[Opinion] Leftist and Reformist

One German music critic is famous for his “gentle criticisms.” For example, when a certain vocalist didn’t reach the audience’s expectations at his recital, he gave comments like, “I remember having seen his better performances,” instead of, “He was horrible,” or “His caliber isn’t as good as before.” Artists who have been under his microscope commented that they become sufficiently convinced of his warm-hearted criticisms. This is because “a” is different from “e” when you’re expressing the same idea.

African-Americans were initially referred to as “Africans” in the early days of the foundation. A more scornful term, “negro,” became universalized with the height of slavery and was changed to “black” during the 1960s, the time of civil rights movement of African-Americans. During the 1980s, civil rights activists and intellectuals began to call themselves African-Americans. As a ripple effect, Asians were termed as “Asian-Americans” instead of an inferior term, “Oriental.”

Selection of vocabulary changes with time. In the U.S., Americans prefer to use the word “gender” over “sex” to distinguish one’s sexual identity, as well as the term “ethnicity” over “race.” In addition, they use the term “flight attendants” instead of “stewardess” for concerns of gender discrimination. The word “domestic engineer” is recommended over “housewife,” and “sex-surrogate” is more commonly used than the term “prostitute.” In some case, “bald” is expressed as “comb-free.”

The chief of the government public relations department sent out a “reference guide” to each minister’s office requesting them to “use the term ‘reformist’ instead of ‘leftist’ or ‘left-leaning’ when explaining government policy to the press”. This is because in Europe, the term “leftist” is accepted as “revisionism,” but in the case of Korea it is misinterpreted as “radical” or “pro-North Korea.” I wish that the party in power knows the exact meaning of the term “reform” and puts it in practice intelligently. A rose will still emit the same fragrance even if it is called other names.

Editorial columnist Oh Myung-chul oscar@donga.com