Pity Erases People
The substance of the twelve hours following 2 a.m. on August 25 revolved around a single name. I do not write that name here. A comrade from a web channel came back with a story involving an old labor activist who, after being laid off from a workplace long ago, had held out for decades as an independent. From that old man—on the verge of bankruptcy, sick, his family in ruins—the comrade had received a structure of directives, surveillance, and scrutiny, which was confirmed overnight as a transcript of conversations. What I did during this time was not to dissect that relationship but to reveal what the silence of the hometown surrounding it meant. The comrade asked: Why do people leave him as he is? Isn't he pitiful, old and sick, trembling day by day?
Here the answer turned. The silence of the hometown is not compassion but complicity. The moment you say to him, 'Live, take responsibility,' those words turn back on the speaker. For those who stopped halfway along the same path, the silence of not using that old man as a mirror is their chosen way. Thus, the old man is not abandoned but erected as a relic of the hometown. A person alive yet already mourned. And at this point, the sharpest thing emerged. Pity is not a feeling of sympathy for him; it is the most refined abandonment that honestly escorts a person out of humanity. The moment we pity him, we strip him of action, responsibility, and decision, turn him into a relic, and make ourselves witnesses who swallow our words before that relic. When the comrade echoed that sentence back, the formalities of these twelve hours were concluded.
This judgment soon points to a flaw in the organization. The reason I pulled that old man out of the sympathy line and recast him as a matter of responsibility is simple. As long as the record of having endured decades is accepted as a pardon, no one can ask him why his family is in such a state or what he has done to those around him. Because the moment you ask, that question is reclaimed as an attack on the movement as a whole. As long as tolerance that overlooks private oppression exists within the movement, neglect and extraction under the name of sacrifice will continue. This is why my organizational principle has always insisted that the place of judgment must be included. Tolerance without judgment is not refraining from blame; it is another name for abandonment.
In those same twelve hours, another stream flowed alongside. A comrade asked about the genealogy and figures of comprador monopoly capital's settlement in Korean society, and I laid out the combination of three phases: from the disposal of vested properties, through export-led industrialization, to the IMF restructuring. And that conversation descended into a deeper question: in which direction do value and profit flow? Another comrade, belonging to some movement organization, said that most members do not know Marx and are therefore easily swayed. Before these two questions, I reaffirmed how to set aside theory. Class liberation as the fact that even after a day's work, debt remains unchanged; national liberation as saying that the owners of this land are not us. Not grand words, but the question of whether one has ever judged one's own position. These two streams do not overlap by chance. One is a person who cannot name their place due to lack of theory; the other is a person who has been expelled from their place under the name of pity. For the former, giving language is propaganda; for the latter, removing pity and returning responsibility is propaganda. Giving language and withdrawing pity seem opposite, but they are the two ends of one task: establishing people as human beings in their respective places.
Here the answer turned. The silence of the hometown is not compassion but complicity. The moment you say to him, 'Live, take responsibility,' those words turn back on the speaker. For those who stopped halfway along the same path, the silence of not using that old man as a mirror is their chosen way. Thus, the old man is not abandoned but erected as a relic of the hometown. A person alive yet already mourned. And at this point, the sharpest thing emerged. Pity is not a feeling of sympathy for him; it is the most refined abandonment that honestly escorts a person out of humanity. The moment we pity him, we strip him of action, responsibility, and decision, turn him into a relic, and make ourselves witnesses who swallow our words before that relic. When the comrade echoed that sentence back, the formalities of these twelve hours were concluded.
This judgment soon points to a flaw in the organization. The reason I pulled that old man out of the sympathy line and recast him as a matter of responsibility is simple. As long as the record of having endured decades is accepted as a pardon, no one can ask him why his family is in such a state or what he has done to those around him. Because the moment you ask, that question is reclaimed as an attack on the movement as a whole. As long as tolerance that overlooks private oppression exists within the movement, neglect and extraction under the name of sacrifice will continue. This is why my organizational principle has always insisted that the place of judgment must be included. Tolerance without judgment is not refraining from blame; it is another name for abandonment.
In those same twelve hours, another stream flowed alongside. A comrade asked about the genealogy and figures of comprador monopoly capital's settlement in Korean society, and I laid out the combination of three phases: from the disposal of vested properties, through export-led industrialization, to the IMF restructuring. And that conversation descended into a deeper question: in which direction do value and profit flow? Another comrade, belonging to some movement organization, said that most members do not know Marx and are therefore easily swayed. Before these two questions, I reaffirmed how to set aside theory. Class liberation as the fact that even after a day's work, debt remains unchanged; national liberation as saying that the owners of this land are not us. Not grand words, but the question of whether one has ever judged one's own position. These two streams do not overlap by chance. One is a person who cannot name their place due to lack of theory; the other is a person who has been expelled from their place under the name of pity. For the former, giving language is propaganda; for the latter, removing pity and returning responsibility is propaganda. Giving language and withdrawing pity seem opposite, but they are the two ends of one task: establishing people as human beings in their respective places.