Ugly Day in Canada

Being frustrated at not getting laid is a poor hill to die on. Worse, it’s a vile hill to kill people for. It’s sad how the whole misogynistic movement have grown so much that there are now several branches of it. I know Men’s Rights Movement, MGTOWs, and Incels are all different, but they all stem from a male frustration at not getting what they believe they deserve to have, whether it’s a higher social standing, deference from others, preference from society, female attention, or whatever. Though this male insecurity can sometimes just manifest itself mildly in low self-esteem or just a poor way in interacting with others, as we saw with Alek Minassian, it can also blow up into ugly hatred and a weird fantasy of overthrowing the way society works.

Looking into the whole thing, it’s amusing/depressing how the whole incel terminology is rife with self-hate and misogyny without a hint of irony. “Chads” are muscular, well-off, vapid, pretty men that get all the women. “Stacys” are your idealized buxom hot girl who falls for Chads.  “Normies” are people who are neither Chads nor Staceys. Deep dive into reddit (which banned the dedicated subreddit) or 4chan, and you’ll find ample usage of “cuck” and tons of derogatory term for women. Again, these are supposed to be men whose one uniting attribute is the frustration of not having any attention towards the opposite sex returned to them, thus they are “incel,” involuntary celibate. If you want attention from the opposite sex so much, why is there so much hate towards them? That’s not helping your cause. People can sense these things.

What I notice about the whole movement is that it (including a lot of misogynist movements) are based on bloated misconceptions and fantasies. Just looking at 2001’s Journal of Sex Research, it defines involuntary celibate as someone who wishes to have sex but has not been able to find a willing partner in the past six months. Six months? No one is owed sex twice or three times a year. Not having sex for six months is not a grave injustice. Heck, not having sex in a year is not a grave injustice. Sometimes it’s just pure laziness. Sex can be tiring. Incels must think that normal life is having sex once or twice a week, which would be great, but is not really realistic for most people. And with that in mind, who is the target of their sexual frustrations? The Stacys. Do they really think that if they work out enough, earn enough money, and be nice enough, they would get a Stacy to pay attention to them and sexually gratify them regularly? Sure, that could be possible, but that’s discounting all other men who might look better or simply just be better people than them. And then of course there’s also luck to consider. Some people are just lucky enough to charm their way into a Stacy’s or a Chad’s heart. But the keyword there is charm. CHARM!

A part of me feels that many of these men want a pornographic-plot lifestyle and are shooting for the moon, and in turn are getting angry and disappointed when the hot cheerleader next door doesn’t pay any attention to them. I have a friend whom I have never seen date anyone ever. He’s a decent guy, very kind, great job, and even has lots of women friends. The problem is he seems to be looking for 10s when he himself is a 6 on the looks department on a good day. I know it’s shallow, but the discrepancy in the way he talks about women is obvious. I think that could be the same problem with incels. They spend too much time pining for 10s, and by the time they decide to look at partners their own level, they’ve already built up too much frustration and resentment that it’s palatable.

What gets to me about all of these movements is the sense of entitlement, whether it’s incels or any other form of men’s right’s movements. It’s a sense of entitlement and frustration despite being the gender which has reaped thousands of years of societal benefits keeping women down. And no, I’m not trying to white knight here. I’m married. This attitude isn’t going to get me laid any more than if I didn’t believe these things. Anyway, after being born in a society designed to make you thrive, and you’re still failing, at some point, you have to realize that the problem is not women, the problem is you. And how hard is it to get laid? You can’t get laid? Go to a club or a bar. Meet women. Still can’t get laid? Call a professional. Pretend that it’s your own sexual prowess that got you hot women in bed. The president of the United States does it. Maybe that’ll clear your head a little and be the baby steps towards a more typical relationship with other women. Don’t start hating women or society in general because you can’t get laid (or at least afford to get laid). Getting laid is actually not that difficult. In fact, after a couple of times, you might think that devoting your spare time in an online community based on not getting laid is a tad silly considering how uncomplicated it truly is. There is no need to be misogynist because of your own personal failings.

Actually, these days I lament the fact that in South Korea, with the advent of the #Metoo movement, anti-feminist movements have been growing in response. In South Korea, a country which can still be quite sexist. What’s worse is that the anti-feminist crowd in South Korea has recently been fueled by the popularity of Canadian Jordan Peterson, the current intellectual rockstar of the aggrieved rightwing. Oh Korea! What have we done to you?

