As
I read the August
publication of Groove Korea
Magazine, I came across a column that was titled “The Fear of
Becoming a Housewife,” which was written by a Ms. Megan Harper, an
American woman who had recently married a Korean man.
In
the column, Ms. Harper says that despite her husband’s claims that
he understands her refusal to take on a traditional housewife role,
her husband “simply could not imagine a home in which the husband
and wife share household duties.”
She
then goes on to say that in order to understand where her husband was
coming from, she attempted to analyze her mother-in-law, an older
Korean woman who, unlike Ms. Harper, has embraced the role of a
traditional housewife. In fact, Ms. Harper says that it was hard for
her to hide her discomfort when she sees “her mother-in-law prepare
a beautiful dinner that her husband has half-eaten before she even
has a chance to sit down.”
However,
Ms. Harper herself claims that her column was not intended to be a
social criticism. It was merely her attempt to share her
experiences, especially her “unexpected limit in understanding that
arises from her own gender role expectations.” She then goes on to
say that as it was futile for her to judge her mother-in-law, she
would strive to respect her for the sacrifices she has made while
using her own life to demonstrate equalized gender roles.
Ms.
Harper’s column was full of humility, understanding, acceptance,
and political correctness. In other words, it was absolutely insipid.
Throughout
the entire yawn of a yarn, it was obvious that Ms. Harper took great
pains to tiptoe around cultural sensitivities. My question is this:
Why? Was she afraid that she was going to offend someone because her
topic came close to what could have been an insightful criticism of
traditional Korean mores? What makes tradition so sacrosanct that so
many people, even those who get trampled by it, deem it beyond
reproach?
Tradition
is almost always defended on the principle of upholding the status
quo, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. Traditionalists
almost always defend tradition not because it is right, but because
it was chosen by our ancestors; not because it is good, but because
it is ancient. In other words, traditionalists’ sense of values
are not dictated by reason, but rather practices that they have
inherited from an age that has long since been dead. Their view of
the world is one that is based on anti-reason and as such, they have
no right to even hold a pretense of intellect.
If
not that, was Ms. Harper pulling back her punches because she was
being sensitive to racial norms? After all, she is American, not
Korean (Ms. Harper never stated her ethnic background. As a result,
when I say “Korean,” I am referring to Korean as an ethnic group
as well as a unique political group, which is different from, say,
Korean Americans). Was she afraid of coming off as an Ugly American,
telling off an entire people how their millennia-old traditions are
backward and nonsensical?
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If
that was the reason, then though Ms. Harper herself may not be a
racist, she has certainly embraced, at least in part, some of the
beliefs that racists hold dear. Specifically, the notion that only a
member of the tribe is allowed to criticize tribal practices; that an
outsider ought to learn to hold his/her tongue, at least in the
presence of the Native Borns. This
is an idea that claims that a person’s rights are not inherent but
based on privileges that are made available only to certain people
based on factors that are beyond anyone’s control – the pure
accident of birth. It is an idea that attempts to invalidate the one
attribute that distinguishes human beings from all other living
species – his rational faculty, while championing the one attribute
that threatens to send Mankind back to the caves that our ancestors
once dwelled in – tribalism.
Or
was Ms. Harper being demure with her criticisms because she didn’t
wish to come off as being too brash? If so, then I cannot help but
question a culture that emphasizes the importance of humility
considering the fact that, once stripped off its false virtue,
humility is nothing more than an excuse that is given for cowardice.
What is humility if not a self-cheating lie to desert
the battle for one’s joys and principles, to refuse to fight for
one’s own happiness? What is humility if it is not the antithesis
to pride, the real virtue that allows people to live like actual
human beings?
Ms.
Harper’s inability or unwillingness to pronounce moral judgments on
others while all too willingly blaming herself for her “unexpected
limit in understanding that arises from her own gender role
expectations” is the consequence of moral grayness – the notion
that the world cannot be neatly categorized into black and white, as
the whole world is but a mushy gray. Once again, however, this idea
is nothing more than an excuse for cowardice that is masquerading as
humility.
Gray
in itself is a combination of black and white. If there were no
black and white, then there can be no gray. In the field of
morality, this means that one must first identify what is good and
what is evil. When an individual has ascertained that one
alternative is good and the other is evil, there can be no
justification for choosing a mixture of the two; only excuses.
In
effect, when an individual fails to pronounce moral judgments, what
the individual is actually doing, consciously or subconsciously, is
declaring: “I will not cast the first stone. Please keep that in
mind when it comes time for my judgment.”
Whether
Ms. Harper knows it or not, she entered an intellectual battle. When
one enters any intellectual battle, big or small, public or private,
one’s sole criterion of judgment ought to be nothing more than the
truth, a truth that is based on the
recognition of the facts of reality –
not anyone’s approval or disapproval. In other words, one needs
moral certainty.
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