By Deauwand Myers
As the Park Administration has come to an inglorious end, and the Trump Administration becomes more mired in scandal and controversy, I've noticed an odd, ahistorical, holier-than-thou aura about both of these politicians and their faults espoused by the masses analyzing them.
Koreans were outraged at President Park being so aloof, so psychologically weak, so manipulated and dangerously careless with her office and her powers, and most importantly, the country's democratic institutions.
Yet, Korea is its own society. Rolled over by war after war, from the Chinese to the Japanese, it has survived more than its fair share of political hardships.
Its sad, modern history is riddled with weak, mendacious, greedy, dishonest male presidents, vacillating from the cowardly (Rhee Syng-man, who, during the Korean War, destroyed the Han Bridge, preventing citizens from escaping from North Korea's onslaught, while he scurried further south beyond the fighting), to the autocratic (Park Chung-hee), to the brutal (Chun Doo-hwan), to the corrupt and graft-prone (Roh Tae-woo).
The fetishizing of beauty to levels no other wealthy society has, to the lack of a work-life balance, overt, ostentatious consumption of wealth, brutal educational environment, and lack of gainful employment are mostly constructs the society has chosen to adopt.
Money rules the world, or so Wutang teaches us. So with great fanfare, Korea elected Park Geun-hye, its first female president, because somehow she could revitalize Korea's economy as her strongman father had. Rationally, this should have been rejected out-of-hand. Good economic stewardship of a nation-state isn't genetically transferred from father to progeny.
Moreover, her policies weren't followed through. She was an absentee president, nowhere to be seen during the Sewol disaster.
Worse, Park didn't do anything to help the citizenry: no enactment of legislation to curb sexism and the workplace pay gap for women; no anti-discrimination legislation; no programs to gainfully employ highly educated, young adults.
What she did do was practice anti-democratic tendencies, such as blacklisting artists she perceived to criticize her, ostensibly blocking them from state funding. Park even had her aids ask foreign newspapers to not criticize her, a first in Korean history.
For me, anyway, these were actually much worse than the graft she allowed to occur via her puppet master/spiritual friend, Ms. Choi.
Koreans, then, should reflect on how a President Park can thrive in society. How is it that political and private sector royalty are afforded privileges and pardons again and again, regardless of the party in power, even as Korea claims that Confucianist values of honesty, hard work, and success through merit, not nepotism and political patronage/lineage, are integral to the society?
Public outrage of President Trump's behavior is not quite as explosive as Korea's reaction to Park, but what it lacks in fury and fire, it's made up for in ubiquity. Left and right, Trump is slammed for his lack of temperance; his crudeness; his ineptitude; his covert and overt misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, and his malignant narcissism.
Yet, past presidents, to varying degrees, were as bad, or worse, than Trump. Despite his long-lasting, positive legislative and social achievements, (Medicaid, Medicare, the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, for example) LBJ loved to talk about the large size of his…member. Seriously. He regularly used racist slurs, even as he was a proponent of racial equality. He had black stars like Eartha Kitt blacklisted for critiquing the disastrous foreign policy of the Johnson Administration, namely the continuing of the Vietnam War.
Nixon was Nixon, and anti-Semitic.
Or consider Iran Contra and Reagan, who like Nixon, was a wink and nodder to racist, white supremacists.
FDR passed Social Security and was a racial equality proponent, and yet an avid adulterer.
Woodrow Wilson was a great statesmen, and a virulent white supremacist.
George Bush, Jr. was a nice man, but my, 9/11, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the bungling, incompetent federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and the Great Recession clearly make him one of the worst presidents in modern American history, his self-image rehabilitation efforts notwithstanding.
George Washington helped found America, yet he was a proponent of slavery for much of his life, and the privileges of casual rape that go along with said practice. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson, amongst others, were also slaveholders.
The only difference with Trump is he has no filter. He says what he feels, and publishes his mental detritus for public consumption via Twitter.
If white supremacy and patriarchy are alive and well in America (they are), then Mr. Trump is a perfect distillation of these.
Are we aghast because of his policies (we are), or just embarrassed that our poorly kept secret of bigotry and ideals of masculinity and white male, power/privilege are displayed through him in an unvarnished, unpolished fashion?
