Individual freedom is the goal of our political age. We are focused on the full liberation of peoples across political, technological, racial, sexual and other intersectional divides. Media focuses our minds on the revolution at hand: freedom from kings, popes, tsars, elites and bureaucracies. Freedom from predestination. We live amidst the birth of existentialism. The rise of the performative person. Of the “me.”
One of the great ironies of modern life is seeing South Korea be one of the most successful and effective cultures at packaging and selling love to people all over the world and yet, at the same time, possess some of the world s lowest birth rates (and most ludicrous plans to address it). We ve heard all the statistics and read all the stories. What makes the Guardian, the NYT, and Instagram are these narratives of sad Koreans, lonely Koreans, single Koreans. This week, people outside of the country will have been greeted with further images of Seoul as a gray dystopian nightmare in which people live a desperate techno-orientalist nightmare, with images of despotic Fu Manchus not far behind. The country is frequently described as only being home to those giving up on love.
The only thing which is consistent about life in Korea is its inconsistency. The nation lurches between pride and shame, between the east and west, between triumphant success and devastating failure, between a hypermodern safe paradise and a drug-tainted misogynistic murderous dystopia. There is no single Korea. There is just the totality of all the incomplete views.
Revolutions do not happen often in popular culture. We normally just go through phases: cycling through a series of trends with things moving in and out of fashion over time.
Revolutions do not happen often in popular culture. We normally just go through phases: cycling through a series of trends with things moving in and out of fashion over time.