[The World on the Page] Populism Runs Wild Like a Monster

Whether called youth conservatism or ‘Idaenam’ (men in their 20s), the ‘20s phenomenon’ is one of the biggest problems in Korean society. It is not unique to us. The phenomenon of young people, weary of a bleak world, becoming disillusioned with democracy itself and falling into populism is widespread across advanced societies.

According to a 2016 study by Yascha Mounk of Johns Hopkins University and Roberto Foa of Cambridge University, one in four American millennials denied free elections. Only one-third regarded citizenship as an essential element of democracy, a lower figure than that of the older generation. The youth’s detachment from democracy was severe not only in Brexit-era Britain but also across European countries.

The direct causes were chronic unemployment caused by neoliberalism, widespread irregular employment, elite inheritance and ladder kicking, winner-takes-all dynamics, and polarization. Adding fuel to the fire were the corruption and decay of established politics, ignorance and neglect, incompetence, and shirking of responsibility.

Even when they voiced their pain, politics seemed to operate independently of them, so why vote? If the politicians they elected showed no interest in solving their problems, what use was democracy? Expectations turned into disappointment, disappointment into indifference, and indifference into rage. Backed by populism, ‘angry youth’ rose up in many places. The ‘20s phenomenon’ is not far removed from this global trend.

In the book Radical 20s, youth sociologist Kim Nae-hoon argues that we should neither condemn nor become disillusioned with the ‘20s phenomenon’ but rather use accurate understanding as a source of hope. He calls the youth in their 20s “the most vulnerable generation,” suffering from “existential threats amid chaos such as continuous job losses, accelerating automation, inevitable downward social mobility, climate change, and resource depletion.” This means they are not a “monstrous generation” or “Han-nam” (Korean men) soaked in hatred and defeatism, but a generation sensitively responding to the crisis triggered by neoliberalism and struggling to find fundamental alternatives.

The core sentiment occupying the minds of the youth generation is ‘unfairness.’ Although engaged in a gender war, both young men and women believe it is unfair for individual youths to bear the social responsibilities born from a hopeless world. They argue that the responsibility lies with the older generation and elite groups who created a world where capitalism and democracy do not function.

In the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics ‘North-South unified team formation,’ this generation’s sympathy was focused on the individual athletes who earned their spots through effort but were stripped of their qualifications. The 20s condemned this as ‘unfair.’ They would not tolerate abstract values like unification infringing on their concrete personal realities. Their stance was, “Forget about fulfillment; just give us overtime pay.”

The fairness that people in their 20s talk about is closer to a visceral feeling than a reasoned perception?more like a desperate cry of “It’s not fair!” It lacks solid understanding and concrete content. There is no vision for how society as a whole can fairly distribute shares and achieve sustainable development. It is closer to “Don’t disadvantage me!” Therefore, focusing on their notion of fairness only complicates the problem. What truly grips them is an unstable life and a bleak future.

Youth in their 20s face the unprecedented risk in modern Korean history of becoming poorer than their parents. The intensity of anxiety and pain felt by middle-class and lower youth without inherited status or wealth is much greater. Moreover, they belong to the generation with the most severe mismatch between education and jobs. Despite having the highest qualifications in history, most are stuck in unstable jobs such as irregular, contract, or freelance work. Their lives are marked by a ‘betrayal of effort.’

Having lost hope, those in their 20s suffer from depression and anxiety. Their psychological defense mechanisms are contempt and hatred. Contempt is “inflating one’s self-worth by unjustly disparaging others,” and hatred is “finding someone to blame for one’s problems and expelling ‘them.’” They constantly produce and attack ‘them’?immigrants, lower classes, refugees, women, the elderly, children, disabled people, irregular workers?and devote themselves to exclusion.

Especially, people in their 20s cannot stand seeing those worse off than themselves succeed. They try hard to make scapegoats. At first glance, they seem to pursue emotional satisfaction rather than rational solutions. The obsession of 20s men, who have only grasped online ‘anti-networks’ compared to 20s women who have feminism as an alternative worldview despite the risks of ‘identity politics,’ is severe.

Because this hatred is combined with social and economic instability, it cannot be resolved by moral lectures or ‘fact bombardments.’ Unless political imagination is exercised to build a ‘new us’?a community where one can live without despising or hating others?no one can save them. However, established politics has thoroughly betrayed them.

The politics that 20s born after the 1990s have encountered so far have been only progressive neoliberalism (liberal conservatism) and reactionary neoliberalism (authoritarian conservatism). As the presidential election vote split showed, although there are differences, neither is an alternative. They only gradually or rapidly worsen inequality and polarization without solving them. As French political scientist Chantal Mouffe said, it is just the difference between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola.

The desire that things cannot continue like this is boiling, but when politics is ‘no answer,’ people try to imagine ‘other alternatives’ within the community. As Brecht said, “Better bad new things than right but old things.” Populist aspirations quickly seized that space.

The rise of populism is a serious symptom of political crisis. Populism tempts people by offering ‘fake alternatives’ that ignore practical limits in a hopeless reality. Especially, it feeds on hatred. By dividing society into ‘pure us’ and ‘impure them’ and shifting all responsibility onto ‘them,’ it conceals real problems and delays or worsens solutions. Hating others does not fill my jar with rice. Populism should be heard as a desperate plea to find a way to ease ‘anxiety about collapse.’

Therefore, the solution to the ‘20s phenomenon’ can only be prepared when we face “the anxiety that one cannot expect a better tomorrow than today, and the dissatisfaction with the social structure that caused that anxiety.” If politics continues to turn a deaf ear to their appeals as before, populism that makes disabled people ‘them’ will run rampant like a monster. I hope politics finds an answer quickly.

Jang Eun-su, Literary Critic

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