[Editorial] Time to Share a Sense of Crisis over “Lost Humanity”

Society is shocked by the recent infant abduction. The case is worth being called a “total collection” of social pathologies that brings down the pillars of society. The fact that a married woman hired men to abduct an infant in order to marry another man is more than enough to illustrate the rapid family disintegration. The courier company workers who willingly abducted the infant and mother after receiving a large amount of money from a stranger show materialism at its deadliest.

That is not all. The criminals show no sign of humanity. A newborn infant was only viewed as a tool to achieve the goal of marriage, and an antisocial crime, abduction, was a means of earning easy money. This case represents a state of anomie in which social norms cannot be found.

The abductors did not hear the mother’s cries of “give me back my child.” The cruel murder of a mother and wife shows that to the criminals, the mother and son were only strangers. This can be related to the cold reality in which those irrelevant to “me” are only viewed as “others” as the sense of community disappears from society.

Following the serial killings of Yoo Young-chul last year, this case raises the possibility that a third similar tragedy will occur. Social pathologies are at a level in which people sense the situation is grave. The vicious circle of increased uneasiness in society and the crumbling of mutual trust are inevitable.

It is difficult to even find a place to start. However, we all must begin by sharing a sense of crisis. From that, we must gather wisdom to reconstruct and strengthen our fragmented society. We cannot put off establishing a common social norm amid the rapid changes of values any longer. The most urgent fundamental task is to recover our sense of community.