Comments on: Duelling histories? part 3

By: ImFan

ImFan — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 06:01:55 +0000

Judging from the responses, it’s clear to me that few here actually “get” Im Jie-hyun’s thesis. His mass dictatorship
project is simply an attempt to point out that consent can be “manufactured” by dictatorial states, not that the
people actually supported authoritarian rule (in a free-will sense). The subtitle of one of his conferences was
“Between Delusion and Desire,” which should give you a better idea of what he’s talking about.

The comment that Prof. Im is more a polemicist than a historian and that he doesn’t spend any time investigating the
everyday life of dictatorships seems rather misplaced. Prof. Lim has a team of researchers (20+ at last count) who
are investigating just that in his various research projects. The fruits of the effort will be published over the
next few years, so I suggest you reserve the judgment.

By: Owen

Owen — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:11:28 +0000

Thanks for the extra info J. My thoughts from what I’ve read of Prof Im’s ideas are quite similar to yours. It seems to me that he is using this particular subject as part of a polemic against a certain form of Stalinist (what he calls Marxist) historiography. I’ve got nothing against polemics in the right place but I don’t think this one really moves things forward because he is attacking something of a strawman. On the other hand, I haven’t read his actual research so I can’t comment on your point about it lacking in a solid basis in archival study.

By: j

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:37:44 +0000

Professor Im is definately influenced by the Western Historiography on the everyday lives of ordinary citizens under the Nazi, Facist and Stanlist regimes, many which try to find some kind of “agency” (if not guilt) for the masses whether as passive collaborators or as resisters. Also he is probably trying to find answers to the nostalgia for Park, the suprisingly positive memory of his era by many older generation Koreans who lived through those dictatorial years. It is a useful approach.

But I have to admit that the debate around his arguments are being carried out in much of an ineffective way. For one thing, Professor Im seems more bent on crying out his case than trying to investigate in detail how ordinary people negociated their everyday lives under Park, that is, he seems more a polemist than a historian, thus weakening the persuasiveness of his arguments. It’s also symptomic of the vacumn in established/academic history, that is, serious historians still eschew from confronting and researching contentious modern Korean history, so one does not see the kind of archival and serious studies that would allow the debate to stand on more solid bases.

By: noja

noja — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:57:02 +0000

Well, while reading Prof. Im ChihyOn, I always felt that, in fact, mass consent for the authoritarian rule (sometimes mistaken for the “people’s will”)was probably more typical of East Asian Stalinist societies, were, at least, urban workers were made into a sort of semi-privileged stratum (among the dominated) and coopted by higher (than in the villages) standards of living and prospects of social advancement through party “activism”/higher education. Under Park too, the workers’ wages seemed to rise – but on twice lower rate that labour productivity, and on a scale absolutely incomparable with the improvements in the middle class lives. I remember that in Seoul in 1982, the average wage of an industrial worker was around Won 180.000 – too little to get really “co-opted”, I am afraid. The school/army, of course, disciplined the future workers into “right” thinking – but “disciplining” and “co-optation” are different things, I guess?

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 06:03:44 +0000

Talk about coming full circle: the original definition of “tyrant” in the Greek poleis was a dictator selected by the people (rather than via monarchical succession or oligarchic selection) to enact drastic reforms.