Park and Trump are mirrors. We just don't too much like the reflection.
Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.
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Koreans were outraged at President Park being so aloof, so psychologically weak, so manipulated and dangerously careless with her office and her powers, and most importantly, the country's democratic institutions.
Yet, Korea is its own society. Rolled over by war after war, from the Chinese to the Japanese, it has survived more than its fair share of political hardships.
Its sad, modern history is riddled with weak, mendacious, greedy, dishonest male presidents, vacillating from the cowardly (Rhee Syng-man, who, during the Korean War, destroyed the Han Bridge, preventing citizens from escaping from North Korea's onslaught, while he scurried further south beyond the fighting), to the autocratic (Park Chung-hee), to the brutal (Chun Doo-hwan), to the corrupt and graft-prone (Roh Tae-woo).
The fetishizing of beauty to levels no other wealthy society has, to the lack of a work-life balance, overt, ostentatious consumption of wealth, brutal educational environment, and lack of gainful employment are mostly constructs the society has chosen to adopt.
Money rules the world, or so Wutang teaches us. So with great fanfare, Korea elected Park Geun-hye, its first female president, because somehow she could revitalize Korea's economy as her strongman father had. Rationally, this should have been rejected out-of-hand. Good economic stewardship of a nation-state isn't genetically transferred from father to progeny.
Moreover, her policies weren't followed through. She was an absentee president, nowhere to be seen during the Sewol disaster.
Worse, Park didn't do anything to help the citizenry: no enactment of legislation to curb sexism and the workplace pay gap for women; no anti-discrimination legislation; no programs to gainfully employ highly educated, young adults.
What she did do was practice anti-democratic tendencies, such as blacklisting artists she perceived to criticize her, ostensibly blocking them from state funding. Park even had her aids ask foreign newspapers to not criticize her, a first in Korean history.
For me, anyway, these were actually much worse than the graft she allowed to occur via her puppet master/spiritual friend, Ms. Choi.
Koreans, then, should reflect on how a President Park can thrive in society. How is it that political and private sector royalty are afforded privileges and pardons again and again, regardless of the party in power, even as Korea claims that Confucianist values of honesty, hard work, and success through merit, not nepotism and political patronage/lineage, are integral to the society?
Public outrage of President Trump's behavior is not quite as explosive as Korea's reaction to Park, but what it lacks in fury and fire, it's made up for in ubiquity. Left and right, Trump is slammed for his lack of temperance; his crudeness; his ineptitude; his covert and overt misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, and his malignant narcissism.
Yet, past presidents, to varying degrees, were as bad, or worse, than Trump. Despite his long-lasting, positive legislative and social achievements, (Medicaid, Medicare, the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, for example) LBJ loved to talk about the large size of his…member. Seriously. He regularly used racist slurs, even as he was a proponent of racial equality. He had black stars like Eartha Kitt blacklisted for critiquing the disastrous foreign policy of the Johnson Administration, namely the continuing of the Vietnam War.
Nixon was Nixon, and anti-Semitic.
Or consider Iran Contra and Reagan, who like Nixon, was a wink and nodder to racist, white supremacists.
FDR passed Social Security and was a racial equality proponent, and yet an avid adulterer.
Woodrow Wilson was a great statesmen, and a virulent white supremacist.
George Bush, Jr. was a nice man, but my, 9/11, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the bungling, incompetent federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and the Great Recession clearly make him one of the worst presidents in modern American history, his self-image rehabilitation efforts notwithstanding.
George Washington helped found America, yet he was a proponent of slavery for much of his life, and the privileges of casual rape that go along with said practice. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson, amongst others, were also slaveholders.
The only difference with Trump is he has no filter. He says what he feels, and publishes his mental detritus for public consumption via Twitter.
If white supremacy and patriarchy are alive and well in America (they are), then Mr. Trump is a perfect distillation of these.
Are we aghast because of his policies (we are), or just embarrassed that our poorly kept secret of bigotry and ideals of masculinity and white male, power/privilege are displayed through him in an unvarnished, unpolished fashion?
Park and Trump are mirrors. We just don't too much like the reflection.
Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.
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