When I first came across Richard Kim’s “The Martyred” in 1967, I was an intellectually adventurous and emotionally vulnerable college freshman. At the time, I was intrigued and mesmerized by the novels of Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoevsky. “The Martyred,” too, was a thought-provoking novel that resonates with Camus’s nihilistic existentialism and saturated with a philosophical rigor comparable ...

We are now living in the era of globalism when the whole world has become a global village. The boundaries between nations are rapidly collapsing and people are experiencing crossovers everywhere. Take the EU, for example. Practically the whole continent of Europe has become a global village already and Europeans are freely crossing borders without an entry visa, using the same currency and their...

Watching Korea helplessly caught in the vortex of international crises and domestic turbulence these days, one cannot but ponder how Korea can survive in these difficult times. Of course, it will not be easy to overcome the hardship, and yet we should try hard to survive and even thrive, turning the crisis into an opportunity. What, then, should we do? First, we should promote and maintain good ...

When a society lacks common sense, absurd and irrational things can happen and, as a result, chaos and social disruption will prevail. What, then, is common sense? Common sense is widely known as “good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.” If so, we need to ask ourselves, “Do we have good sense and sound judgment? Are we practical?” Unfortunately, the answer is “No.” Oftentimes, Korean...

Last week was the 69th anniversary of the Korean War. Although it was such a tragic war in which the Korean Peninsula suffered the annihilation of millions of lives, few people seem to remember it now. Many of those who experienced the war have long since died of old age and those who were babies or young children during the war are now in their 70s. When it comes to the Korean War, most Koreans ...

Jealousy is a universal phenomenon. For example, a star player in a sports team can easily become an object of jealousy for other players. So, too, can a famous movie star whose popularity is sensational or one who has received an important award at an international film festival. Likewise, a celebrity writer whose book becomes a bestseller or a scholar who achieves international acclaim can evok...

We still remember that in the past our military dictators vastly exaggerated the threat from North Korea to justify tyranny, intimidating people with the fear of imminent war. Ex-military generals frequently triggered that fear so they could suppress the general public. At that time, the right-wing dictators bragged, “We are the only ones who can prevent war from breaking out on this peninsula.” ...

When I first heard Zack Rogow reading from his deeply moving poem, “Skating Lessons” at a poetry reading in San Francisco in 2006, I was mesmerized by his exquisite poetic sensitivity in the way he rendered a little girl’s painful initiation into adulthood on an ice rink and her father’s sad feelings of parting with her. The poem beautifully captured the moment of a father’s last skating lessons ...

In his internationally acclaimed dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-four,” George Orwell portrayed the world as divided into three regions: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. According to Orwell, Oceania was composed of the United Kingdom and the United States, and Eurasia, which constituted the rest of Europe and Central Asia, was controlled by the Soviet Union. As for Eastasia, Orwell did not mention...

Traditionally, Koreans are known to enjoy singing and dancing tremendously. Perhaps singing and dancing was our ancestors’ daily ritual and thus runs in our blood. Watching K-pop singers dazzle on the stage, it seems Koreans’ superb performance skills are part of our DNA. Indeed, when it comes to singing and dancing, Koreans seem invincible. It is no wonder that the K-pop vocal group BTS is ench...

Recently, I saw an interesting diagram on the internet about the left and the right. The drawing indicates that as you go further to the right, you will get bad outcomes such as libertarianism, corrupt capitalism and then anarchy. On the contrary, if you go further to the left, you will end up with equally undesirable results such as fascism, socialism and communism. Then finally you will find to...

Recently, I read a perceptive article that the famous basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote for the Guardian. It was entitled, “The way Americans regard sports heroes versus intellectuals speaks volumes.” In this insightful article, Abdul-Jabbar defended the hopelessly waning humanities, lamenting Americans’ infatuation with famous athletes and disrespect for intellectual giants. It was a p...

What is the role of an intellectual or a writer in a turbulent society? In his monumental book, “Representations of the Intellectual,” Edward W. Said eloquently illustrates what it means to be an intellectual in times of social and political turmoil. He contends that the intellectual should be a spiritual exile in his own society, who can “speak the truth to power” despite the threats of ostracis...

Throughout human history, there has always been a generation gap between the young and old. In the eyes of the old, young people are frolicsome and reckless, and do not want to learn from the past. In the eyes of the young, older people are hopelessly stubborn and conservative; constantly nagging about war, past poverty, and those turbulent days when they were young. “Which war?” Young people wan...

Recently, I read “The Truth About the Savolta Case” by celebrated Spanish writer Eduardo Mendoza. In his intriguing novel, Mendoza depicts the turbulent social milieu of early 20th century Barcelona, where there were daily clashes between workers demanding a raise and company owners exploiting workers. It was a critical time when Spain witnessed a massive influx of foreign ideologies such as Bol...