How to fuel social conflict and division

The responsibility to prevent it falls on the government and politicians. But unfortunately, they are going in the opposite direction.

A report released by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs is shocking. It explicitly shows the alarming level of social conflict and discontent about unfairness in our society. The level of social conflict scored 2.93 points out of the maximum 4 points among 3,950 adults who agreed to the interview arranged by the institute. In the 2018 survey, the level of conflict received 2.88 points.

The most serious conflict was between progressives and conservatives, as expected. A total of 92.3 percent of the respondents, up five percentage points from 2018, said it reached a serious level already. For any countries, the biggest conflict factor is discord between the two opposite camps. But our society has crossed a point of no return, as implied by 58.2 percent who showed no intention to marry if their counterpart has a different political ideology from theirs. One out of three people said they would not drink with people from the other side. Under such circumstances, social integration is impossible.

Such a sharp divide was largely fueled by our politicians. Despite the minimal gap in the rate of votes earned in elections, the winner repeatedly monopolized the power. The principle of “all or nothing” only helped deepen a sense of revenge on the winner next time. Our society became used to attributing all forms of conflict to opponents. The fandom-based politics only bisects the country whether it be a governing or opposition party. As if to prove our citizens’ low level of trust in the National Assembly, 74.1 percent gave the lowest score to the performance of the legislature.

At the same time, nearly two-thirds of the people, or 65.1 percent, said our society is not fair, as seen in their relatively low grading of the judiciary and administrative systems. A total of 33.8 percent also cited corruption and injustice of the establishment as the biggest reasons for unfairness. This must serve as a wake-up call for President Yoon Suk Yeol who could be elected largely thanks to his crusade to uphold fairness and common sense in defiance of the past administration’s biased governance.

The surprising results of the survey also reflected the president’s stubborn reluctance to apologize for his wife’s mistakes on her behalf or let her be investigated by the prosecution. High government officials not taking responsibility for the tragic death of a Marine on a rescue mission — or for the deadly crowd crush in Itaewon in 2022 — also must have affected the poor results of the survey.

No society can avoid conflict. But if it cannot be properly managed and controlled, it explodes anytime. The responsibility to prevent it falls on the government and politicians. But unfortunately, they are going in the opposite direction.