To be a True Sovereign (1)

1. What matters?

"The Customers' exodus from the commodity market results in self-adjustment of the companies to the tastes of the customers, but in the case of the election market, the voters' exodus has meager influence on the change of the party, which is interpreted to be political enterprises."

-Choi, Jang-jip, "Democracy After the Democratization"

Which factor makes this difference? The answer is easy; the affect of the consumption upon entrepreneurs are quite crucial, and the companies are well 'aware' of that. In contrast, political parties are not (even though voters are mortal for their existence). Already, Korea finished the establishment of the political class, which was originally derived from the theory of Morris. Although Korea pursue the western political moderl, its previous authoritative/hierarchial political perspective still remains, and politicians view themselves as magistrates, not servants. In this case, those 'magistrates' enlarge their rights, but ignore duties. Thus, it is difficult to response simultaneously to the reactions of the voters, which results in the voters' abhorrence on politics, which again results in widening the crack between the voters and the political class; it is a vicious circle.

2. Democratic Remedies

There are two remedies to cure the symtom. These two should be coincided. First, the abolition of the political hierarchial concept between the voters and the political class. The political class should realize that they are not the noblemen, and the voters should feel more responsibility upon politics, rather than to be satisfied as a passive status. This method was suggested from long ago and it can be come true by the active political participation of the citizens.

Second therapy is quite harder; the voters themselves should destroy the frames and cross the frontier.

-To be Continued.

Man of La Mancha; to dream the impossible dream

 Musical is an amusing genre. It was not long ago when I began to be interested, and it was by the famous musical Les Miserables. Actually, there are notable differences between Les Miserables and Man of La Mancha. Les Miserables is consisted of music, mostly without common conversations, but for the case of the latter one, I suppose more than half of the musical is made of dialogue. Therefore, it became a chance to poder the identity of the genre called musical. The characters were having a common conversation at first, and after a while to find they were singing, I thought the similiarity of musical with reality.

 This musical adopts an conspicuous method of story-within-a-story. Miguel de Servantes is a tex-collector, and he believed the national law confirming the equality of every countrymen, and attatched a sequester label on the door of a church. He was arrested of blesphamy and was waiting for inquistion inside a jail, where he met other prisoners, and he was again accused to the court of the prisoners. There, he was accused of being an idealist, being inflexible, and being an awful writer, so he was almost sentenced to be guilty. Right then, he suggests the prisoners to participate his play, named "Don Quixote". as a story within, Don Quixote is almost parallel with the plot of Don Quixote that we know well, except for a portion of details. The world is corrupted as ever, people make fun of Don Quixote as ever, and Don quixote, as ever, runs toward the unreachable ideal.

http://www.mnsu.edu/theatre/season/past/archive/m/manoflamancha.html

 However, hear him now! We are bewildered. Who is right and who is wrong? Who is insane and who is sane? As Quixote said, "In a mad world, those who try to live straightly with sanity are crazy." Did you tell me to face the reality by itself? The Lord of La Mancha again says; "Reality is the foe of the truth!"

 Indeed. Who can guarantee the sanity if the world is insane? People running toward the ideal should take the responsibility. "To dream the impossible dream. To fight the unbeatable foe. To bear with unbearable sorrow. To right the unrightable wrong. To reach the unreachable star." Those are our quests, our rights and our dreams. We have unreachable stars in our mind and it'll lead a revolution.

http://taproottheatre.org/?attachment_id=1715

 See, the result of the Lord of La Mancha. He was defeated by knight of the mirror. Really? Was it knight of the mirror, who actually defeated Don Quixote? He was defeated by humself. The conceptual 'I' and the real 'I' are inevitably different, and the mirror is a medium to connect those two. Don Quixote was only defeated by the mad old man Alsonzo Quixana. He is a representative of the French revolutionaries, of the luddites, of Marx, of George Orwell, of Salvador Allende, of Che Guevara. He may also be the representative of ourselves. Escaped from the routine life, we float in the world of imagination. If we were Don Quixote, we already have put one of our legs on the saddle of Rosinante. Knight of the mirror didn't forced the lord the reality. He merely gaved Don Quixote, the right to choose, and Don Quixote decided, actually Servantes decided to return Don Quixote home.

 What moved me to tears was the next scene. As a loser, he rapidly grew old and is close to his death. However, encouraged by the fade reminiscence, he wake up from his bed and sing... to pass away right after. The tears were not for his ideal, but for the pity to the lord and such cruel ideal.

