Silent in South Korea?

By David Tizzard

There are many things one might say in private, in the yellow-tinged chat rooms of Kakao, at the table over wine, or in the corner of a coffee shop trying valiantly to drink an Americano that has been scorched like the sun.

Yet when it comes to public forums and articles such as this, it is common for a rather peculiar trepidation to overcome one's senses. A necessity of silence arises.

There are certain things that simply cannot ― or perhaps should not ― be said.

And thus the first question arises: what is it that causes this silence in the writer doomed with the task of addressing things in the public sphere?

Is it that the thoughts and opinions secretly harbored in the labyrinth of one's mind might in fact be wrong; that the inability to express them publically is because deep down one knows them to be incorrect, or at least possibly so?

Does a safety device control our utterances so that decorum and propriety might not be upset? Or do the defamation laws here in South Korea grip so tightly the wrists of those stroking electronic keypads that nothing ― no matter how true ― may really come out?

This point is particularly problematic because even uttering the truth can see one faced with litigious action and a hefty fine for simply having the temerity to disclose that which has been proven.

Does such a strange manifestation of this law not indicate that individual reputations and feelings still stand high and mighty above that which has been demonstrated to be true?

Or is it that the court of public opinion reigns supreme? For a comment perceived as offensive, triggering, or askew from commonly held discourse leaves one vulnerable to the talons and claws of a mob ― mostly online but yet with a physical presence willing to take to the streets, offices, and workplaces ― oft gripped by bloodlust and determined to find faults in others without ever considering the mote in their own eyes.

Did (the proverbial) Matthew not teach us anything?

Or is it the writer's responsibility (I dare not say academic or any other moniker at this juncture) to remain remarkably and impossibly neutral; to adopt the holy position of complete objectivity free from human bias and allow others to wallow in the perceived sin of merely having an opinion?

Are we constrained by position into presenting a Vitruvian being that defies the laws of nature and physics the same way Barbie presents girls and boys with a disproportionate figure of the correct curvatures and ratios?

But yet despite these many possible causes, is it not now the time ― more than ever ― in which serious, honest, and unashamed rational discourse is most needed?

For these, my friends, are strange times in which we live. The veneer has been chipped. The narrative is full of plot-holes and the narrator wholly unreliable.

Those who continually and vehemently professed moral virtue and upright behavior stand accused of the very things against which they rallied.

The charges so strongly directed at those in power now return to haunt the hopes of those ― is it strange? ― now seeking power. Human, all too human, perhaps?

Those guilty of serious crimes against gender, youth, and decency walk free with their cameras and libidos, released from their bonds by any manner of coincidences and circumstance while 33 years ― a death sentence ― awaits those who seemingly did less. Where is the logical consistency to be found in punishments or the lack thereof?

The neighbors flagrantly eschewing protocols and norms established by the international community are seen as part of the solution ― economically and politically, if not ethno-nationalistically. So does a Kafkaian metamorphosis await ready to place men in a high castle?

Meanwhile, the other neighbors, home to some of the world's most innovative technologies and artists, scientists and soloists, remain painted a danger ― plague to be avoided in word, deed, purchases, mannerisms, and beer.

Yet given a one-way plane ticket for us and our loved ones and a choice between the two, where would any of us fly? Perhaps that question should remain unanswered.

Sex and pleasures of the flesh hit us with that?ddu-du ddu-du du on infinite youtube loops, yet the reality is that this is a country with fewer children being born than most anywhere else. All wretch and no vomit.

And so where does that leave a writer? More importantly, where does that leave a reader? What is it that needs to be “read”?

Has the culture become such a habitat that the truthful written word now finds itself an intruder? Is it not often the case that reality expresses itself more frequently and honestly in that framed (honestly or insidiously) as comedy?

The memes and cartoons certainly often contain vestiges of the truth. Noddings toward that which knowingly exists, but hidden playfully behind the pretense of humor and adolescence fatuous internet behavior.

Yet that should not be the way forward. The written word must find a way to steer a path through this convoluted chaos.

You, the reader, are presented with a question. What is it that we are being silent about? What is it that needs to be said?

David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University.