Alternative
Futures of Korea: Beyond the litany
Sohail Inayatullah[1]
Final
days but hedge your bets
In
Papua New Guinea, farmers are refusing to plant numerous crops, convinced
that the world will end in two years. In the year 2000, when the world will
not end, not only will they face humiliation, they will face starvation.
Lee
Jan-Rim, 44, leader of Mission for Coming Days was sentenced to two years
for swindling $4.4 million form his followers.
It was one of several sects to predict that the world would end in
October, 1992. Lee, however,
had bought large amounts of bonds and maturities that extended beyond the
October 28 date which was to mark the end of civilisation.
Either
Lee was practicing alternative futures or hedging his bets. 20,000 Koreans
were caught up in this doomsday craze. Several killed themselves and others
deserted their homes, schools and jobs.
The future matters
The future does matter, we constantly act on our views of the future.
Another
obvious example is the world economy, our explicit and implicit belief in
progress, in the upward rise of economies leads us to invest in certain
ways. When things do not quite
turn out the way we envision, fear results.
While
few believe they can predict the future, there is general agreement that
(1)
One can often discern emerging issues or trends;
(2)
One can predict the future by creating it, by colonising it;
(3)
Unless one interrogates the future, unless one decolonises the
future, others will control and create it;
(4)
A range of alternative futures, scenarios can be posited, which can
(a) bound and reduce uncertainty, (b) provide a distance from the present
and thus allow for the creation of a new present.
Future
generations
In
recent times, the study of the future has undergone a tremendous
transformation through the paradigm of future generations studies. Instead
of predictive-technical concerns, the approach is one that is focused on the
(1)
Family,
particularly the extended family,
(2)
Time
is seen as repeatable, as cyclical - taking care of ancestors is thus
considered critical seen they have ensured that present generations are
alive - the future in this sense is very much past based, and not linear as
in conventional Western futures
(3)
As important as ancestors are futurecestors or future generations
(4)
The
moral/ethical basis of what the future can or might be like are crucial.
(5)
Moral
leadership is seen as central in creating a different future
This
type of futures studies I believe will be far closer to the East Asian
sensibility. Part of the lack of the growth of thinking about the future has
been that it has been located in narrow economistic readings and power based
international relations perspectives - ie only state configured futures and
scenarios are real, issues of culture, gender, myth are avoided.
But future generations thinking allows us to consider the future of the
family, the role of cyclicity in human and social systems, the role of the
wise leader, and the role of ethics/morality in creating desired futures.
Research
on the future of Korea
The
literature on the futures of Korea is surprisingly not immense. Whereas a
web search (through yahoo,
hotbot and excite) normally lead to dozens to thousands of findings,
entering the phrase "the futures of korea" leads to nothing.
A search in the literature in futures studies leads to similar results.
The type of articles that do appear only use the 21st century as an
inspiring signifier or forecast narrow and short term economic trends.
There is a UNESCO report titled Korea
2000 but that too is mostly concerned with immediate trends.
Papers on south korea in general focus on economic trends, pointing to
growth in its economy, its rise from underdeveloped nation to industrialised
nation, all in one generation, with Japan's present as South Korea's likely
future.
There exists an implicit view of the future of Korea. It is based on the
belief that the following: Unification will occur; Korea will continue to
development economically, becoming a fully developed nation in not to
distant future. The key to
creating a bright future is hard word, strong family ties, sacrifice for the
nation or collectivity and han - both as beauty and as resentment against
the other. Finally, there is a belief that the future can be modern without
being western - there can be an asian way to progress.
Scenarios
of Korea's Futures
Of
peculiar interest is a paper by international relations writer Susmit Kumar[2]
- quoting the director of the CIA, Kumar argues for three scenarios for the
future of North Korea. (1) Peaceful existence, (2) Explosion and (3)
Implosion.
The first scenario is the most hopeful and the dream of South Koreans and
possibly many North Koreans. The issues in this scenario that are to be
resolved are largely economic. They include the following questions: Will
the south be willing to allow economic investment in the north if it became
too obviously exploitative of wage differentials?
Can the south live with the enslavement of relatives for 10‑20
years `while living standards approach those in the south'?
In the second scenario, North Korea explodes onto South Korea, leading to a
full scale war, the devastation of Seoul, and concluding with the total
annihilation of North Korea - its removal from the world geographical map.
In the third implosion scenario, the current crisis expands to the degree
where the state breaks down and South Korea takes over. The costs to south
korea will be high. Kumar write
that it will not follow the West Germany/East germany model since North
Koreans have no knowledge of the outside world, or even other parts of their
own country. But while many believe, the costs will be too difficult for the
south korean, the Confucian "nature" and idea of extended family
will make sacrificing for the long term more bearable.
