[Book Sip] "The Crowd Exploits Itself in the Feeling of Freedom"

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The author, who gave up studying abroad in the United States and returned home wandering, secluded himself in his room under the guise of homeschooling and read books incessantly. From 2017, he completed reading a total of 505 books over three years, all of which were quite substantial in content. Through the power of this reading, he found a clear "answer" in a life marked by anxiety and frustration, and was selected as a scholarship student at a prestigious liberal arts college in the United States. Currently majoring in political science at a liberal arts college in the U.S., the author reopens the books that helped him build a framework for thinking about humans and society in this book.

This subject, the new generation of the 21st century, views each other as strangers. They see each other not as fellow citizens sharing social responsibilities but as competitors. Their encounters end as “a story that concludes immediately at the very place where it began, without ever becoming a ‘to be continued’ story that stops after just one time or postpones unfinished matters to the next time.” They cannot even begin to attempt to seize the uncertain reality. Yet, the power of individuals without solidarity can never change reality. - p.4, from Prologue

This blind worship of heroes maintains a compliant child's attitude, conditioning humans to accept answers without questioning. Wilhelm Humboldt, a 19th-century German educator and politician, warned that anything not arising from a person's free choice, but merely the result of instructions and guidance, cannot enter the essence of human existence. People never perform predetermined answers, such as those accepted through instructions and guidance, with genuine passion. Things that are only executed mechanically and precisely always remain alien to one's nature. - p.38, from Hero

Some crowds who succeed in such a distorted arena consistently label the masses as stupid and exclude themselves from them. They even consider themselves owners of cold, rational thinking. However, as 20th-century American philosopher Henry Thoreau said, the real reason for the slow progress of human civilization is that even those few successful crowds are not practically wiser or better than the majority of the masses. - p.62, from Meritocracy

Humans are beings exploited not only by others but also by themselves. The crowd exploits itself under the feeling of freedom. They voluntarily exploit themselves until they are completely broken, often without realizing it. - p.64, from Desire

When young children are encouraged only by praise for results or compliments like “smart,” they tend to become complacent and neglect effort, or fall into perfectionism trying to meet others' expectations, which can lead to depression. However, when their ‘effort,’ the ‘process’ behind the results, is praised regardless of the outcome, most students continue to try harder and achieve better results. Yet, education focused on averages makes students psychologically anxious by concentrating on results rather than praising this process. - p.89, from Reductionism

And the series of coincidences that brought about this world, the series of coincidences and efforts that brought about the spirit called human, cannot be explained only microscopically. Therefore, we must transcend the laws of the microscopic world. Just as physics does not remain stuck in classical laws but explores the uncertain quantum world and unobservable spaces, we must not remain stuck in the dualistic world of good and evil, ideal and reality, but explore the world beyond them. Also, like scientists who are not satisfied with discovering the laws of the universe but question the forces that create and operate the universe according to those laws, we must not be satisfied with understanding the operating principles of humans but question the forces that make humans operate according to those principles. Because humans are both the object of knowledge about themselves and the subject of knowing. - p.173, from Solidarity

Idol Destruction | Written by Yoon Dongjun | Param Book | 197 pages | 16,800 KRW

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