[Column] Political YouTube Channels Enter the Mountain Path

Spread of Content Filled with Extreme Factional Logic
A Landscape of Excessive Politicization in Korean Society
Restoring Empathy Through Overcoming Factionalism

These days, it is not uncommon to see people listening to political YouTube channels while hiking. In the past, the hiking trails were often filled with the sounds of middle-aged people enjoying trot music, but now political content has become part of this new landscape. This may reflect a shift from the "trot era" of the middle-aged to an era where the middle-aged have become politicized. The problem is that most of this political content consists of partisan political information that amplifies and reproduces extreme factional politics. This is a scene from Korean society, where the logic of factional politics, which undermines universal community ethics, has infiltrated everyday life, resulting in an excess of politics.

The active political interest of citizens is actually necessary and desirable. In evaluations of democracy, higher levels of citizen political participation naturally receive higher marks. However, if such participation undermines the functioning of representative institutions or has a negative impact on political culture, it can actually become a factor that degrades democracy. Despite the high level of political interest, the recent dominance of good-versus-evil factional politics in our political climate, along with the failure of political leadership, has been a decisive factor in the decline of Korea's democracy index.

G. Henderson aptly described Korean society as "politics swirling toward central power." This centralizing vortex became a mobilizing resource for rapid industrialization and later a driving force for democratization. However, after democratization, politics lost its way and became a naked stage for power struggles, while political parties ceased to be public institutions mediating democracy and instead became cartels for their own power. Now, the vortex that once powered Korean politics is being used to fuel extreme factional politics that have lost any sense of public good.

Anti-community politics of conflict and hatred are permeating all aspects of Korean society. The era of social media and SNS also provides a backdrop for this phenomenon. Politics that claim to be a centripetal force for integration have in reality become the greatest source of conflict in Korean society. As these sources of conflict remain unresolved and spread throughout society, they are encroaching on the daily lives, emotions, and even personal relationships of citizens. This is the socialization of factional politics.

A society where many people live together operates within a tension between conflict and a sense of solidarity. Whether it is inherent in human nature or shaped by society, hatred and compassion, conflict and empathy all coexist within us. Which of these traits is more prominent depends on social conditions and culture.

Politics is generally an area where conflict is amplified. Democracy is a principle of community that seeks coexistence by institutionally mediating these elements of conflict. Extreme factional politics do not institutionalize conflict resolution; rather, they intensify conflict. This good-versus-evil politics, this extremism, is far removed from the principles of democracy that allow us to live together.

Sometimes, conflicts that arise in the political sphere can be minimized or resolved through shared foundations and a sense of solidarity in other areas of society. A sense of social solidarity can reduce the potential for political conflict in the first place. However, recent factional politics in Korea are destroying social empathy and common sense. Moreover, this factional politics is not even an ideological struggle for a community that will eventually be reconciled; it is simply a power struggle for their own power cartel.

Through social media, civil society has also been subsumed into factional politics, and even the buffering function between politics and social solidarity no longer works. Instead, things are becoming even more extreme. The logic of factionalism, marked by hatred and hostility in the political sphere, is eroding the communal foundation of social empathy and compassion. This is the excess of politics driven by factionalism.

Overcoming factional politics is not only an urgent task for political reform, but also the path to opening a community where empathy and compassion can flourish. Perhaps because I am usually immersed in political commentary, I find myself humming Yang Joodong's "Mountain Path" rather than listening to political YouTube channels while hiking.

Kim Manheum, Former Chief of the National Assembly Legislative Research Office