Keun Lee, professor of Seoul National University writes that unification
will have to be a slow process - partial unification (some type of
federation), economic integration and then complete unification. He calls
this the soft landing scenario. He believes this will take about 15 years or
so.[3]
Other shorter editorial pieces point to the changing nature of the Korean
political- economy - more transparency, more democracy, less corruption, to
mention the more obvious trends, and the problems associated with moving to
a more western culture. However, these perspectives, more than say anything
about the future, say more about the present.
Indeed, the entire unification discourse is very much about the present.
There is already a growing army of political scientists and
government officials trying to deal with the nuts and bolts of unification,
however, what is not asked is: what will Koreans from the south do when
their distant cousins from Pyongyang appear on their doorstep one morning,
unannounced.
World
futures
Part of the problem in thinking about "out of the box" scenarios
is being overly focused on trends. I
argue that we need to take a grander historical perspectives. We need to
take a step back and (1) locate
this speculation within a model of forecasting, and (2) locate korea's
futures within broader world futures.
At the World Futures level, the most important trend or scenario is that of
an asian renaissance led partly
through the economic miracle but also through the leadership of ecumenical
thinkers as Anwar Ibrahim.[4]
He and many others take a perspective of critical traditionalism. They
imagine an Asian Century but are not committed to modernism, rather they see
religious tradition as the centre point for a postmodern non-european world.
They also do not have an emotional gut reaction against the West or
indeed, against any particular civilisation as they have not undergone any
personal trauma. They remain
committed to creating a new future that is not a simplistic reaction to the
West nor do they play identity politics with dogmatic
traditionalists/nationalists.
The counter to this scenario is deep social maldevelopment - as in the case
of Thailand, leading to an asian
schizophrenia.[5]
In this scenario, the costs of hyperdevelopment - loss of tradition, move
from traditional society to postmodern society - are internalised.
Identity is no longer anchored, there is nothing to hold on to, only
inferiority towards the West and towards others. The result is violence
towards others and when that is difficult, violence towards the self and
weaker societal members, nature, women and children.
Some questions that can be derived from this scenario include the following.
They are offered by Professor Jay Lewis.[6]
What are the costs of the antidote offered by excessive narcissistic
nationalism? Does an over
emphasis on `Korea first and best' lead to distortions in relations with
other nations? Can we expect
that the Korean identity is already so strong that we need not worry about
schizophrenia, but rather, free people to engage with the emerging world
cultures and give them creative license to develop new contributions that
are not strictly Korean but hybrid, such as we're seeing already in fashion?
Is that where the future Korean Nobel Prizes are to be found?
A third scenario is based on the rise
of China, not just another market player, but the biggest player in
human history. Jay Lewis,[7]
asks the following. How will Korea's world view, its security position, its
manufacturing (including sources of leading, value-added technologies) and
trading strategies change when China is the largest manufacturing and
consuming market in the world? Will
Korea (say, reunified) be willing to `offer tribute' to China?
Will sadae (`serving the
greater' or paying ostensible tribute to a hegemonic power to pacify it and
keep it out of your domestic affairs) re-emerge as Korean policy towards
China? What will that mean for
Korea's relationship with the rest of the world?
Will China's economic hegemony produce a cultural hegemony?
What would that look like and what would be Korea's role in that
hegemony? Would it be similar
to its traditional role of taking Chinese culture and fashioning something
even better or at least purer? Where is the Korean identity then?
In contrast, Professor of Urban Planning, Karl Kim argues that the road to
peace, to peaceful reform is through China - the north-south border is too
militarized and in a cold war vise - through projects such as the Tumen
River project. Unfortunately the US needs a militarized North Korea so that
it can keep its own military there.
The fourth scenario is perhaps overly influenced by the current crisis - it
is the collapse and the transformation
of the world capitalist system and a return to more localised economies
where growth is more nature based, more local based, more concerned with
meeting basic rights - housing, food, identity and less with the dazzle of
bigger is better. This is a
localised world at the economic level and a globalized world at the
political level - at the level of governance.
Given this possibility, what will happen to Korea Inc. then?
Beyond
the litany
While scenarios reveal horizontal space, they do not give us insight into
levels of reality. To do so, we need to move outside of the litany of
forecasts. My own method is less to forecast the future and more to create
spaces within current discourse to open up the future to alternatives.[8]
(1)
Litany - economic trends and in Korea's case the vision of surpassing
Japan as well as unification.
(2)
Social levels - social and cultural development - issues of social
cohesion, education, health (diet, alcohol, cigarettes)
(3)
Worldview - will the idea of Korea change - ie how will it redefine
itself - also what is the role of confucianism, shamanism, buddhism and
christianity.
(4)
Myth and Metaphor. What is the significance of Han and other central
metaphors[9]
Will `han' be used as a reactionary concept that might lead to exclusivism
and xenophobia just when Koreans need more contact, openness, and
interaction? What are some
other metaphors that differently define Korea's futures.
Another very important point here is to remind ourselves of how an absurd
future can quickly become an obvious one (the fall of communism being the
obvious overused one) and how a desired future can become a nightmare.
