창작과 비평

The Quarterly Changbi 186, Winter 2019

 

It goes without saying that it would be impossible for a quarterly magazine to catch up with the frantic pace of change in Korean society. A heated issue quickly subsides, one day, while it becomes hard to predict what will happen, after a few days, to the fate of another subject that has flared up. Therefore, I would like to begin this editorial by reflecting on the remains of some issues that have already mostly burnt and taking a closer look at their embers.

The “Cho Kuk Incident” (even the mention of it might bring back the sense of fatigue felt over it) actually lasted an exceptionally long time, considering how quickly the issue flared up. Some people read signs of inequality in it, which might have encroached even on the lives of progressives, while others felt even more acutely than before the urgency to reform the prosecutorial authorities. Some people also emphasized in it the importance of the reform of journalism, while others were worried about the many other pending issues buried under the scope of this incident. Since the time when people did not have to relate their positions to opinions about Cho Kuk, they naturally began to be more consciously aware that all the above issues were in fact connected. Although people still might not agree about the essence of this incident, I believe that the word “truth” should be included in considering the whole mix of aforementioned issues, as one of many important keywords.

Truth indeed! Some people might say that the issue should rather be “post-truth,” which is a worldwide catch-word these days. By “post-truth,” though, it isn’t meant that people insist on a certain opinion without knowing that it is false, or that they do so for the sake of some cause when they know it is false and feel reluctant about it. To be included in the category of “post-truth,” one should be able to make the claim that “such a thing as truth is not important,” like the title of a recently published book, and, further, to exhibit a more resolute, or, strictly speaking, more degraded, ability not even to think about truth. Frankly, haven’t we seen many people and organizations that we suspect have operated in this dimension during not just past few months, but also for more than a decade? In fact, shockingly, we have been witnessing innumerable examples ignoring truth, even in the media, who are supposed to maintain a special relationship with truth. As Brian Massumi, the Canadian philosopher and social theorist, has said, today’s media seem to focus entirely on controlling and amplifying people’s affects and emotions, without mediation, regardless of whether something is true or not.

Nonetheless, I do not want to define the current time as a period of just post-truth—because this forgetfulness of truth, as witnessed in various corners of our society, has rather become the fuel for the question: What really is truth? In a sense, then, our search for truth can finally begin, rather than be forsaken. Discussing democracy as achieved in modern literature, Jacques Rancière has argued that it could be summed up as the ability “for anyone to say anything.” Yet wouldn’t the world in which this is possible inevitably arrive at the point where no one’s words can be trusted? Are we perhaps even at that point? During the time when it was impossible for anyone to say anything, the desire for truth was a natural default position. During such a dire time, people considered truth to be something that pre-existed, waiting to be discovered, even though those with power hid it. Therefore, truth was dangerous, but simple, while falsehood was secretive and strong. However, now what should be discovered, or what we are actually discovering, seems to be falsehood that is randomly mixed in with any utterance. Thus, if we see only the dimension of appearances occupied by falsehood, it does appear that truth has disappeared.

To be clear, I do not mean to spread the inane and fake news that truth has been bolstered through its absence. Rather, as this is a world in which it is possible for anyone to say anything, truth now should be explored, discussed, and constructed, rather than simply found—as should the solution to all important problems. The dismissal of truth does not lie far away from the question that asks what truth is. In fact, if it is impossible for anyone to say anything, can truth be a task worthy of “pursuit”? While exposing falsehoods and the fake, which have increased as much as the degree to which anyone can say anything, we ironically realize that this uncovering of falsity is not the same as the pursuit of truth. We have finally, or again, become thirsty for truth. Perhaps it is there that the truth of democracy, in which it is possible for anyone to say anything, lies.

Among the many issues that should be newly illuminated regarding truth, an urgent one that hasn’t been addressed properly is the issue of partisanship. A concept that was quite popular during the 1980s in Korea, it has never re-emerged since then, perhaps because of the stereotypical way it was featured in the argument that only proletarian partisanship can take us to objective truth. While the fact that truth does not exist in a vacuum nor is it neutral became a matter of common sense, how it is necessary and important for us to take positions and stances is neglected and left in a vague state. Although an official who is not loyal to his superior seems better than his predecessor, who was loyal only to his superior, there is no guarantee that he will not end up being loyal only to his organization, his camp and his vested interests.

