Korea: a question for you

By David Tizzard

By David A. Tizzard

• Published Jun 22, 2019 10:39 AM KST
• Updated Jun 23, 2019 2:13 PM KST

If history has taught us anything, it is that it is generally wise to be wary of mustachioed German men…and women.

Nevertheless our Teutonic brethren have given us a whole range of musical, literary, cultural and sporting icons over the past few centuries: From Brecht and Dietrich, to Wagner, Hesse, Grasse, Becker, Klopp, Schopenhauer, Kant, Marx, and Rammstein.

One of the more controversial, however, remains Friedrich Nietzsche. The man who had the audacity to claim, among other things, that “God is dead”.

Trying to ascertain what his work might mean for South Korea and its citizens in the 21st century is a challenging ordeal. Not least of all because to understand Nietzsche is no mean feat. His work has a tremendous literary quality, but you could never quite call it accessible.

It remains wrapped up in style, imagery, allusion, biblical and cultural references ― it's the stream of consciousness of a man who would go on to predict much of the terror and horrors that unfolded in wars that tore through Europe and then the rest of the world.

And so for a man that got so much correct, who saw so far ahead of his peers he tumbled into the abyss, what remains for us to discuss today?

Certainly not his views on women ― he advocated the whip on more than one occasion. A sign of his failures in love, perhaps. Yet contrary to popular belief, the syphilis that afflicted him was not the result of any philandering ways but rather an accidental blood transfusion while volunteering at a hospital.

A sadly similar fate befell another great thinker and visionary: Isaac Asimov sadly contracted HIV during a routine blood transfusion.

But there is one idea that seems really important for South Korea. A question that I would put to the nation and its people. And I do so because I'm not sure what the answer might be.

It starts with the concept of “eternal recurrence.” Difficult in name, but easy to explain.

Suppose that in your loneliest loneliness a little gnawing demon creeps into your heart. And he says to you, “You'll have to live this whole life forever again. With every pain and sorrow, and joy, and thought, and sight. Over and over again in the endless permutations of the world. The sandglass of existence will be turned over, and you with it. You speck of dust.”

Now how would you reply to that demon? Would you curse him?

Or has there been a moment in your life so great that it redeemed everything else, and you would answer, “You're a god! I never heard anything so divine!”

For Nietzsche, to be able to say yes to that little gnawing demon is to say yes to life itself. It is to affirm one's existence. To stand proud and see all that has transpired as a necessary part of one's becoming.

So imagine if you will that the little gnawing demon was not now addressing you, but rather it was addressing the people of South Korea. Imagine that South Korea were given the opportunity to either accept or refuse an eternal recurrence of its existence thus far.

What would it say? And why?

Would it look into its past and see a heritage, a culture and tradition, a series of individual achievements and brilliances, of families rising and falling, and determine that this group of people had obtained something so valuable and worthwhile that it would endure all the other suffering that comes with the trials and tribulations of life?

Or would it reflect too somberly on what it sees as the various injustices, the capitulations, the colonization, the demonstrations, the coups, the chaebols, and then decide that it would be better to have another crack at the whip.

There will not be much unanimity among 51 million people. There would likely be even less were one to include the 25 million-odd Koreans living in the North, too ― though I guess Kim Jong-un is probably rather happy with his lot.

I remain genuinely curious as to how the country and its people would approach this question. How it sees itself among the sands of time. Just how hard does the “han” hurt?

Of course, it also remains a question for other countries, peoples, and individuals. Would, Germany, Britain, Italy or South Africa come up with different answers?

For today, however, the question is: Would South Korea choose eternal recurrence? Does it say yes to life?

David Tizzard is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University. He can be reached at

datizzard@swu.ac.kr

. He will be leading a two hour discussion on “Nietzsche, Korea, and Me” this Sunday at Paper Street Cafe in Seoul from 4pm-6pm as part of a Socrates Cafe event. Details can be found online.