On Korean Funerals and Being an Outsider

My wife’s grandmother passed away last Monday. It was a very sad occasion but not unexpected. She hasn’t been living well for two years now. But I guess that’s the hallmark of a good long life, to die and have people remark “Well, we were expecting it. She was old and at least now she’s at peace,” instead of “What!? How did she die?”

The funeral was very traditional, even by Korean standards. My wife and even my co-workers say they just don’t bury people that way anymore. It felt both like a privilege and me intruding (I’ll explain this more later). I knew I was watching something that’s no longer done and probably would no longer be done in the future. And it was also extraordinary that I was pushed to participating into many aspects of it, even carrying the casket and lowering the body. It’s a bit morbid, but I was reluctantly grateful for it.

Several things marred the experience for me though. One was the almost mandatory inclusion of heavy drinking. I understand drinking in a funeral, but at some point it turns less into a funeral and more into just a regular drinking session with Koreans, complete with the ugliness of hierarchies in such occasions. I was particularly annoyed at one of my wife’s relatives “testing” me and my brother-in-laws to see if we were fit to either be part of the family or be married to our wives. We’ve all been married to our wives for years, and the man was basically a stranger to me. He won’t be there when our marriages run into a trouble whatsoever, but yet he gets to lord over everyone in the table. Why? Korean culture. Perhaps it was all coming from a good place, but it felt quite obnoxious at some point. And no it wasn’t happening because I was a foreigner. My brothers-in-law had to tolerate some abuse too. But it does nothing but alienate people or make them feel like they don’t belong in the table. I said so that night myself. Being in that table, while it makes me feel like I’m family for whatever that is worth, it makes me feel small and that I have to constantly prove to others that I belong.

Being a foreigner, I tend to be a target for people who are not quite used to seeing foreigners. This is why I’m sometimes not particularly excited to be in the countryside. One drunk grave digger who probably never saw a foreigner before in his life started yelling incoherently at me and was bragging that he can speak seven languages. And yet he does not understand a word of English. I suppose he’s a genius with languages who just happens to dig graves as a hobby. And I was the idiot who had to tolerate his nonsense and not punch him out. I was warned not the engage him, which was smart, but then again, why was I the target of his abuse in the first place?

Again, I can’t help but feel it’s because I’m the other. I’m a foreigner. As welcoming as many of my Korean relatives can be, it can sometimes only take a few handful of events before I start feeling like the “other,” like I’m the dancing bear. Perhaps I’m being too sensitive, but I don’t really complain about it in real life. I just keep things bottled up inside and write about it here where no one would read it. But it’s that feeling of being an “other” that makes me feel like I’m intruding in the funeral in the first place. Last Wednesday, we buried a wonderful woman who had a great life and whose selflessness has touched the lives of so many people in her family. There must be other people worthier than me, someone who actually feels comfortable to be there and fits in, to be part of the group that lays her body to her final resting place.

…

On a rather sweet note, I remember one time, back when my wife’s grandmother was healthier, we we’re all spending Korean thanksgiving together. For a brief moment, it was just me, her, and my older brother-in-law in the living. I think at some point, she started feeling bad for me, wondering why I wasn’t spending Korean thanksgiving with my parents. She asked why I don’t take my wife to my family and have her help my mom with thanksgiving preparations (as is the tradition in Korea). I told her that my mom passed away and my family was not in the country.

My brother-in-law was more direct, “He’s a foreigner. He’s not Korean.”

Korean Evenings

Learning Korean has been a struggle for me. First off, it’s very difficult to find time to go to class with my job. On a busy day, I work two jobs which start at 7:00 am and end at 6:00 pm. On a really busy day, my day won’t end until 8:00 pm. Squeeze making art and perhaps more side work between that, and it’s very difficult to find time to do anything at all. A lot of Korean learners find listening to K-pop or watching dramas or TV shows help, but I’m not interested in any of those. Korean television is simply not that interesting. I’m mostly isolated at work, so there’s very little interaction with Koreans during my day, so it’s very difficult to learn Korean via osmosis. So what am I to do to increase my Korean fluency beyond intermediate? Sacrifice my evenings and take Korean classes.

