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really?</title></head><body>
<div>Dear List,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>It is very interesting to read opinions on the important issue of
equality in South Korea. I have no empirical data to add but let me
say that I have never met any South Korean outside the academic world
who agree with the World Bank's view that the country has combined
high growth and equal income distribution. On the contrary, it happens
that South Koreans volunatarily raise the issue of inequality,
although to be fair it is rather in terms of wealth than in
income.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>To me, equality has also a cultural dimension and in this respect
I must say that Confucianism has nothing at all to do with equality.
The cultural inequality is reenforced by the ranking of
universities.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Gabriel Jonsson</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Dear
List:</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">I don't
think Frank has to mianhamnida to anyone re: his statement about
Korean propaganda. The issue of who pays for research and what
is said has been with us ever since academics took money to do
research. We fought with each other all through the 1980s about
the appropriateness of taking money linked in any way to the ROK
state. People had all sorts of different attitudes about it from
Jim Palais, never under any circumstances.....to if there is no
attempt at influencing the outcome or what one says, what is the
difference? Funding sources don't have to be coersive or direct
because there is always the issue of the receiver not wanting to
embarrass nor bite the hand that feeds. Yes, the Korea Studies
field exists at the current level because of U.S. strategic funding
and Korea Foundation grants. But having created a field, neither
governmnet can really control the information generated. At
least there are more people now well-acquainted with the recent past
and contemporary issues of Korea to go and speak, teach, and otherwise
inform the public about this place. When I was in graduate
school in the 1970s Korean history was still basically relegated to
Fairbank textbook, and it was only mentioned in a few courses at
places that had someone doing Korea....not that many people. I
worry that our younger scholars might be accepting the claptrap about
"democratization" uncritically. so it is refreshing to
have a conversation about the inequalities of all sorts that remain.
There might be some procedural democracy evolving in the ROK but there
is still a political systme that only speaks for a very narrow range
of voices in the polity. .....What I wonder is the point I
thought I would make,,,,,,,perhaps it is that we need to continue our
scholarship and build in depth knowledge (however narrowly
couched)...but that we must also not abondon our own politics out of
politeness. </font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Mike
Robinson</font><br>
<blockquote>----- Original Message -----</blockquote>
<blockquote><b>From:</b> <a href="mailto:frank@koreaweb.ws">Frank
Hoffmann</a></blockquote>
<blockquote><b>To:</b> <a
href="mailto:koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws">Korean Studies Discussion
List</a></blockquote>
<blockquote><b>Sent:</b> Monday, August 28, 2006 8:34 PM</blockquote>
<blockquote><b>Subject:</b> Re: [KS] How unequal is South Korea,
really?</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>Dear All:</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>Dr. Bertrand Renaud's rejoinder to Paul Shepherd (thanks
for posting this, Young-Key) raises also some questions about Korean
Studies.</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote>Frank</blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<blockquote><tt>--</tt></blockquote>
<blockquote>--------------------------------------<br>
Frank Hoffmann<br>
http://koreaweb.ws</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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