[KS] What's So Good about Korea, Maarten?

Sperwer sperwer at sperwerslog.com
Mon Jan 22 23:15:23 EST 2007


I concur with Burgeson and Scofield with taking Meijer to task for his
factual inaccuracies and the pathetic attempt to dodge that criticism by
hiding behind the supposed subjectivity of social criticism.  If social
criticism is to warrant the sobriquet of being "critical", surely it must
get the facts right.  This Meijer frequently doesn't do.  The divorce
statistics to which Scofield refers are but one telling example of Meijer's
almost willful blindenss to Korean realities past and present.  So is
Burgeson's initial correction of Meijer's unfounded characterization of
Taekwondo as a 2000 9why not 5000?) year old Korean martial art.  Meijer
tries to dodge Burgeson by observing that his remarks on TKD were included
in his chapter on the "art of living", and based on his appreciation of TKD
an "art" rather than an "incorporation" [sic], as if either of these
justified an "interpretation" that could simply ignore the facts.  The only
thing interesting about what Meijer calls the "roots" of TKD that he
imagines in Korea's distant past is the way in which they were grafted unto
TKD after its creation from very different stock in the service of the
broader project of (re-)creating Korean national identity.  From an
historical point of view, the only thing that is interesting about TKD is
this inescapably political dimension. 







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