Kang, M., & Park, S. (2019, January 9). Fearing monster, rearing silence: Communicative effect of chaebol’s gapjil. Presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Hate Speech in Asia and Europe, Paris.
This presentation was delivered in the 2nd International Workshop on Hate Speech titled “Hate Speech in Asia and Europe: A Comparative Approach” held at Paris in 2019. For more information about this workshop, please see here.
Abstract
Gapjil, an absurd and authoritarian attitude or hate speech of people taking advantage of their socioeconomic power over others, has arisen as problematic social phenomenon in South Korea. In recognition of its severity, this article attempts to illuminate gapjil as a unique form of hate speech that needs to be explicated with contextual understanding. While gapjil encompasses a variety form of power abuse and happens at different levels of relationship, this article categorizes it based on the types of power exerted: economic power, status power, and symbolic power. Taking advantage of asymmetrical power relations, those who hold the power exploit, disregard and even assault those who are subordinate to them. This unique but prevalent form of power abuse in Korean society needs to be explained in Korean sociocultural context. Gapjil has been persisted and even allowed based on Korean way of thinking and socializing: firstly, in Korea, there is a strong hierarchical culture in which people recognize each other based on the socioeconomic status; secondly, Koreans have strong desire for recognition, which leads to extorted meritocracy; last but not least, Koreans tend to build strong belongingness to or identification with their community rather than to respect individuality. Due to these cultural peculiarities of Korean society, Koreans are used to putting up with absurdity in their own community and are reluctant to whistleblowing, thereby making it difficult to break out of a vicious circle of gapjil. Recently, however, the notion of belongingness is going through a shift, which has made gapjil perceived as not just an unreasonable phenomenon but also a form of hate speech. Thus this article delves into gapjil in terms of the authoritarian belongingness in Korean society, giving particular attention to Korean Air gapjil, which happened in April 2018 as the most striking incident that triggered social debate on gapjil.
SOJEONG PARK 