korea.

People who are a priori skeptical about something, will always find harsh criticisms and complaints to point out, because inherent in an a priori skepticism about something, is the refusal to be refuted or disgust to find out what is good or right.

The problem with people like Breen is that they go in with an assumption of finding fault or wrongness, they do not go in with a belief in the goodness of the nature of a foreign society they do not understand.

This is the fundamental problem that Breen is not aware of, nor does he probably want to be aware of, that he first assumes that the Western scale is the absolute scale by which all other societies should be measured. It is only natural. But what is natural is many times not morally right nor revealing of truth. The Westerner would definitely not think it proper or right to have to live life in his own land to be met by the approval of an Asian judge. Nor is it the case that Asians should necessary live life to satisfy or seek the approval of their Western counterparts.

The amount of chauvinistic crap and ethnic bias that goes on is amazing and disconcerting. Arrogance and ignorance unfortunately have the bigger and poisonous voices than humility and knowledge.

It is a shame that it is often the people who are the more dimwitted, biased, and chauvinistic (i.e. Mr. Breen himself) who wield the bigger, louder, and bigoted mouths.

I pity Michael Breen for whatever grudge or distaste he holds against Asian societies.

Perhaps he should read material by his Asian equivalent (if there exists one) who lives in Ireland or Scotland, wherever he is from, and see if he approves. He probably will begin with the assumption that that person has a faulty understanding.

Speaking of romanization, I thought it was “Samseong Station”! Don’t tell me you’re stuck on old M-R too! But I digress…

A quick comment: many Westerners who have experience of Koreans interacting among themselves and have managed to get some clue have been involved in bureucratic organizations, where the language levels and terms of address and reference often reflect relations of power and domination.
But outside of such organizations, in more voluntary organizations, in friendship, among neighborhood acquaintances (a gallery of pics from WC 2002 as an example of such setting) and such, the language use (now that we’re talking about it), while still staying within the bounds of the Korean “propriety,” is no more about dominance and much less about power.

And Michael Breen, who needs a friend to point out such thing after living decades in Korea, fails to learn what Owen mentions about the aspects of intimacy and friendship that these terms of address also contain.

And yes, the honorifics can be used in a sarcastic and derisive way in Korean.

I think Michael Breen’s mention of the term of address hyŏng is a case in point. My feeling about these family-based terms (others being 누나, 오빠 etc) is that while they may sometimes imply a master/slave relationship, more often than not they are about showing closeness, intimacy etc. The line between relationships of intimacy and domination is obviously fine but I think the tendency in the mind of ‘westerners’ is to always imagine that this sort of language is about domination.

Like many foreigners studying Korean, I also find the hierarchical aspects of the language in terms of honorifics and terms of address to be very annoying. However, I have strong suspicions that the effects of this in social relationships and the supposed extent to which it preserves or enforces a power structure is hugely exaggerated by everyone. While I would be more happy if the language evetually dumped these aspects, I don’t see it as a significant obstacle.

I suspect (and I would welcome comments from Koreans here) that as in Japanese, those “lower” in the language hierarchy can wield their more obsequious language to great sarcastic effect and show great contempt for their “superiors” when they want to contest the opinions of others in an aggressive way.

I read an article in a Korean newspaper (in English) a few months ago talking about an entirely Korean high tech company with about 30 employees that went to English only a few years ago. Their reason: they felt that the Korean language was so hierarchical that they could not have a consensus based company using Korean. Now this also goes to show that Koreans are capable of acting in committees, but it does highlight the problems.