hankyoreh

Semyung University chair

By Roh Hyung-suk, culture correspondent

“With an election coming this year, we stand amidst the gravest crisis in our nation’s history. We are at a crossroads and will choose between a leap forward or a tragedy for our people’s history.”

Do-ol, 64, made up his mind some time back to write a book expressing his unsparing thoughts on the situation currently facing the country. It was something a departure for the philosopher and Semyung University chair (real name Kim Young-oak), whose recent work has consisted mainly of translations of Chinese classics like “The Doctrine of the Mean” and “Mencius,”

Sitting down for an interview on August 19 at the Tongnamu Publishing offices in Seoul, he handed the reporter a copy of his book “Let Us Not Love,” which was just released. “Our situation in 2012 is a situation of philosophical issues,” he said.

“Anyone who knows how to holistically understand history must have a full understanding of how things have unfolded all the way from the time of Dangun [the legendary founder of the first Korean kingdom] to today in 2012,” he continued. “Under the present circumstances, philosophers need to talk not just about who is going to be President, but about major issues of history.”

“Let Us Not Love” is an extended historical-philosophical essay comprised of nine chapters, titled “Youth,” “History,” “The Fatherland,” “Presidential Election,” “The Universe,” “Heaven and Earth,” “Religion,” “Love,” and “Food.” Through question-and-answer exchanges with a young seeker of wisdom named Hak-dong (a word meaning young student), Do-ol offers his assessment of the upcoming presidential election and the state of the nation. He lambastes the Lee Myung-bak administration’s poor governance and bias toward Western values, as well as the incursions of corporations into daily existence. The book is also a call to arms for resistance from a powerless younger generation.

“Our dire historical situation squeezed this out of me,” he said.

The first thing Do-ol talks about in the fourth chapter on the presidential election is the run of newly minted New Frontier Party candidate Park Geun-hye. Ruling her victory more or less a fait accompli, he says, “Since the ruling party won April’s general election, the passing of judgment on the current administration has been put off until the presidential election. Park will have to carry all the sins of the Lee Myung-bak administration.”

“The core issue of the presidential election is how to stop the Park Geun-hye runaway train,” he declares.

“More than 90% of Park Geun-hye’s stature as a politician comes from her being Park Chung-hee’s daughter,” Do-ol said. “The problem is that even though she has this massive power, she has not done the kind of politics that is necessary for the people’s historical justice and public welfare. She hasn‘t done much politics at all, apart from drawing votes by smiling a lot around election time. Park Geun-hye needs to completely disengage her father from her own identity and engage in politics as her own human being.”

Do-ol expressed hopes for the opposition’s presidential contenders. He described the popularity of software mogul and potential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo as a “bizarre phenomenon without precedent in human history” and “the plaintive cry of a suffering public with no other recourse.”

“Winning in a game that makes a winner of Park Geun-hye will depend on how the people in the opposing camp can let go of themselves and act selflessly,” he said. “They need to decide which way of joining forces would be most beneficial and focus their energy on that. If they lose at this game, we could end up like Japan, where there’s a feeling of resignation in the public political consciousness.”

He went on to explain the title of the book. “It means rejecting all of the Western values encapsulated in the word ‘love’ on a foundation of Eastern ideas about creation and change,” he said. “I talk about this in the book: the concepts of love that come from the West are all tangled up in our society, with everything from love of human kind to sexual desire. The word ‘love’ is something foreign that came in with Christianity in the Enlightenment period and began eroding Koreans’ spirits.”

He added that the title also has to do with the various policy failures of the Lee administration. In his view, that administration has selected the very least desirable of Western values and taken them to their extremes.

“There are a lot of examples like this, based on a cheap kind of Christian way of thinking that won’t be with us much longer, anyway,” he said. “They’ve espoused rigid anti-Communism, benefited the rich, helped the elders who go to church all the time to make money, destroyed farming communities by letting large corporations take charge of everything from production to distribution, stripped young people of their dreams, and turned South Korea into an island country through inter-Korean hostilities. This book came about after a string of just that kind of terminal behavior where the only value is efficiency.”

Do-ol said that young people “need to restore the historical youth of the nation.”

“Rather than worrying just about employment, they should be thinking about contributing to society and organizing,” he advised.

Having voiced his views on the current situation based on a perspective of historical insight, rather than partisanship, Do-ol now plans to spent the rest of the year translating the work of Taoist philosopher Lao-tzu.

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