Shadows of individualism
Lee Nan-hee
The movie "Cast Away" was released in 2001. The main character, Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), gets stranded on a deserted island. He had to live alone for four years on that island. One day, he found a basketball. He drew eyes, a nose and a mouth on the ball and talked with it as if it were a person or a friend. That scene lingered in my mind for a long time. He must have been too lonely.
In the 17th century, Western modern philosophy described human beings as autonomous entities. In particular, it depicted a human being as a middle-class, white, educated male, an idealized and independent being. Descartes, known as the father of modern philosophy, turned to the human ego as a subject. He assumed that a human being isolated from the world can by itself be an ego without relations with others. This is none other than Descartes’ dualism and individualism.
However, through the 18th and 19th centuries, concepts of ego or person as relation appeared, for example, such as in the Hegelian school of thinking. On top of this, process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, personalist philosophies of Martin Buber as well as Franz Rosenzweig put much more emphasis on mutual interaction and involvement as modes of human existence. To explain a bit more, these thinkers assert that a human being exists not by himself or herself but fundamentally in relation to others. In 1961, John Macmurray, a Scottish philosopher, saw the human ego not mainly as self-reflection or self-absorption but mainly as an agent and person. He argued that the human person is constituted by relations with others and that it is a person toward others.
However, ironically, since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, society has rapidly been individualized and individuated. The word "individual" implies that the individual person cannot be divided anymore; thus, it is the last, smallest unit of society. This is connected to the supreme and basic principle of "divide and rule." The more you divide people or groups, the easier it becomes to rule them.
In this extremely polarized world of 20:80 or 1:99, which is a globalized neoliberalist capitalist society, the vast majority of people live day by day working to make ends meet as employed workers or commoners. Most of them seem to be locked up in each individual without much time, energy or passion for others’ comfort or well-being. Their tough lives are, in many cases, disguised with plausible words like "so-hwak-hang," meaning small but certain happiness, "passionate pay" or "self-realization."
This is the heyday of individual or one-person households. According to Statistics Korea, single-person households account for 34.1 percent of all households in Korea.
However, in reality, we, human beings, cannot live alone. We are bound to be related to someone. Someone, whoever that might be — whether a blood family member, spouse, lover, co-worker, member of a volunteer group or part of a religious community.
It does not necessarily have to be relations of lovers, of man and woman, or husband and wife. Relations with friends, companions, teachers, seniors, juniors and neighbors would be good enough. When I like and love you, I feel good and happy, and I can live joyfully. On the contrary, when I wait until you like and love me when I want to be loved by you, I become passive, I observe you, I compare you with others, and in the end, I get tired and unhappy. Today, I will send a message to you, talk with you and be happy with you.
Lee Nan-hee studied English in college and theology at Hanshin University.