Comments on But, I am a Liberal!: The Korean Left’s Problem

Jams: I also think having a complete history avail...

2008-05-08T01:56:25.729-05:00

Jams: I also think having a complete history available is important, even if it damages “national pride.”

NC: I think you hit on the head why the left has become so bitter and angry over the last 30 years. It recognizes that it has failed and that its ideas where not popular with the very people they claimed to belong to (the working class). When a majority of the working class rejected the radical programs from the left, it gave the left a black eye that I think it has never recovered from.

They have come to hate the very people they were supposedly trying to elevate, and have now turned their attention to fighting pointless battles form the past knowing that no bright future is on the horizon. Being relevant is no longer important, and they have resigned to fighting it out in academy places like that, where they have the ability to re-write or “re-think” the last 70 years.

Interesting stuff Roland. While I strongly believe...

2008-05-07T15:01:00.000-05:00

Interesting stuff Roland. While I strongly believe that history, waarts and all, should be looked in the face, ultimately every nation has to progress, hopefuly learning from its past and not wallowing in it

The Korean media is anti American because it is la...

2008-05-07T03:54:58.092-05:00

The Korean media is anti American because it is lazy. It publishes this because it is easy.

Very interesting post. I don’t know much about Kor...

2008-05-06T16:16:00.000-05:00

Very interesting post. I don’t know much about Korean history besides Korea’s relationship to a series of empires whether Chinese, Japanese or American. I guess I’ve bought into the lefty narrative.

In the U.S., I agree that the radical left is largely fixated on a past where they can present themselves as victims of the state and capitalism because they realize their ideas have little validity—and even less political support—among most people today. The question is why? Why don’t their ideas find support? If it’s due to the ideas themselves than the radical left is screwed. The intelligent leftists realize this. But, if they claim their ideas do not find support because their ideas were demonized by the forces of capital and the state, that their ideas face obscurity due to historical oppression, that their ideas really are the best but you and I are simply not “class conscious” enough to get it, than they can manage to hobble along unburdened by the reality that their ideologies are for all practical purposes irrelevant. But, as you know, being relevant is the furthest thing from these peoples minds.

The last quote speaks to a broader relationship between empire and revolution, colonialism and nationalism, etc. Eric Hobsbawm has written about this as has Robin Blackburn, Benedict Anderson, etc.