 Simultaneous to Don Quixote's death, the jail door is opened, and Servantes is going to attend the inquisition, which may lead him to death. Then, the prisoners sing "To live with your heart striving upward. To a far, unattainable sky!"

 Servantes walks confidently, in contrast to our walk, reluctant to leave the theater.

"Vamos, Sancho!"

Nacirema, a Delightful Academic Trick

 Once, I've heard a story of a man called Allen Sokal. He was a physicist, who was against the anti-intellectual movement throughout the post-modernism scholars. He was curious about whether the editors of such post-modernistic magazines would allow 'any' dissertation that fits their taste and seems to make sense. He submitted an academic article titled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", which was about interpreting quantum gravity in the perspective of humanities, or in another word; rubbish. A magazine Social Text published his paper, and on the same day, Sokal submitted an explanation to another magazine Franca Lingua that his paper was a trick to bewilder post-modernists.

 Actually, it is hilarious to see others being deceived, but what if that is my case? I have quite much interest on American Indians and cultural relativism, so at first sight, I wrote a reflection based on cultural relativism, though wondering why their habitat was so wide; from Canada to Caribbean Sea.

 I was another post-modernist, and was totally faked. Though it was amusing to find how each 'ritual' correspond with our life. We usually say outsiders' cultures 'strange'. When we say we should admit them and talk about 'relativism', there is a condition that the object is exotic, and under the condition, we are apt to think that "to be same is to be comfortable". Psychologically, it is true. Mr. Menard said our essays were hilarious and for I am sure that mine was not an exception, I can not stop myself from making a gesture below.

actually, what 'I' just 'wrote' was.

 It would be interesting to think about an Asian primitive tribe Naerok, and what would we see? The exclusive, tradition-maintaining people, or the people with opened and flexible mind?

The Road to Jail is Paved with Twitter

 As one of the Korean leftist professor Han, Hong-gu mentioned, if a law called [National Security Acts] was enacted, it would contain the materials related to social welfare and protections on lower classes. However, the law in Korea, which translated into 국가보안법, makes a big contrast. It was enacted in the age of dictatorship and still remains under the name of national defense. It regulates the spread of certain ideology and ban anti-national movements, and if one infringe the law, the law can sentence up to death penalty, regardless of other related laws, even the constitution.

 A twentieth photographer Park, Jeong-geun was a common citizen (ah, actually, he had a disability) managing a tweeter account. Well, he was quite popular on tweeter, having more than a thousand followers. He was a tweeter buff, and unloaded more than 30 thousand tweet...until he was arrested by the name of the national security law.

A photographer, Park was suddenly arrested of threatening national security

 There is another account called U-ri-min-jok-kki-ri (only with our nation), which is run by North Korean government. It uploaded propaganda defending the North Korean systems and severely (or rather absurdly) criticizing South Korea and U.S.. Park retweeted some tweets by this account, and was caught by the public authority of South Korea. In addition, the police accused Park not only for this, but uploading pro-communist/North Korean tweets; the sum total of such 'seditious' tweets were more than a hundred, less than 0.5% out of his all tweets.

 Then, is he really a person with pro-North Korean opinion? You'd better doubt, 'cause he is a member of Socialist Party. In the Korean Socialist Party platform, they clearly state  that they are against the oppressive North Korean government. Some argues that Socialist Party would be the party criticize North Korea radically than any other party in south Korea. Furthermore, anyone can know if he or she reads the context of his tweets. He maintained his attitude of mockery and satire on North Korean authority and the dictators; "Let's eradicate Kim, Jeong-il, eradicate germs, eradicate cancer", "I sincerely mourn the passing of Kim, Jeong-il, the head of national defensive ministry, and will send  condolences with plutonium and uranium", "Preservative treatments on corps are the silliest acts ever.", "I'll give you a Yo-deok concentration camp voucher." (Yo-deok camp is infamous for its extremely inhumane treatments on political opponents), "Kim, Jeong-il car sex", and so on.

Park in prison.

Park, as a Photographer, made numerous
funny images with North Korean agitation posters.

In the image above, Park changed a machine gun into a bottle of alcohol.

 He had to go through a inquisition procedure and finally was sentenced an imprisonment of two years. International human rights organizations such as Amnesty are trying to save him from the abuse of the authority, but it seems to be quite difficult.

 Why is South Korea superior than the North? Not because South Korea is wealthier. We do not judge a country with its fortune. The real reason is that South Korea guarantees much more rights than Northern one. What threatens the national reputation is not the sarcastic retweets, but the law that ignores the fundamental rights stated on the constitution.