The issue of historical awareness and education in our recent past, including the “comfort women” incident, reminds us why peaceful reunification to overcome the division system in the Korean peninsula is so important. Kim Bok-dong’s life, captured in the documentary, overlaps with the lives of most Koreans who have struggled through modern Korean history, including the cruel colonial period, as well as the lives of innumerable citizens in other parts of the world who have endured similar fates. Kim’s testimony and peace activism demonstrate the possibility of global women’s solidarity in condemning wartime atrocities and in healing trauma. The time when citizens took to the streets and stood in the squares, confronting the “surprise attack” of the Japan-South Korea “Comfort Women” Agreement, was woven together with the beginning of the Candlelight Revolution protesting accumulated social evils and illegal practices. The power of that revolution, confronting domestic and overseas status quo powers, pushed forward inter-Korean coexistence and peace and resisted and attacked the regional and global Cold War powers. What Kim Bok-dong appealed for—on the streets with the Peace Statue, together with many citizens and members of the Justice for the Comfort Women and the Peace Butterfly Network—was this message of a collective intellect, based on the tradition of peaceful resistance movements. The spirit of the Candlelight Revolution, which yearns for peace and coexistence, is most urgently necessary now.

If it is inevitable for us to have a position, we need to directly confront the question: What is the position that we should desire? In his book reinterpreting Soviet communism, Das Kommunistische Postskriptum, Boris Groys describes a “true person of the soviet” as “a person who knew how to place his partial need in the context of the whole,” and said that through such “public thinking,” they “forget and have completely lost their own private interests. Their interests are left in a place nobody knew.” For the recognition of the inevitability of taking a position to not end up leading to the chaos of post-truth, where only individual arguments and emotions are amplified, we need to aim at such place that is forgotten. Shouldn’t we passionately desire, above all else, the kind of partisanship that was re-interpreted as the state of jigongmusa 至公無私 (supreme fairness and impartiality) in the theory of literary realism that Changbi has been advocating, the state in which a thorough thinking of the whole makes one forget one’s own private interests?

If the Candlelight Revolution led most of the Korean people to be reborn as “governance overseers,” recent incidents have made us realize that we also have to become seekers of truth. In fact, governance overseers are those who have to think of the whole. In this sense, democracy is a task that is tiring and often frustrating. Fortunately, democracy as a commons (or common space) is both an open space and a road with signposts here and there. Currently, we can depend on a bright signpost, the Candlelight Revolution. An important test for us is how we firmly carry out the tasks agreed upon during that event, where we collectively and passionately exercised partisanship. In order for the “Cho Kuk Incident” to remain a source of momentum that makes us acutely aware of those tasks, what happens from now on will be the key. We need to gravely warn our representatives, who will be tested, of their obligation “to forget their own interests” during the fast-track handling of the Election Reform Bill and to encourage officials to clearly see that peace on the Korean peninsula is a task that can no longer be delayed, whatever the course of the North Korea-US dialogue. Above all, we should remind ourselves, countering the voices arguing that governance is just a matter of vested interests and political parties, using the currently muddy political climate as an excuse, that governance is indeed a matter of truth and partisanship.

 

In the feature of this issue, we deal with today’s Korean literature as exploring “different realisms” in order to meet the challenges of this “new reality” in unique ways. Han Ki-wook points out that capitalist reality, which has recently focused on extreme accumulation strategies, such as containment, discarding, and expulsion, makes it difficult and thus more important to “be awake for thought and truth,” while also strongly encouraging an affective response from us. As the struggle against banality originating from such a reality is being carried out at the forefront of literature, Han discusses the achievement of realism Korean literature reached during the Candlelight Revolution period, doing so through a close reading of works by Hwang Jung-eun and Kim Se-hee. Song Jong-won closely reads poems that are fighting against the reality that makes the world even more devastated by causing us to mistrust a common world. Locating keywords such as antagonism, solidarity, and response, in the books of poems by Kim Sa-i, Kim Haeja, and Yi Seorya, respectively, this critical article captures various scenes, in which intensive partiality, a characteristic specific to poetry, becomes an “effort to newly create a common sensibility” by clutching at a certain “sharp fragment.”

Bok Do Hoon examines through the prism of reality various aspects and the newness of Korean sci-fi, which has recently emerged as a “hot” genre. After examining works by Kim Cho-yeop and Park Mun-yeong, paying attention to their handling of antagonism in reality, while responding appropriately to this genre’s demand for a deepened critical perspective, Bok also takes a look at the new aspects of our reality that require an approach through sci-fi.

Illuminating the topic of this issue’s feature on the horizon of world literature, Kim Miehyeon discusses the “present-ness” of Tony Morrison, who persistently explored the issue of racism that has been intensifying recently. She emphasizes that Morrison’s work urges a change toward new possibilities, with her writing loyal to her racial identity, even while digging sharply into traumas and divisions that are etched into the psychology of African Americans.

In the “Dialogue,” in line with the interests of the “Feature” section, Shin Yong-Mok moderates a lively discussion about poetic explorations in “young poetry,” where social experiences that have changed with the Sewol Ferry Disaster and Candlelight Revolution unfold in various ways. While offering intensive diagnosis and analysis, intergenerational participants such as Lee Sung-hyuk, Cho Daehan, and Ha Jae-yeon discover the possibility of “common poetry” in connection with changes in content, including feminism, and drawing abundant implications from various projects outside of poetry.

