<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>Re: [KS] How unequal is South Korea,
really?</title></head><body>
<div>Dear All:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Dr. Bertrand Renaud's rejoinder to Paul Shepherd (thanks for
posting this, Young-Key) raises also some questions about Korean
Studies.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I think this is a highly interesting discussion because it
touches on just so many important issues that go far beyond economics.
Dr. Renaud, of course, has already expressed that in various ways in
his posting.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Inequality, economic, social, sexual inequality, *if* perceived
as such, has always been the motor for political movements. When Dr.
Renaud states that "[t]he land distribution issue in Korea is a
major social issue by Korean choice" he basically seems to say
that it is mostly the<i> perception</i> of inequality that drives
people into the streets, whatever the Gini, Pini, or Winimini. In a
country like Korea such perception then legitimizes certain kinds of
political actions. Violent protest such as street fights or squatting,
for example, are widely accepted as legitimate tools of political
protest in Korean culture. Not so in the U.S., but again quite so in
most of Europe! Conflict solving strategies and cultures in general,
both in private and public, are quite different in Korea and the U.S.
What I wonder about, though, is how exactly people come to their
perceptions of inequality -- no doubt this seems to be
culture-specific, to a large degree at least. How otherwise can we
explain that hardly anyone in the U.S. really cares about such amazing
facts: "the top one-tenth of one percent [that's 1”, not 1% !]
of the income distribution earned as much of the real increase in
wage-and-salary income from 1997-2001 as the bottom 50 percent of the
country" (NBER newsletter, as quoted by Dr. Renaud). Tell that
some first graders and show them some photos and they will be shocked.
But something is happening between first and 10th grade. Something
very different seems to happen in Korea between 1st and 10th
grade.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In the late 60s and the 70s "interdisciplinary approaches"
were very popular in the humanities. Personally, most such
"interdisciplinary" works I had to read came across like cut
& paste wisdom collections for Catholic youth groups. What really
happened, however, is that Economics, Art History (not East Asian Art
History), and many other fields -- not as much History, unfortunately
-- incorporated methods from psychology and sociology into their
disciplines. Economics or Art History, for example, does not need to
be "interdisciplinary" therefore.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Now ... what about Korean Studies, I mean Western Korean Studies
as we all know it? What is that? And who needs it? What for? (Same
question for Sinology/Chinese Studies and Japanology/Japanese
Studies.) Is Korean Studies just a collective term to name studies
related to Korea/n from the "real" disciplines, both the
humanities and the hard sciences? Or is it Samsung's and the Korean
Overseas Information Service's international arm to propagate things
Korean? Mianhamnida ...mianhae, mianhae, I will never ever o it again,
but this one time. Can Korean Studies, if it exists (it sure does in
Europe) offer any answer to the inequality/culture complex that e.g.
Economics as it exists as a discipline today cannot answer? If I am
asking the wrong question, please let me know why.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Frank</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>--------------------------------------<br>
Frank Hoffmann<br>
http://koreaweb.ws</div>
</body>
</html>