We know those who subscribe to political correctness prefer the term “a man of color” to “a colored man,” which they believe is tainted with racial bias. Indeed, “a man of color” sounds more positive and attractive since it implies that the person has a unique charm and personality. Even in Korean, “a man of color” (saekal itneun namja) has good connotations and refers to a man of charming and inimitable character.

In Korean society, however, we certainly need colorless or color-free men because many of us are ideologically colored and biased. Recently, I was asked to be a judge for a prestigious literary award. I heard that professor Lee O-young, the inaugural Minister of Culture, specifically chose me as a judge because he believed I was a “colorless” man who would be fair and not take sides. When I met him later, he told me, “So many judges of literary awards are ideologically prejudiced. They belong to either the left or the right camp. They always choose someone who belongs to their own faction as the award winner. For a fair game, we need a ‘colorless’ man like you on the screening committee.”

Personally, I would like to be called “a colorful man” and yet, I took his remarks as a compliment since I, too, believe I am ideologically free and colorless. Indeed, in today’s Korean society colorless or color-free men are so rare that you have to go far to find one. On the other hand, there is no dearth of ideologically colored men. Some of them prefer the color red, while others blue. Interestingly, the symbolism of colors has become increasingly confusing these days. For instance, the official color of one left-leaning opposition party is yellow, whereas the color of the conservative ruling party is red. Perhaps it is a sign that we no longer live in a world with clear boundaries. On the contrary, we are witnessing boundaries rapidly and radically deteriorating every day. Sadly, however, we still don colored uniforms that chain us to a particular political ideology.

Unfortunately, the same thing goes to our republic of letters. For example, we have two powerful literary factions in Korea: the left-leaning camp and the right-leaning one. They have one thing in common. Just like the Cobra Lily, they disseminate tempting fragrances that lure writers: loyal literary critics, a prestigious literary quarterly and a big publishing company. In order to survive in the ideologically divided republic of literature, therefore, a writer has to belong to one of the two factions. In Korea, a solitary freelance writer can neither survive nor thrive; you have to belong to a feudal lord who will protect you, get your works published and help you win literary awards.

Yet, a truly liberal person would be reluctant to belong to any group, choosing to remain a free agent instead. Actually, few great writers would join a particular literary faction because it will confine them to a small vessel floating in a river when they should be sailing out to the vast ocean. Besides, joining a faction would make a writer ideologically colored and biased. That is why great literary works and the humanities constantly teach us that we should not form or join a faction that can degenerate into a center for power politics.

Last week, I attended a conference at Cheong Wa Dae sponsored by the Presidential Committee for Cultural Enrichment. At the meeting, President Park rightly pointed out that punishing those responsible for the recent death of the soldier in an army barracks would not fundamentally solve the problem of violence in the ROK army. She told us that edifying soldiers with the spirit of the humanities would be the most effective cure for the chronic disease rampant in our military units. President Park went on to say that we should use retired scholars of the humanities for that purpose, maximizing the easily available but invaluable human resources.

It is undeniable that the Sewol tragedy and the violence in the army could have been avoided if we had respected the humanities. Respect for the humanities would indeed make us unbiased, colorless or color-free men; we could even become colorful. In his monumental novel, “Gravity’s Rainbow,” Thomas Pynchon laments the “black and white” mentality of humankind and celebrates color instead. In the novel, white is symbolic of death whereas the protagonist’s colorful Hawaiian shirt strongly evokes the image of the rainbow, the colorful token of God’s covenant. Being colorful means embracing the differences among us, whether cultural, racial or ideological, free from prejudices that enslave us to a monochromatic canvas of thought.

For the past half a century, we have blindly pursued money, technology and material success with slogans like “We, too, can be rich,” “We now live in the age of infinite competition,” and “We have to win at any cost.” Consequently, our society has become hopelessly dehumanized. Meanwhile, green (money) and red (radicalism) have become our favorite colors. Today, however, we desperately need colorless, color-free and even colorful men who can be unbiased, generous and open-minded.

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor of English at Seoul National University and president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. ― Ed.