[Kim Seong-kon] The older generation in the eyes of the young

With every generation, we see older people lament that younger people are rude and undisciplined. In the eyes of the old, young people are impudent and insolent, impetuous and impulsive, in short: “enfants terribles.” Historians say that older people have been critical of younger people for the past 2,500 years or so of human history.

Nevertheless, what about the image of the older generation in the eyes of the young?

To young people, older people may look hopelessly pathetic and deplorable, because not only are they clumsy with electronics, but also so stubborn that they mess up many things in the end. Furthermore, young people find quite a few “dirty old men” or “greedy old men” in society. Young people may also find the older generation embarrassing because older people do not realize that they are like extinct dinosaurs, no longer fit for the dazzling social changes of our world.

Recently, one of our young athletes who failed to win a medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics made us proud by saying to the reporters calmly, “Not winning a medal does not mean the world is falling apart. Sports is not everything in my life.”

In the past, however, our Olympic athletes used to tell reporters with grim resolution, “If I failed to win the gold medal, I would rather die.” In the eyes of the above cool young athlete, the notion of the older athletes must be rather embarrassing.

These days, older Koreans are splitting the nation in two by vehemently quarreling over South Korea’s birthdate. Watching the pathetic scene, young Koreans and foreigners may wonder, “What kind of a country does not have a fixed birthdate yet? Don’t they know that they are disgracing the nation in the international community?”

Besides, such a dispute can only result in the loss of South Korea’s credibility overseas.

Recently, a renowned foreign intellectual wrote me, “The most important task is to have a functional government, whether conservative or progressive, and establish a consistent policy driven by general consensus.” He continued, “No one will seriously discuss important issues with South Korea after witnessing the internal political turmoil that results when people can’t even agree on the national birthdate. Not only that, some have learned the hard way to think twice before having any serious discussions or making agreements with Korea, unless you do not mind facing drastic changes every five years.”

Korea‘s young people are witnessing the embarrassing spectacle of older politicians who cannot agree on anything, who hate each other like archenemies, ruining their country’s reputation. To make matters worse, those politicians are past-oriented, not future-oriented, and their mindset is stuck in the 19th century or early 20th century at best in this electronic era of drones and artificial intelligence.

In the eyes of young Koreans, older Koreans, blinded by rage and ideology, do not seem to have a sense of shame.

Our angry, ideology-driven older people are the ones who built statues of the euphemistically labeled “comfort women” in major cities of foreign countries. Our young people, as well as foreigners, agree that these statues humiliate Korea unwittingly because the statues are ruining our image as a remarkably successful and admirable advanced country by showing the world our shameful past unnecessarily.

Our older politicians also tried to set up a statue of a comfort woman near the driver’s seat in all the city buses in Seoul. At that time, our young people and many foreigners were appalled and asked, “What if a child riding the bus asks her mom or dad why the statue is sitting there? How could you explain it?” Indeed, our politicians were incredibly thoughtless and inconsiderate.

It has been a long time since liberation, the birth of the Republic of Korea and the Korean War. Yet, our older people and aged politicians still struggle in the quagmire of those historical events, while other countries forgive, forget and move forward. Young Koreans are watching in frustration as the older generation, hopelessly stuck in the past and unable to move on to the future, drags the country into the labyrinth of our dark history.

Today’s young people in Korea are not interested in older people’s grudges about the past or ideological brawls. They are not interested in unification, either.

They detest the older generation’s low posture toward bullying neighboring countries and the malicious plot to use anti-Japan sentiment for political gain.

Young Koreans are also disappointed in the older generation’s ignorance of rapid and radical changes taking place across the globe.

The older generation should be ashamed of itself in front of young Koreans and try to adapt to the ongoing global changes. Older people should stop their internal skirmishes immediately and stop damaging the favorable image of South Korea built by our future-oriented, competent young Koreans, such as our outstanding K-pop singers and Olympic athletes.

Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.