Why are we so narrow-minded?

[Dave Monroe]

[KIM SEONG-KON] Why are we so narrow-minded?


There is a saying that no matter how radical they are, American and
British leftists are more likely to be moderate than Korean leftists
who claim to be moderate. I have met some of the world's most
prominent leftist scholars such as Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson and
Douglas Kellner, who unequivocally prove that this saying is not
unfounded. They are mild, moderate and flexible and have the capacity
of embracing different opinions. On the contrary, Korean leftists, or
at least the ones I have met so far are, appear to be inflexible and
belligerent.

I first met Terry Eagleton when I was a British Council Scholar at the
University of Oxford in 1991. The British Council arranged a meeting
between us so we met at a cafe in Oxford. As Eagleton's books tend to
be powerful critiques of capitalist society, I expected to meet a
stubborn, unbending Marxist scholar. Eagleton, however, turned out to
be so tolerant that he seemed to be ready to listen to any criticism
from the capitalist camp. Some time later, I invited him to Seoul for
a series of lectures on postmodernism, which he had often criticized
in his books.

To my surprise, Eagleton did not dismiss or denounce postmodernism; he
acknowledged the merits of the literary movement and even accepted
postmodernism as a part of our lives. When Marxist scholar Fredric
Jameson traveled to Korea in the late 1990s, I found him to be just as
generous and tolerant as Eagleton. He deeply impressed me when he said
that in his opinion, Thomas Pynchon was one of history's best writers.
I was pleased because Pynchon was the writer who abhorred both
militant Marxism and corrupt capitalism and wrote, "Underneath, both
are part of the same creeping horror." Yet Jameson did not hesitate to
acknowledge the importance of Pynchon as a writer....

[...]

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