Dator writes in his work on the futures of Korea that since the
unification of Germany, Korean unification is seen more fearfully now ie
since North Korea is far poorer.
And even more significantly, what is not thought of, is after unification -
what then, what will and should be the desired image propelling us forward.
To move forward, we need to go deeper, into worldview and myth and metaphor.
Deep
transformations
Tae-chang Kim,[10]
a leading korean futurist, believe that the most important way to understand
the futures of korea is to not focus on the surface level, but at the deep
transition Korea and other asian nations are part of - this is the
post-postmodern shift.
This
includes a questioning of:
1. Westernism (and favoring the non-West)
2.
Monism (and favoring an ecology of faiths)
3.
Rationalism (and favoring humanism)
4.
Centrism (and favoring the peripheries)
5.
Logicism (and favoring values)
6.
Anthropocentrism (and favoring the environment)
7.
Patriarchy (and favoring gender balance and cooperation)
8.
Technologism (and favoring human creativity and innovation).
While
Kim sees Confucianism as the wave of the future - ie as the vision of the
future he favors, he is quick to point out that the treatment of women is
its achilles heal. Lewis argues that equally damaging is its conservatism
and willingness to sacrifice present and future generations to preserve the
past. A living sage is not
nearly as important as a dead one.
In
my own work on dramatic trends changing the future, I focus on four
epistemic changes.[11]
These are (1) changes in reality (with the drivers being advances in virtual
reality, and postmodernism),
(2) changes in nature (with the drivers being advances in genetics and
poststructural thought critical of essentialism), (3) changes in truth (with
the drivers being deep civilizational multiculturalism, feminism, and the
discovery of the other) and (4) changes in sovereignty (with the drivers
being global capitalism and cultural capitalism).
These interrelated epistemic changes, I believe, are more important than
global demographic changes in favor of the Third World; globalism in favor
of capital; and environmental destruction created by presentism; the
delinking of the financial economy with the real economy; among other
megetrends. The obvious
question is how will these trends impact the futures of Korea? What will
Korea look like in a postmodern world? Or can Korea leapfrog this end stage
of modernity and offer a non-exploitive Confucian/global ethics?
These and other similar questions remain pivotal if we are to gain
any understanding the complexity of the future ahead of us.
Macrohistory
and macrofutures
Lastly
and most importantly, we need to look at the deep waves of the past, the
patterns of history.[12]
They can help structure the trends we see creating the future ie the
contour what is possible.
(1)
World systems perspectives would see East Asia as the new centre with
the new technologies creating the next long wave of growth (through genetic,
nano and other technologies)
(2)
Sarkar sees history as the rise and fall of particular ways of
knowing - these include the worker, the warrior, the intellectual and the
merchant. History moves through each era, and then the cycle ends when there
is a worker revolution at the end of the merchant era.
But instead of leading to a classless society, the cycle keeps on
moving. In Korean history, this
is evidenced by the ancient era of communal living, when wealth accumulation
was difficult. The ksattriyan
era came about with the rise of the first states and their unification in
the 7th century when dynamic and authoritarian leadership was the only way
to achieve military success. The vipra domnation was from the 7th-19th
centuries when unification was not in question. The warrior classes were
diaparaged and buddhism and then neo-confucianism were central. In this
century, this has led to the merchant worldview which while bringing untold
riches have also barbarized the other classes.
Next then for Sarkar is the shudra era, with a return to
collective/cooperative ownership.
Most likely this will come about through a global depression and
linked environmental disastors. In contrast to this historical
dynamic, Eisler
focuses on gender and power.
(3)
Eisler sees history as a pendulum of dominatorship and partnership.
For her, Asian cultures are now moving out of their dominator mode and
entering a world where women and men work in partnership together. There is
of course just a nascent movement, but within 50 years, it should be the
main wave.
The importance of these perspectives is they give us a much broader brush to
imagine and think about the future - they give us new variables and a new
shape of the future instead of just the linear arrow of progress.
They give us the cycle and the pendulum.
They also do not reinforce the hierarchy of nations worldview.
For example, part of current Korean future thinking is the goal of
surpassing Japan. However, this
reinforces the idea that the future of another country represents one's own
present, either it has to be followed as in development thinking or somehow
surpassed, in either case, the future is fixed - nation-centred and without
authentic creativity.
Thus
in thinking about the future, we need to not only create alternative
scenarios in horizontal space but as well vertical scenarios, that move from
the litany to the myth level.
Conclusion
Essentially
these tools are to help us not just forecast the future but to imagine a
different future.
Certainly if Lee Jan-Rim took such an eclectic view of time and the future,
he would not be in prison today. He might argue instead that the world will
not come to end, even if we are in the final days of the modern world.
What
is needed:
Primary
research on: images Koreans have of the future; empirical forecasts/expert
forecasts of the future; group visioning exercises - empirical and
interpretive research on Korea's futures.