Haruki Murakami lamented the lack of decency and common sense among the extreme right wing in Japan, in a recent email interview with his Korean publisher, Munhakdongne.

He mentioned this while referring to a group of extremely conservative Japanese who had vehemently criticized his recent novel “Killing Commendatore,” which deals with the dark side of modern Japanese history, including the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

“In this age of the internet,” said Murakami, “people still tend to see things only as black or white.”

Indeed, the game of baduk teaches us that the world and our lives are not black and white, and shows us how to transcend the boundaries of the either/or construction.

“There is no such thing as the black and white distinction in war,” Murakami continued. “The Japanese people were not only victims of war but also assailants in the eyes of the Chinese and the Korean people.”

Murakami’s criticism centers on right-wing conservatives in contemporary Japanese society. His lament resonates in my mind because I think we, too, lack decency and common sense.

Like Japanese right-wing extremists, Koreans tend not to tolerate those who express different opinions, and viciously attack them. For example, if we encounter a newspaper article we do not agree with, we immediately send an email threatening the author or viciously attack him online. Even fathers and sons are at odds with each other because of different political ideologies. We often become furious over trivial differences, and lose decency and common sense.

Recently, an American friend informed me that in contemporary American society, there is a term that is used by right-wing conservatives to criticize extreme progressives. It is “social justice warriors.” The term is used to criticize those who promote socially progressive views, such as feminism, multiculturalism and political correctness, radically and even militantly.

The term implies that those progressive people are so self-righteous that they condemn anyone who does not advocate or subscribe to their political views. Social justice warriors think of themselves as the embodiment of social injustice and therefore are ready to attack anyone who opposes them.

My American friend also told me that there is another term used by American conservatives to criticize progressives: “virtue signaling.” The derogatory term refers to the conspicuous expression of one’s moral values with the intention of showing off. People also use the term to criticize those who superficially support certain political views and only value platitudinous outward appearances, while lacking serious substance. Therefore, you can call these virtue-signaling people snobs, because they are shallow and condescending.

In Korean society, there are also a great number of social justice warriors who are self-righteous and aggressive and who label different opinions as unjust. They are ready to wage war against anyone who is not with them. It never seems to occur to them that the term “justice” is, in fact, elusive and hard to define, as we now live in a complex, non-black-and-white world. As Michel Foucault points out, justice can be arbitrary and misused. For example, even dictators use the term with the intent to eliminate their political dissidents or sugarcoat and justify their tyranny.

We have virtue-signaling people in our society as well. These people assume that they have moral superiority and therefore are arrogant, condescending and even overbearing. These virtue-signaling people are known to be shallow and superficial. But they can be stubborn as they tend to think of others who do not agree with them as vices. The problem is that in this complex world, the polarity between virtue and vice loses validity, just like the dichotomy between justice and injustice.

Even in this age of globalization, ultranationalism is still rampant in Korean society. However, nationalism is not becoming of a country that heavily depends on exports and trade, such as Korea. In an interview with Eleanor Wachtel for CBC Radio in 1993, Edward W. Said warned us against the danger of nationalism, “Nationalism can quite easily degenerate into chauvinism. There’s a tendency, when you’re attacked from all sides, to fall back into the fold. You end up fraternizing with your kind, and anyone who doesn’t think like you is an enemy.”

Said’s diagnosis sounds like it is referring to Korea. He continues, “In general, nationalist movements work on that model. They tend to become smaller and more homogenous over time, or at least they pretend that’s what’s happening.” Said’s advice still resonates in Korea and we should overcome ultranationalism in order to not only survive but also thrive in the era of globalization.

The self-righteous, militant social justice warriors are prone to attacking their opponents violently, as they believe they represent justice. Virtue-signaling people may also think that they are the only virtuous people and all others represent vices. Ultranationalism, too, will isolate Korea from the international community that has been rapidly globalizing.

Under the circumstances, we cannot but suffer from lack of decency and common sense. We should restore our long-lost decency and common sense. 

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By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. He can be reached at sukim@snu.ac.kr. -- Ed.