In his article, Kim Jong-yup analyzes how college entrance exams greatly affect a person’s identity and cognitive frame in our society, as the “Cho Kuk Incident” clearly demonstrates. After explaining that major issues related to this exam, including the debate about recent policies such as the expansion of regular acceptance and the abolishment of special-purpose high schools and autonomous private schools, are products of social inequality, he calmly yet sharply discusses why the issue should be that of not fairness, but equality. Regarding a reason why the left continues to fail despite intensifying inequality, John Lanchester points out the left’s inability to present “some good new ideas” in response to “the right’s bad old ideas,” and examines the universal basic income in detail as a cogent candidate for a good new idea. This article, concisely and comprehensively examining the ideas behind and various versions of a universal basic income, offers a good guide to the understanding of this system, which is gradually drawing more attention in Korea. Chong Young-hwan carefully traces the April 24 Education Struggle in 1948, in which Koreans in Japan fought against the Japanese authorities oppressing their minjok education movement soon after their defeat in World War II. Following his examination, we realize that this struggle was closely related not only to larger issues in modern Japanese history, such as the liquidation of colonialism, democratization, and anti-communism, but also to the division on the Korean peninsula. Reading this article, we are surprised to learn the scale and character of this struggle while also making connections between this incident more than 70 years ago and today’s Korea-(US)-Japan relationship.

The two articles in “On the Scene” provide vivid descriptions of two events happening overseas but closely interconnected with us. Ahn Byong Jin discusses connections between the US presidential primary scene in the Democratic Party and the period of transformation we are facing with climate crisis and transition in the capitalist system. Korean progressives can find many reference points in this article, where the author introduces aspects of a bold change in the Democratic Party’s policies, summarized as “New Deal 2.0,” and discusses the possibility of a Democratic victory in the next election and their prospects. Meanwhile, Yi Heon-seok’s article deals with the Fukushima water pollution, a matter of great concern for Koreans. While informing us of the exact situation in Fukushima, Yi discusses the chaotic state of the polluted water treatment, so serious as to be termed a “battle,” and criticizes the Japanese government’s behavior around the recent controversy of polluted water discharge. Urging transnational collaboration in East Asia to resolve the Fukushima crisis, the author reminds us that the situation is no longer none of our business.

As always, in this issue a profound and keen awareness of reality stands out in creative writings. We introduce new poems by 12 poets, from Go Jeung Sik to Cho Yong-Mee. Both the third installment of Lee Kiho’s novel and short stories by Lee SeungEun, Jang Ryujin, Jeon Sungtae, and Cho Hae-jin delve deeply into aspects of our reality, in their unique styles. Yi Jeong-suk critically reads three documentary writings dealing with animals, an issue that has drawn more attention recently. While sharing documentaries that directly challenge mainstream discourse and record specific scenes, the author asks us to think about what would happen, “if we get to know their world in unimaginable ways.”

For “Focus on Author,” younger novelist Baik Sou Linne met Eun Heekyung, who recently published Light’s Past. In this interview, which more than met our expectation that the meeting of these two authors with unique characters would create singular echoes, the light of Eun Heekyung’s novel filtered through the assured sentences of Baik Sou Linne is even more brilliant and splendid. For “Literary Focus,” Kim Na-young and Park Yeon-jun, who moderated a discussion, as in the previous issue, invited literary critic Noh Tae-hoon, and together shared critiques and an appreciation of six noteworthy books of poetry and fiction of this season together.

Beginning with a scene in the summer, Kim Nam-il’s essay reconstructs the breathtaking life and works of the late Park Taesun, for whom “fiction and history did not exist in different dimensions,” in the vivid present tense. In this essay, which is also a careful critique of Park Taesun’s works, his view of Park as “a Third-World literary movement activist” is particularly intriguing. Our other essay is a lively and frank record of the 2019 Korea-China-Japan Young Writers Conference, by young Korean novelist and participant Park Sang Young. The meeting of writers from the three countries itself is a precious event, and we have a glimpse of the possibilities and difficulties of East Asian literature as an entity through Park’s essay. This issue’s book reviews deal with various reading materials in depth, from a book of poetry by Yi Sang to David Harvey’s latest book. We sincerely thank Dr. Kang Yeonsil, who has contributed reviews of scientific books for a year.

Last, but not the least, we announce the winners of the 34th Manhae Prize for Literature. Hwang Jung-eun won the grand prize for her novel Didi’s Umbrella, and Kim Doo Sik won the special prize for his exploration of the origin of Korean legal power, Lawyers: Birth of Un-elected Power. Also, the 21st Baeksok Prize for Literature was won by Ra Hee Duk’s File Name: Lyric Poetry, which shows the great potential of realist poetry and the author’s capability for self-renewal. We extend our deepest congratulations and encouragement to these winners, who have been enriching Korean literature and the publishing world.

 

Hwang Jung-a

 

 

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