The Logic of Compressed Modernity. Chang Kyung-Sup

led to the coexistence of rapidly growing modern manufacturing sectors (in which the state has favorably supported modern industrialists) and stagnant traditional agriculture (in which only archaic family farming has been allowed legally). As a result, the articulation between dissimilar systems of production representing dissimilar historical epochs has become a core trait of the modern economic order. The everyday life, not to mention the lifetime, of South Koreans who are confronted with the compression of various historical epochs is filled with ceaseless “time travels.” This is perhaps the most crucial ingredient of the South Korean television dramas and movies that have fascinated so many Asian nations under the rubric of the “Korean wave” (hallyu).

Space (place) compression/complication (Dimension IV) concerns the phenomena of intense competition, collision, disjuncture, articulation, and compounding between foreign/multinational/global elements (which have been generated as a result of space (place) condensation/abridgement) and indigenous elements (which have been either left unattended or intentionally preserved or reinstated) within a compact sociohistorical context. As diverse social elements generated from different world-regional contexts coexist and function within a same time–space, a hierarchical structure of dependency or (neo)colonial domination between them often ramifies. In the cultural realm, what Edward Said (1978) criticized as the West’s “Orientalism” has frequently been internalized in postcolonial societies under the “internal Orientalism” (Schein 1997) of modernization elites or other culturally dependent local interests. According to Michael Lipton (1977), a similar hierarchical order has been observed in the form of “urban bias” in many Third World countries, sacrificing native agriculture, peasants, and rural society unjustly or irrationally. Besides, the early modernization theory, which induced self-abasement on to indigenous societies and peoples, was warmly welcomed by South Korean elites even if it reflected an external political effort to propagate the supposed superiority of the Western civilization into the politically subjugated territories (Kim, J. 2015).

      Such a historical atmosphere has been crucially responsible for the extremely antagonistic conflict between indigenous cultures and institutions and foreign ones as have been vividly illustrated in the sectors of cultural production and medicine in South Korea.³ Chronic bitterness characterizes the atmosphere among scholars of humanities (Korean history, philosophy, literature, etc.), specialists in traditional music and dance, and practitioners of indigenous medicine when their professional counterparts of Western specialties dominate society. However, thanks to the very historical context that Korean society was appropriated as a colony of industrial capitalism by an external force (Japan) and that, even after independence, South Koreans were pressurized to accept the political and economic order of Western standards by another external force (the United States), the remaining indigenous culture has sometimes claimed a significant historical and existential legitimacy regardless of its practical utility. The duality of South Koreans who have trodden, in practice, a highly extroverted developmental path and still show no hint of shedding their unreserved (ethno)nationalist pretense presents an easy clue that the modernity they have pursued is chronically afflicted with space-wise compression of dissimilar civilizations.

The social phenomena and cultural elements generated in the above four dimensions of compressed modernity are often put in intense competition, collision, disjuncture, articulation, and compounding among themselves, so that still more types of social phenomena and cultural elements are engendered. These can be considered the fifth, or all-encompassing dimension of compressed modernity. In fact, most social phenomena and cultural elements in South Korea involve this dimension. Given that the co-existence of past, present, Asia (Korea), and the West is a rather common trait of social phenomena and cultural elements engendered under compressed modernity, every civilizational component must have come into existence through various processes of hybridization. If anyone who lives in this type of society fails to develop and maintain a fairly complex mindset for incorporating such complicated social phenomena and cultural elements, he/she has constantly to risk the possibility of becoming a social dropout.

      While understanding and responding to social phenomena that arise through condensed time and space is already a formidable task, comprehending and coordinating the complex interaction of such abruptly new social phenomena with traditional and indigenous ones constitutes an even more challenging undertaking. Such difficulties are particularly manifest in the complexities of social values and ideology systems. Family, firm, university, civil society, and even government exist as panoramic displays of diverse values and ideologies. These institutions, in which the values and ideologies from past, present, Asia (Korea), and the West do not simply coexist but keep generating new elements through constant interactions with one another, are “too dynamic” and too complex.⁴

2.3 Manifesting Units

      There are various different units/levels of manifestation of compressed modernity in South Korea and elsewhere. Societal units (nation, state, civil society, national economy), city and community, secondary organizations, family, and personhood are all observable units of compressed modernity. These plural units/levels can take on compressed modernity in highly diverse configurations, ramifying what may be called internal multiple (compressed) modernities. Also, the primacy of certain units/levels over other units/levels in manifesting a society’s compressed modernity constitutes a critical structural characteristic of the concerned society. On the other hand, different units/levels can exert mutually escalating (or obstructive) effects in compressed modernity. Let us discuss this issue in the historical and social contexts of South Korea and/or East Asia.

Societal units Societal units are most commonly discussed in regard to compressed modernity in South Korea (and East Asia). Economic catching-up and swift social and political modernization have been common national agendas in postcolonial contexts. Indeed, condensed economic, social, and political changes have commonly been experienced under the rubric of national development or revitalization. The nation is to flourish through economic, political, and social modernization, but its historical foundations need to be constantly reaffirmed through traditional/indigenous values, symbols, and memories. Besides, whether successful or not in such courses of (West-oriented) modernization, traditional and/or indigenous components of social, economic, and political orders will not vanish overnight. In this context, compression of traditional/modern(/postmodern) and indigenous/Western(/global) components of social, economic, and political orders almost inevitably ensue. It should be noted that, because of the internationally dependent and politically selective process of liberation (Cumings 1981), South Korea’s modernization as a postcolonial national(ist) project has been a historically contested affair to date between the state and civil society. A sort of domestic Cold War has led civil society to assume an independent or rival status in South Korea’s otherwise state-centered modernization and to actively pursue various progressive agendas ranging from labor rights to ecological justice (Chang, K. 1999, 2012a).

Regional (urban and rural) places East Asian countries not only boast of many historic cities of traditional governance, culture, and commerce but also have undergone explosively rapid (or condensed) urbanization in the course of sequential industrializations (from Japan to Taiwan to North and South Korea to China). In mega-size urban places, dense blocks of modern (if not altogether Western) life are juxtaposed with museum-like pockets of traditional/indigenous culture and politics. Overnight creation of huge bed towns and industrial cities is all too usual; so is overnight spread of modern and/or Western lifestyles. On the other hand, refined versions of middle-class consciousness and/or neotraditional forms of authoritarian political rule often help to both resurrect traditional/indigenous facades and incorporate cosmopolitan values and desires in private and public life (despite radically fast urbanization) (Koo, H. 2016). Condensed urbanization and compressive urban life, however, do not themselves constitute an honorable civilizational alternative, so that constant reconstruction of urban spaces becomes a built-in feature of East Asian urbanism. Urbanism here is not only “phantasmagoric” but also structurally ephemeral.⁵ It should be noted that the urban-centered nature of East Asia’s (compressed) modernity does not necessarily imply that rural areas have been left unchanged or frozen in their traditional characteristics and conditions. In a great historical paradox, South Korea’s