non-fiction-authors-from-south-korea

"Moon and his party have, so far, put more focus on the issue of unification or peace rather than denuclearization, to the extent of Moon being publicly seen as Kim Jong-un’s top spokesman."

"[It's] a big puzzle to many even among her supporters."

"Despite China's visibly warm welcome to Park, there was no epoch-making agreement between Park and Xi, just as there was no fundamental change in China's North Korea policy. She attended the mainly to show the change in her government's diplomatic approach, especially to expand [South] Korea's own diplomatic space by resisting US pressure to turn down the Chinese invitation."

"After winning the election with a margin unprecedented in South Korea's democratic history, which enabled it to dominate all 17 standing of Parliament, the DP transformed the National Assembly into its own law-passing agency. It rammed through numerous contentious laws, without subcommittee review or any other consultative procedure required under the National Assembly Act. The also railroaded a series of housing laws in an attempt to stabilise skyrocketing real estate prices in the Seoul metropolitan area, where half of the country's population lives. The measures not only failed to bring the housing market under control, but also drew public anger, as they created more hurdles for middle-class first-time-buyers under the age of 40 - the main support group for the government. [...] The revelation caused many to question the sincerity of the government's pledge to resolve the housing crisis, and added weight to the accusations that President Moon and his party are using their dominance over the legislature to further their populist agenda and personal interests. Since the election, the DP government also made several moves to bring the Supreme Prosecutors' Office (SPO) fully under its control."

"Just four months after winning the April 15 general election by a landslide, and securing 176 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly, Moon Jae-in and his governing Democratic Party (DP) are faced with an alarming change in public sentiment. [...] This drastic decline in public support for the president and the government illustrates not only the volatile nature of South Korea's democracy, but also the growing backlash against their attempts to make abuse of power the new norm in the country. Indeed, since their stunning election victory in April, President Moon and his party have repeatedly undermined the rule of law, ignored the procedures put in place to ensure the separation of powers, and made controversial moves to further their populist agenda and help their allies escape accountability."

"Abuse of power has become the norm in Moon's South Korea, and Koreans are taking notice."

"The government's attempts to shield its members and supporters from being held accountable for alleged abuses of power are not limited to bringing the SPO under control either. President Moon and the DP's silence on and apparent unwillingness to get to the bottom of the sexual harassment allegations directed at powerful heads of local government, including the highly influential , is yet another example of their desire to make abuse of power and impunity the new norm in South Korea. In light of all this, it is hardly surprising that Koreans are starting to turn their backs on Moon and his party who were elected on a promise to end corruption and abuse of power - ills that have beset Korean governments since the country's successful transition towards democracy in 1987. The alarming decline in the public's support for Moon and the DP is a clear warning that Moon risks becoming a lame duck in the fourth year of his five-year presidency and in the lead-up to the April 2021 by-elections and the 2022 presidential election."

"Thinking is an expedition into quietness."

"The erotic is never free of secrecy."

"Ritual practices ensure that we treat not only other people but also things in beautiful ways, that there is an affinity between us and other people as well as things."

"Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society [Leistungsgesellshaft]."

"The pornographic face says nothing. It has no expressivity or mystery."

"The inner music of things sounds only when you close your eyes."

"There is no such thing as data-driven thinking."

"Catastrophic fatality abruptly switches over into salvation."

"Eros and depression are opposites."

"Eros conquers depression."

"Disciplinary society is still governed by no. Its negativity produces madmen and criminals. In contrast, achievement society creates depressives and losers."

"Promising, committment, and fidelity, for instance, are genuinely temporal practices."

"Full of gods means full of meaning, full of narration. The world becomes readable, like a picture."

"The haste of day rules over the night as empty form."

"Eros, erotic desire, conquers depression. It delivers us from the inferno of the same to the utopia, indeed utopia, of the wholly other."

"God functions like a stabilizer of time."

"Information has no scent."

"Happiness is the proof that time can accommodate eternity."

"What is obscene about pornography is not an excess of sex, but the fact that it contains no sex at all."

"Time begins to emit a scent when it gains duration; when it is given a narrative or deep tension; when it gains depth and breadth, even space."

"Pornography completes the deritualization of love."

"Money, as a matter of principle, makes everything the same."

"The eros-driven soul produces beautiful things, and, above all, beautiful actions, which have a universal value."

"A farewell does not dilute the presence of the past; it may make an even deeper presence."

"However, the disappearance of domination does not entail freedom. Instead, it makes freedom and constraint coincide. Thus, the achievement-subject gives itself over to compulsive freedom--that is, to the free constraint of maximizing achievement. Excess work and performance escalate into auto-exploitation."

"Violence and freedom are the two endpoints on the scale of power."

"If things are deprived of memory, they become information or commodities. They are pushed into a time-free, ahistorical place."

"The task of power is to transform the always possible 'no' into a 'yes.'"

"Power is not opposed to freedom. It is precisely freedom that distinguishes power from violence or coercion."

"A truly powerful holder of power does not simply elicit agreement, but enthusiasm and excitement."

"Often what is absent has more power than what is present."

"When power is separated from any communicative context, it becomes naked violence."

"Power is more 'spacious' than violence. And violence becomes power if it 'gives itself more time.' Looked at from this perspective, power rests on an excess of space and time."

"Architecture is a way for power to achieve eloquence through form."

"Rather, power is most powerful, most stable, where it creates a feeling of freedom and where it does not need to resort to violence."

"Power is never naked. Rather, it is eloquent."

"An absolute power would be one that never becomes apparent, never pointed to itself, one that rather blended completely into what goes without saying. Power shines in its own absence."

"Power turns pure being into a having."

"Violence may capture space, but it does not create space."

"Power tends to reduce openness... Power tries to solidify and stabilize its position by eradicating spaces open to play, or incalculable spaces."

"An ethos of freedom stops power from solidifying into domination and makes sure it remains an open game."

"Perhaps power is never free from a feeling of lack."

"Whatever is merely positive is lifeless. Negativity is essential to vitality."