Storms, Surfers, and Peculiar Irish Nannyism: A national discourse of alarmist paternalism

By Nick Doran

"Discourse" (a word with many meanings) - for the purposes of this article I am taking it to be a general societal viewpoint or understanding, activated and maintained by, and through, language within a particular socio-historical context. It is viewed as social action and is instrumental in maintaining and creating power in social relations. Concepts, both experienced in reality and experienced through language and discourse, have been shown to activate the same areas of the brain pointing to the power of language and discourse in creating social and political realities and structures.

In South Korea most of the population cannot swim. This is a fact. So when on the beaches of South Korea, if you wander in past your waist, the lifeguards will charge you down, quite aggressively, to bring you back in from the brink of disaster. It doesn't matter what credentials or skill you display. From a societal perspective you need to be protected. Following from this, 55 million South Koreans must adhere to the lowest common denominator of water sports capabilities under the weight of society's collective cognitive predisposition towards paternalism. Regardless of whether one can swim or not, policy dictates that you must not. There has been little critical thought put into the attendant policies. Undoubtedly, South Korea's recent history, and psychological legacy resulting from massive human loss and suffering during the Korea War plays a role in this societal drive towards paternalism or guardianism. The culture of guardianism is driven by a developmental ideology rather than critical understanding. This ideological stance is so pertinent in South Korea that a friend, who sea kayaked around South Korea some years back, was followed by a Coastguard escort the entire way around the peninsula for 3 weeks.