[KS] Re: KSR 1998.08: _Troubled Tiger: Businessmen, Bureaucrats,

[James M. West]

The comments by Mia Yun and Yuh Ji-Yeon lead me to explain more clearly my
objections to the book review by Timothy Lim.  They found my comments to be
"mean-spirited" and "insulting" -- my remarks in places were on the uncivil
side, but as I see it a person such as Mr. Lim who resorts to ad hominem
attacks (insinuations of racist bias) forfeits the benefit of the usual
conventions.             

At 04:03 PM 8/20/98 -0400, Mia Yun wrote:
>Dear Mr. West, 
>In your haste and zeal to defend Mr. Clifford and to criticize Mr. Lim,
you wrote, "Mr. >Lim seems predisposed to assuage the wounded pride of
(fellow?) Koreans, as if ..."   I >don't know if Mr. Lim is indeed Korean
but how unwarranted!  And irrelevant!   

It is possible that this remark was unwarranted and I owe Mr. Lim an
apology, but I doubt that Ms. Yun is in a position to judge this.  If true,
it would be very relevant, for it would partially explain his reaction to
perceived or suspected prejudice.  Under the circumstances, I thought Mr.
Lim might find it edifying to have someone impute  motives to him based on
a speculative extrapolation from his text.   So I sank to his level?
Absolutely.   
    
>Mr. Clifford's generalizing remark like "Koreans too often have a
greediness,"  >contrary to your assertion, I might add, is indeed offensive
and has a tone, however >slight, of racism.  Wouldn't you agree that one
could make a generalizing remark like >this regarding any other ethnicity
or race, lets say by substituting the word "Koreans" >with  "Jews," or
"Arabs," or "Americans,"  or "Japanese," or "Chinese?"  And could you >make
this sort of generalization without being accused of being a racist?   

This sentence was insensitive, granted, but what I cannot abide is that Mr.
Lim seized upon this remark and a few others taken out of context, as if
these were smoking guns indicative of Clifford's "racially biased" attitude
toward all Koreans.  Beyond the rest of the book in question, Clifford has
ten years of work on Korea in print in the Far Eastern Economic Review,
Business Week and elsewhere.  He has a well-earned reputation for
integrity.  Accusing someone of racism is no trivial matter, however
fashionable it may be in certain circles.        

>[snip] Whether one is a writer or a reader, or a reviewer, his or her
approach toward >any given subject is always subjective.  In this respect,
Mr. Clifford's subjective >views then should be as welcome as Mr. Lim's
subjective review.  Surely Mr. Lim has >every right to find some of Mr.
Clifford's criticisms offensive?  Why not?   Mr. >Clifford himself offered
the carrot, so to speak.  At least in the instances I have >pointed out.
And yet, you criticize Mr. Lim by saying, "Mr.Lim's superficial >assessment
of the book provides no basis at all for crying racism."     

Fiction writers have the luxury of indulging their subjectivity, but
journalists and scholars do not normally have a "right" to accuse one
another of racism irrespective of the evidence.   Ms. Yun has not even read
the book, or Clifford's other work, yet she vindicates Mr. Lim's "right to
be offended" by paraphrasing the maxim "de gustibis non disputandem est."
Forgive me, but I have principled objections to relativism, and I regard
this as an ethical breach on Mr. Lim's part, not a matter of mere etiquette
or subjective taste.   Hence my "zeal", misguided though you may find it.  

>Your guess that Mr. Lim might be a Korean who is "predisposed to assuage
the wounded >pride of (fellow?) Koreans, " is mean-spirited to say the
least.     
>Mia Yun            

Perhaps the tone I adopted was unduly antagonistic, and perhaps I have
damaged my own cause.   That is not for me to judge.  Perhaps it would be
better if Messrs. Clifford and Lim were both on the list speaking for
themselves -- though Clifford might prefer not to dignify the review by
responding.  If I were him, I would think thrice; as it was, I only thought
twice.            

