Climate protesters have disrupted the tennis at Wimbledon, thrown tomato soup at the glass protecting famous paintings, sprayed orange powder on Stonehenge and blocked traffic. In response, European governments have been cracking down on environmental protesters with detentions and fines, and, in one case, with a five-year prison sentence for advocating civil disobedience in a Zoom call. Whether a protest is ethical is distinct from whether it is legal. As Martin Luther King, Jr., argued in his

ViewpointsSept. 5, 2024

The scorching summer of 2024 has finally passed, and South Korea is now entering the autumn season. While the weather has cooled down, the heated political fight continues unabated. A fierce debate revolves around allegations that the Yoon Suk Yeol administration is preparing for martial law. The opposition has raised suspicions, claiming that the government's recent actions suggest preparations for martial law. In contrast, the government and ruling party vehemently deny these allegations,

ViewpointsSept. 5, 2024

Recently, newspaper reports said that Seoul National University canceled an undergraduate course on Marxist economics due to the lack of registered students. It is only natural in this era of the global economy. In fact, Marxist economic theory became extinct as a failed experiment in the early 1990s when communist countries in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China gave up on it and adopted free market principles. In that sense, canceling a course on Marxist economics was a much-belated me

ViewpointsSept. 4, 2024

Anyone who’s seen swathes of sunburnt German tourists harrying Greek workers for a beach towel this summer will know how wrong economic cliches can be. Greeks, depicted as “lazy” during the euro crisis, actually work more hours than anyone else in Europe, and supposedly workaholic Germans work among the least. Now the gap is getting starker with a divisive new law allowing some Greek firms to enforce a six-day workweek -- a first in Europe and one that runs counter to the trend

ViewpointsSept. 4, 2024

Following a speech by Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters union, at the Republican National Convention last month, a New York Times analysis considered whether the party could really carry out a populist agenda in support of workers. While Donald Trump has never shown much interest in workers’ rights, many of his acolytes have. Republican Sens. Josh Hawley, Roger Marshall, Marco Rubio and JD Vance (the party’s vice-presidential candidate) have all sided with workers in

ViewpointsSept. 3, 2024

For the past four years, I’ve taught a first-year seminar titled “Race and Place in British New Wave, K-pop and Beyond” at Yale University. Since it’s the beginning of the Fall semester here, it seems like an appropriate time to share what my course is like. At Yale, we have special seminars that are only open to our first-year students. These courses are introductory and offer unique content. First-year seminars give our newest students a chance to interact with other st

ViewpointsSept. 3, 2024

The European Union is facing three major crises. The first is a competitiveness crisis that was already apparent in the late 2010s but has worsened, leading to lackluster productivity and growth performance. More recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created a security crisis that is compounded by the bloc’s deteriorating relationship with China. The war also triggered an energy crisis that puts Europe at a disadvantage relative to its major competitors, the United States and China.

ViewpointsSept. 2, 2024

An efficient economic policy is not necessarily one that simply achieves its intended goal regardless of side effects, but rather one that economic players trust, believing it was based on a correct assessment of the situation and expected effects from the policy. Measured against this criterion, South Korea’s recent policies and top officials' comments on rising house prices in the capital area fall short of being efficient -- not because they will fail to curb housing prices, but be

ViewpointsSept. 2, 2024

The upcoming US presidential election in November has a surprising degree of similarities with the South Korean presidential election in 2022. For starters, both elections feature candidates who are being tried for various criminal charges, facing prosecutors-turned-candidates on the other side. But more importantly, both elections highlight a remarkably sharp gender divide among young people, particularly Generation Z. In both countries, young men predominantly support conservative candidates,

ViewpointsAug. 30, 2024

On Sept. 9-10, South Korea will host the second summit on the Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (REAIM). The first-ever summit on this topic was held last year in the Netherlands. REAIM 2024 in Seoul will continue to deepen understanding and awareness of the issues surrounding the application of AI in the military domain, and will explore ways to ensure that AI is used responsibly by militaries around the globe. AI is transforming all facets of human existence at an asto

ViewpointsAug. 29, 2024

A nasty specter of historical revisionism has again shaken the Republic of Korea. This time, a comment in question came from Kim Moon-soo, the labor minister nominee. During his confirmation hearing in parliament, he denied the nationality of Koreans in the Japanese occupation period from 1910 to 1945. He asserted, “Our country was completely taken over and forcibly incorporated in Japan. How could there be such a thing as (Korean) nationality?” Shockingly, there exists a faction in

ViewpointsAug. 29, 2024

On Aug. 14, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he would step down as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in September. Soon after, the LDP will select Kishida’s replacement -- who will serve as prime minister, given the LDP-led coalition’s control of the Diet (the lower house of parliament). The new government is then likely to call a snap election, in the hopes that the “honeymoon effect” will help it increase its majority. What the LDP must f

ViewpointsAug. 29, 2024

When I was a white supremacist who had infiltrated the Canadian military reserves, an officer who had spent two tours of Northern Ireland embedded in a British unit told me that the Irish Republican Army had only 75 active personnel who pulled triggers and planted bombs. Behind those combatants were 3,500 people who offered them safe houses and storage for their ammunition. Bolstering them was a much broader community of people who endorsed their efforts. Ultimately, decades of sectarian violenc

ViewpointsAug. 28, 2024