Observations on South Korea

Tyler Cowen (at Marginal Revolution) linked an interesting and pertinent article on the cultural dimension of development and “success” in South Korea:, which sounds a lot like what I’ve been saying over the years: South Korea’s success has been deep but not wide. Almost half of its population lives, works and competes in Seoul. Its occupational structure is also narrow. The number of professions in South Korea is only two-thirds of the number in Japan and only 38% of that in America. This striking statistic is not lost on the South Korean government (few are). It has appointed a task force …

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Normal Sadism, Weak Boundaries, and Social Unhappiness

I was having a discussion with someone about life in Korea–someone who feels pretty much like I do about it–and something interesting crossed my mind. It’s the concept of “normal marital sadism” that was coined by the therapist David Schnarch to describe the very common form of emotional sadism that seems to develop in a lot–a lot–of marriages. He published an article on the concept back in May of this year, in Psychology Today: People who refuse to acknowledge their own hatred, vindictiveness, and punitiveness are the most pernicious people to those they love. You can’t learn to control hostile impulses you …

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