"Can We Afford to Stick to Our Aggressive Style?"

Interesting little column in the Chosun Ilbo today. An excerpt:

If we indulge in our style of doing things without regard for the international community, blocking traffic, lying down on the streets, demonstrating, shouting, destroying things, writing petitions in blood, shaving our heads and burning people in effigy in protest, we have to be prepared not to care how the Dokdo islets are described.

Like the author points out in the paragraph that immediately follows, and as Ask A Korean rightly reminds us every now and again, South Korea has advanced quite rapidly in the past two generations and has done, and is doing, a lot of things right. It just becomes real hard to stand up for the country and to look on the bright side when it's so prone to bouts of mass hysteria directed at outsiders. And I know I'm not the only one who is worried by how frequently people seem to fly off the handle at foreign countries, whether over disputed territory, or American beef, or soccer games, or wherever the Wheel Of Fury happened to land. In spite of what some especially defensive or sensitive South Koreans may say, protests and aggressive rhetoric toward foreign countries are not purely "domestic" matters, and taking interest in them are not the exclusive right of South Koreans. Moreover, following current events doesn't preclude one from also appreciating the good things about South Korea, and vice versa. Matter of fact there's no reason why following current events ought to be considered bad or contentious at all. That should go without saying, but it doesn't so I said it again.