[W Forum] Issues Concerning Dignity

These days, when I look at what is happening around me, I often feel somewhat powerless. The pandemic is one thing, but the economy is hitting rock bottom, and there are complaints from the workplace.

Recently, due to the impact of COVID-19 originating from China, a large number of orders flooded a friend's mask manufacturing factory. They urgently sought workers for overtime, but it was said to be very difficult to find people willing to work through the night. A relative's parents suddenly collapsed. When looking for caregivers, they could not find any Koreans, and almost all were Joseonjok (ethnic Koreans from China). Workers in restaurants and small factories are also being replaced by Joseonjok or foreign laborers. There has been a significant increase in cases where young people who have just joined a company quit within one or two years. They reportedly hand in their resignation without much hesitation when faced with difficulties at work. This is because there is a system in place that allows them to receive unemployment benefits and government support as long as they have served a certain period, even if they quit their job. In companies subject to the 52-hour workweek, since they strictly adhere to leaving work on time, it is said that the concentration of research personnel is declining.

We now live in an era of work-life balance, where work and life are in harmony. It is an era that focuses more on issues of distribution rather than production, human rights, and equality. If work-life balance is virtuous, it will greatly contribute to work efficiency. Happy people tend to work well. Humans must be happy, treated with dignity as human beings, and the state has an obligation to protect the lives of its citizens. However, from a series of recent phenomena, doubts inevitably arise. It is the thought that was drilled into us during school days: "Are we really doing our homework and then playing?" Through the industrialization era, we grew rapidly and endured growing pains that sacrificed life. Under the banner of growth and development, the balance of life and fundamental rights were sometimes sacrificed. However, now, although the ideology for life balance and fundamental rights has been established, it seems we have lost productivity and concentration instead.

The catfish effect that poses a question to us is about autonomous competitiveness and vitality. It originates from a story of Norwegian fishermen who wanted to keep sardines alive during their Atlantic crossing by putting catfish into the storage tank. The sardines struggled desperately to avoid being eaten by the catfish, and as a result, they survived. It is an ironic story. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the economic growth Korea has achieved so far is like the story of the live fish that exerted their maximum potential by struggling to survive. However, now it seems we have lost that fierce vitality of growth. There is a saying, "Too much is as bad as too little." If institutional measures are too strong beyond necessity, autonomous power is lost. The fishermen will only get dead sardines instead of live ones. Even if good laws and systems are created, without mature civic consciousness and human dignity, it will be difficult to contribute to social development.

Is human nature good or evil? There are good people and evil people in the world. In reality, more often than believing humans are good, it feels more appropriate to believe humans are evil and live by strategy, like Machiavelli in The Prince or Sun Tzu in The Art of War. It is said that humans live wearing a persona mask for social survival. Wearing the mask of persona, they often commit numerous lies and hypocrisies.

When the self sets you as an opponent, it endlessly engages in empty conflicts to defend itself. For judgments on issues to be meaningful, it is necessary to respect objective reason and laws that both you and I can follow, rather than an adversarial attitude. Instead of antagonizing others with different views in black-and-white logic, mature consciousness is needed to discuss right and wrong, merits and faults within the framework of laws.

A world where honest and sincere people can live happily would be a world created by dignified people who sincerely pursue the laws of life, even without laws and systems.

Jeong Seunghee, CEO of Jimobi Korea