Yuh Ji-Yeon wrote:

A>[snip]my own reading, or rather, quick skimming, of the book leads me to
agree
>with lim that toward the later chapters clifford does tend to stereotype
>koreans and their behavior as if koreans were a monolithic entity and
>without consideration for their points of view. the fact that such
>stereotyping is commonly engaged in by some (perhaps many) westerners and
>other non-koreans, and with considerable vigor, whenever korea and koreans
>behave in a fashion other than they wish, i.e., whenever korea does
>something that non-koreans cannot understand or do not like, has lent
>credence to such charges of stereotyping. this sort of stereotyping has
>been analyzed as a feature of racism, particularly the sort that is a
>legacy of western imperialism and neo-imperialism. it seems to me that this
>is the context in which lim suggests (very very tentatively) that perhaps
>clifford veers toward racism in the last chapters of the book.

I disagree that Lim's insinuation of racism is "very very tentative" -- he
expends several paragraphs in support of an accusation that verges on
defamation and repeats it in his conclusion, in the form of the charge of
"Anglo-American bias."  I note also that the expression "stereotyping" is
used virtually as a code word implying racism.   Where Clifford makes
complimentary generalizations about Korean behavior and institutions, are
those also "stereotypes"?   In fact, Clifford's book is full of specific
information that is readily verifiable and responsibly presented.   And
when he criticizes patterns of behavior or government policies, he often
does so from a perspective that considers whether the consequences
furthered or impaired Korean interests as defined by Koreans themselves.    

>it is also interesting that while west criticizes lim for suggesting that
>clifford is biased with an anglo-american perspective and is perhaps racist
>in his characterizations of koreans, west then suggests that lim is
>ethnocentric and therefore biased in his review. lim's review, however, is
>balanced: it takes pains to point out the value of clifford's work and his
>observations, but is also critical of the book's weak points, internal
>inconsistencies, and its near-obliviousness regarding its own analytical
>perspective or lack thereof.

As someone who has only "quickly skimmed" the book, how can you evaluate
the judiciousness of Lim's claims?   Whether Lim's review is "balanced" is
not the issue that I raised -- it may be "balanced" in the formal sense
that it contains a certain amount of praise, but does this excuse the ad
hominem innuendo?         

>the book, although it does not contain a clear analytical framework (very
>typical of books written by journalists, by the way; it seems that only
>academia explicity demands such frameworks), does approach the issue of
>korea's economy with liberal or neo-liberal assumptions about free trade,
>the free market, protectionism, and other economic matters. these ideals of
>free trade and the free market are most vigorously championed by the united
>states and great britain. in effect, these ideals constitute clifford's
>unspoken but very present analytical framework, for his observations of the
>korean economy are based on these assumptions.  i assumed that that is what
>lim referred to when he said that clifford's book is deeply colored by a
>neo-liberal and anglo-american bias.

Despite its shortcomings, Clifford's book is more informative and
insightful than many an academic book on Korea's political economy, so we
academics should beware of adopting a condescending attitude toward
journalists.   As for Clifford's neo-liberal proclivities, I have no
problems at all with a reviewer criticizing economic assumptions, explicit
or tacit, if they are accurately represented.  However, when Lim speaks of
Anglo-American bias, he goes further than this and once again insinuates
prejudice against Koreans.   Despite the association with Reagan and
Thatcher, neo-liberalism is not a distinctively Anglo-American ideology.
It has Austrian, Italian and Swiss as well as British and American
theoretical antecedents, and exponents around the world, including many
influential economists in Korea and elsewhere in Asia.  Contrary to your
assumptions, Clifford's views on free trade, privatization and other
questions of economic policy are not nearly as dogmatic as Lim suggests.
Moreover, many of his criticisms of industrial organization and
protectionism in Korea are quite cognizant of the domestic implications,
positive and negative, of changes to enhance competition.         

>but perhaps taking the time out from other more immediate concerns to
>respond to west's post has been a waste of energy, and i am in for
>accusations of coming to the defense of a fellow korean in an effort to
>assuage wounded ethnic/national pride. i certainly hope not. we on this
>list surely have better things to do than make and be witness to those
>kinds of accusations, insults which are quite detrimental to open dialogue
>and mutually respectful debate.

So, your conclusion is that Lim's accusation of racism was acceptable, and
that my irritated rejoinder was unprovoked, insulting and "detrimental to
mutually respectful debate"?    We disagree, for certain.   Respect is not
anyone's inviolable entitlement -- Mr. Lim chose not to give Mark Clifford
the benefit of the doubt, and I have returned the favor.  You in turn have
chided me, taking time out from a busy schedule to police the decorum of
the list.   I will forbear from further tactless speculation about motives,
but it still seems to me that your admonitions could be better directed.  

James West                         




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