hankyoreh

By Kang Myung-koo, Seoul National University professor of communications

When Korea University student Ju Hyun-woo asked how we are doing nowadays, he was not asking about values and ideology, information and knowledge, facts and logic, or assessment and judgment. Instead, Ju seemed to be saying that he was feeling a lot of pain and frustration and that he wanted to know if others felt the same way.

There was a strong response to the question. If his hand-written poster had stated opinions based on factual judgments determined according to values and ideology - if the poster had been intended to provoke responses - it would have been forgotten as just one poster among many. How was it that a single appeal to Korean society at the end of the year was able to stir up our emotions in this way?

The many posters that appeared after Ju’s asked both the writers themselves and other neighbors how we are supposed to survive in this difficult world, what kind of life we are to lead, and what kind of person we should try to become. They did not ask what we think, what we should do, or whether we are happy. Instead, they asked about the well-being of body and soul.

Politics is frustrating and the economy and job market are both hopeless, the posters seemed to say. They contained a desire to reflect on the exhausting life we are forced to live and to ask how things are for our friends and neighbors. There is no place for the jargon of organizations or the vocabulary of discipline here. It is true that the posters mention privatization, irregular workers, and the power lines of Miryang. But these are not statements issued by superiors to inferiors. Rather, they are expressions of concern and consideration exchanged among equals.

Let’s examine the messages of support that have been posted on Facebook. “I hope that this is an opportunity to think about why the perpetrators are not punished, why society remains in silence, and why we find the strong so attractive.” (Jeong Da-un, Sogang University) “When I saw these posters, I realized the fact that people really have a lot of things to say. The things that they had been holding back came pouring out all at once.” (Lee Hyun-min, Korea University)

The massive amount of sympathy evoked by these posters was made possible because they touched people’s sentiments and feeling. Underlying the sympathy are the emotions of the younger generation: passion, frustration, anger, apathy, helplessness, and surrender. These emotions are linked to the experience of life and the feelings of the body, and people relate to them and convey them they represent the people’s own experiences and feelings, not through the language of conveyance and persuasion. Thus, the words of these posters are not expressed through logic and judgment of facts but rather through the grammar of feeling that is written on our bodies through life (and through the struggle to live).

In this sense, it is an empty wish to expect that the passion contained in these posters will lead to resistance against the current administration and the neoliberal system. Some people have confessed their regret that no one is organizing and that there are no values or slogans being chanted. But feelings and emotions by their very nature do not organize. Since these posters are not written in the language of activism, we must stop harboring these hopes. We need to stop worrying that this is just a passing fad and start paying more attention to the hints about the feelings that the younger generation wants to express.

The messages conveyed by these posters make one feel that these young people are standing at a dead end. Where does this feeling come from? There is a strong sense that young people are deeply disappointed, that they can longer believe in the promise that hard work, dedication, creativity, sensitivity, and connection are required if one is to survive, succeed, and be happy. Perhaps these people are shaking their heads and rejecting the “cruel optimism” (to borrow Lauren Berlant’s term), which promises the nonexistent dream that happiness can only be obtained by those who want to be happy.

In these messages, I do not feel political resistance and demands so much as a bodily rejection. They do not express indifference to politics so much as an escape from politics. It occurs to me that young people may stop giving in to the temptation to dress up the cruel reality of their lives in the trappings of optimism and instead just turn away from it as a dead end. It is a feeling less of resistance and compromise and more of leaving everything behind. These people may not know where they are going, but they are committed to staying true to themselves and finding a way to live with people that they can relate to. It occurs to me that we may have to discover the grammar of this newly created emotion through these posters.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]