Hey everyone (and especially Keaton), this is a meta-comment that I think I need to make, given how much has been said since my little tiff –
Points well taken, especially from Keaton and Matty and a few others.
I try not to live according to a double-standard, and I take great pains to behave according to my ideals, although an ideal is an ideal only because they are so hard to attain, by definition.
That being said, I think it's time to stop calling Keaton a "troll" and lumping him in with the idiots who infest any online discussion, Korean or otherwise. Yes, we know Korean netizens can be pretty vicious, but Keaton's certainly not one of these people. So let's stay away from generalizing away all Koreans who say a word edgewise as "trolls", since this is reproducing the kind of simplisitic thinking that we foreigners always complain about.
I also feel enlightened by your words, Keaton. And I also underestimated what you were saying and the place it was coming from as merely "reactionary" or the writings of a blind nationalist. Certainly, aspects of what you initially said bothered me, but don't feel bad because of my extreme reaction, as this was my fault.
You just showed up at the end of a looooong line of me being told to effectively "shut up" – both on the blog and in emails – by self-described Korean nationalists. It's been really frustrating to keep a calm head and take people at the face value of their arguments lately, since I've just about "had it."
It's not logical, rational, nor even a specific reason why. i'm just tired, and don't get much pleasure from posting anymore. I also don't want to limit myself to "nice" posts about Korea, since I'd feel like I was pressured into censoring myself, but I also don't have much patience anymore to have not my argument called into question, but rather my ability to even make one, based on my nationality and (wrongly) perceived motives.
So I have to apologize to Keaton for undeservedly making him the brunt of my anger, and to my readers for yet still not really being into blogging controversial for the time being. I'm just kind of burned out on it. Again, it's not anyone's "fault" – even living everyday life in Korea requires a constant demand to explain yourself ("Why did you come to Korea? Do you like Korea? How do you think of Korea?). They are innocuous questions; but when you hear them 1,000 times, you want to poke your own eyes out.
So hearing the same criticism again and again from idiots – and then from a person who's being pretty reasonable – means I might just snap on that last person. This is sort of like the taxi drivers who always ask me those previous questions; from the individual taxi driver's perspective, he's just asking totally reasonable questions, yet when I hear the same statement, "Korean has more nuances than simple English. Isn't it hard to learn?" I grit my teeth hard and try not to sound like an asshole, because if I snap at that guy, he'd be right to think me an asshole. He didn't do anything wrong.
And as for my apparent split-personality between my writing and podcasting, I just think them inherent to the medium.
I write long, singular essays to get my complex thoughts out on the page, to present arguments that need qualification and some kind of evidence, available to those who want a nice, long read.
The podcasts are like a radio show, which requires some interesting content, with me and/or others doing something, being somewhere, talking about something specific – all while trying to keep the runtime to a minimum. And also, I want to deal with controversial topics, but I do know that people don't want to hear long, angry monologues on their morning commute.
So I just think my critical stance on the page (and relative lack thereof in the podcast) and mostly neutral stance as a photographer (I go either way) all are functions of the medium itself. As a street photographer, I am mute and can only express things visually as they are presented to me; as a writer, I get to say all the things I never get to say as a photographer; as a podcaster, I try to talk about stuff that I'd actually like to listen to on a long commute.
And as for people being welcome or not welcome to this site, the only people who are not "welcome" are people who attack others and can't see past their own vitriol. Since I crossed that line myself, I was kind of embarrassed and said to myself – maybe it's time for a break. Seeing that it's summer vacation time in Korea these days, I thought a "blogging vacation" might do my mind some good.
In the end, Matty – you're right. If me and Keaton sat down over some 생맥주 and a puffy squid, I'm sure we would find more to agree on than not. I always tell that to my students: even the people who are most vehement in their disagreement often actualyl share a common set of assumptions that make their relatively minor difference of opinion stand out starkly.
Thanks, Keaton, for sticking in there, as well as for all the other posts of encouragement from readers. I think that for now, I'll keep it simple and concentrate on social commentary through photography, podcasts, and posts that are short and sweet.
And in the end, aren't we all having a productive conversation right now?
I think that's only a good thing.
