[The Editors' Verdict] The Collar-Grabbing Deputy Minister and the Hateful Minister

Have you ever grabbed a taxi driver's collar in your life? Have you ever heard someone around you say they did? You might be able to find one acquaintance with anger management issues and get a confession, but in any case, it is certainly a very rare occurrence. Have you ever referred to a deceased person as 'that guy' even once in your life? Especially when talking about the death of a 19-year-old youth who was a victim of the structural disaster known as 'outsourcing of risk.' What about the expression "poor people are crazy"?

There are attempts to define the true feelings behind such remarks made by this government's Deputy Minister of Justice and the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport nominee as Asitabi (我是他非) or "double standards" (naeronambul, meaning "if I do it, it's romance; if others do it, it's an affair"), but these attempts are incomplete. Other high-ranking officials' remarks like "Not everyone needs to become a dragon" or "Abandon the fantasy of apartments," regardless of the motives' morality, all share an underlying sentiment: hatred toward the weak. Contempt for those who have less or are less educated than oneself. A desire to avoid lowly, inferior, and smelly people. The collar of the socially weak can be grabbed without consequence, and even in the face of death, the idea that proper manners are unnecessary. If this is not hatred, then what is?

Of course, it's not only people in this government. From the former president who instinctively hid his hand when elderly people in the marketplace rushed to shake hands, to numerous cases of the powerful despising the weak across political lines. Many people in positions of power (Gap) believe that if they pay the salary, they can throw water cups or grab arms and throw others around. The words and actions that suddenly emerge from them are not mere mistakes but stem from an internalized vulgar sense of superiority and hatred toward the weak. In a world where such people openly become ministers, deputy ministers, and presidents, can we blame children who measure their friends' apartment sizes? The opposition politician's phrase "You go to public rental housing" sounds like the most passive form of rebellion ordinary people can express toward the 'Baguette Marie Antoinette' living inside the castle walls, beyond just a slogan to criticize the government.

Hatred resembles a virus that infinitely multiplies as long as there is a host. The hatred virus of Byun Chang-heum, the nominee for Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, who said about the 1997-born youth who died trapped between the screen doors at Guui Station, "If only he had cared, nothing would have happened," spread to his eldest daughter of a similar age and was expressed as feeling like "everyone and their dog got in." Byun's daughter reportedly mentioned "everyone and their dog" on her blog after being accepted into Seoul City's Global Leader Training Program, writing, "The kid who interviewed with me and a friend from the academy also passed."

However, the phrase that followed, "Yes, I'm mean," draws even more attention. The world that these less educated and less privileged people ended up that way because they did not try or lacked ability, and therefore hating them is a natural aspect of a meritocratic and performance-oriented society?wasn't that the value this government claims to pursue, in other words, fairness or justice?

Hatred is the most fatal disqualification. Do they have some strange ability that makes it absolutely necessary for them to be appointed as ministers or deputy ministers for the prosecution to be reformed and real estate issues to be solved? Even if that were true, it is less important than eliminating the social experience of hatred-driven people rising to high office without issue. Without a collar-grabbing deputy minister, without a hateful minister, we can still punish the prosecutor general for contempt and easily create the 25th real estate policy that will fail anyway.

Shin Beom-su, Chief of Political Affairs

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.