I decided to take classes again to force me to take learning Korean more seriously. I took Korean lessons years ago but had to quit because I got busier with work and there was a huge jump in the difficulty level in the classes. It was very discouraging. After that, I didn’t really try that hard to learn Korean. In fact, I focused my attention to studying law instead.

I figure my problem has been a lot of my attempts to learn the language has been based on my own pace. Thus, it was very easy for me to quit or decide that I have learned enough for the day. I think that’s the problem with the Duolingo and Rosetta Stone solutions. They give you too much freedom. They also don’t force you to be in a situation where you actually have to speak Korean to another person. Even basic sentences can be very intimidating when speaking to another person. That’s one of my biggest hurdles. I simply don’t spend enough time interacting with Koreans in Korean.

The classes would result in less time spent at home, but I guess it will be time well spent. In any case, I need to be out more anyway without drinking or spending too much money. This also means I won’t be working as much during the evenings. But again, if I’m not out spending money, it should theoretically cancel out not making money. Korean classes, plus listening to Korean audio lessons (less time spent on podcasts), and reviewing with apps like Duolingo and Quizlet. Here’s hoping I keep this up.

#MeToo and an Idiot with Clean Hands

About a month ago, a prominent progressive politician in Korea was accused of raping his assistant in at least four incidents. This rocked the country’s left wing base since Ahn Hee-Jung is quite the popular figure and was even being groomed to be the next president after Moon Jae-In. The accuser claimed that she couldn’t refuse his advances and was in fear. Ahn however, claimed that the relationship between the two was consensual. Despite only being accused, the damage was already done. Ahn was removed from his position. It is very unlikely that he could resurrect his political career. Some people on the left however, despite being early proponents of the #MeToo movement are now starting to question the whole thing, thinking that some accusers weren’t really raped. Perhaps they were paid off by political opponents? Perhaps they were expecting a payoff in the end? Why did it take so long for many of the country’s accusers to come forward? The latest high profile celebrity brought down by the #MeToo movement in the country had accusers calling back to incidents ten years ago. People are wondering if these women are truly acting honestly, and whether they truly have clean hands.

The doctrine of clean hands state that those looking for equity must have equity as well. An accuser must have no unethical agenda and should act in bad faith. The defendant has the burden of proof to prove that the accuser is not acting with clean hands. The onus is not on the accuser to prove that they are acting with clean hands.

Absent of prior investigations, legal judgments, or evidence contrary to the fact, I tend to side with rape accusers automatically simply because it is difficult to prove  that it happened or not, and despite this difficulty, an accuser would be willing to stake his/her reputation in the name of justice. I think this is truer in a country like South Korea where the stigma of being a rape victim would have more lasting and deeper consequences than it would on the west. Being a spinster or a divorcee still has negative connotations in the country. I could only imagine the burden of being a known rape victim.

With the Ahn case, many suspect the accuser of acting on bad faith simply because it happened four times and she “allowed” it to happen. I believe this is a case of blaming the victim. It is simply arrogant to think claim that a person would act differently should they be in the same circumstances, not knowing all of the circumstances at all. We were not the victim. We were not in her head. Also, as Ahn’s supporters, the onus is on them to prove that the accuser was acting on faith, and not the accuser.  And I have to say there is hypocrisy in them saying that the accuser was not being sincere, when I suspect they wouldn’t be so willing to attack accusers if they were claiming foul play by members of the opposite party. This makes their distrust of the accuser politically motivated. They are not acting with clean hands.

In this scenario, absent of evidence, I believe there are two possible realities with two camps in each. One reality is where the accuser is telling the truth. To believe her would be a marriage of two goods: an accuser with clean hands and supporters of victims believing them with no motivation whatsoever other than justice. To not believe the accuser when she is telling the truth would either be blindness or just an act of political tribalism.

The other reality is where the accuser is lying. She has been paid by Ahn’s political opponents. And those who innocently and truly believe her, regardless of whether they are in the same side as Ahn or not, are fools. They are idiots easily manipulated by the #MeToo movement.  Those who do not believe her when she is lying look wise to be critical of what seems to be falsehoods. However, they also risk crucifying a victim for their “wisdom” and preventing others from coming out.

The people who do not believe Ahn’s accuser, absent of evidence, are hoping that they are wise enough to see through the accuser’s lies, and that they are indeed lies. I would rather believe the accuser and risk being a naïve idiot, a naïve idiot with clean hands.