Means cannot justify ends

By Oh Jung-hun

As the frost of winter arrives, the maple leaves wither and fall. I watched quite a few students stride along corridors within a school wearing North Face winter coats. I have also seen a TV report that Korean teenagers wear them like a second uniform during winter.

To my surprise, the cost of these coats was too exorbitant for the thinning budgets of their parents. According to the report the logo is a symbol of their parent's financial status. For many, finding money to buy the desired brand becomes a financial burden.

The brand name coats are used to distinguish those that own them from other classmates who wear cheap clothing. Those wearing a high-priced padded down jacket costing 700,000 won (about $600) may want to elevate their status among their peers through whatever means they can. In addition, the manufacturing company may exploit their inferiority complex.

How can we attribute this distorted situation to immature teenagers? Many in the mass media contribute to it through endless ads. Teenagers attempt to mould themselves into a standardized type, yielding to peer pressure. Likewise, sales of smartphones among teenagers in Korea are much higher than that in other countries as young people seek to buy the latest models.

New, sleek products prompt Korean youngsters to form long queues whenever they see a new device advertized. It is a fact that they become a flock of zealots. I have witnessed it in front of the Kyobo Building in Seoul.

To offer a concrete analysis, it seems that their insatiable urges are manipulated by discordant elements in Korean society: egalitarianism and discrimination. The former is a by-product of mental uniformity acquired through institutionalized education. The latter, from a Confucianism-oriented mindset is widespread throughout Korean society.

The urge to have what others possess is directly attributable to a twisted sense of equality, in which the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. On the one hand, people are always striving to catch up with standardized fashions and trends and simultaneously eager for being distinguished from the anonymous masses.

The pursuit to put on the same outdoor outfit comes from fundamentally homogeneous grouping but the morale on whether to discriminate and whom is to be discriminated against is derived from ferocious competition to seek a proper rank within the group.

In accordance with this hidden logic, manufacturing companies yield a mere differentiated gap with padded downs' quality and price to exacerbate this syndrome. Recently, a smartphone's multi-functionality involves the same boundaries. The equality embedded into another layer of discrimination, in a sense, can work as a kind of fake egalitarianism.

More strictly saying, inequality, however, is scrupulously involved in the process of being confronted by each member within the same group. Obviously, a number of teenagers want to wear North Face jacket not for its warmth, but more for the exhibition of wealth as a smartphone's price indicates in the same way. However, nobody wants to remark on it publicly as a means to show themselves off.

Undoubtedly, if they grow up under such discrimination, I'm sure that they are likely to separate themselves from others as their parents did. Basically, it is not an exaggeration to say that youngster's distorted superiority is a miniature of the adult's. In a sense, presumably, one way to overcome a low score among underachievers is to show off another means such as bullying the weak or wearing expensive outfits. This is the tip of the iceberg reflecting what puts the cart before the horse.

Dehumanized competition often seems to make Korean youngsters justify whatever means are possible to attain their ends. Smartphones or padded down jackets only belong to one of means to display their individuality. However, possessing more luxurious or more expensive means seems to be regarded as the end to be acknowledged.

In a sense, it is not surprising that teenagers are so addicted to expensive brands. They just learn from adults who are not reluctant to buy luxurious cars, bags and top-notch products, to simply show off the degree of their wealth and to belong to the upper economic class. However, obviously, it is an abnormal social symptom.

As the established often believe the ends justify the means, seemingly, some Korean youngsters are still immersed in such a misguided behavior. Every equal means that is imposed upon everybody should be based on strict egalitarianism. If such a criterion loses its property of equality, the ends are likely to be subservient to the means.

Padded down jackets are only a means to make one warm and smartphones are to communicate with. They cannot contain more significance than that.

The writer is a teacher at Somyoung Girls High School in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province. His email address is dicaprik@hanmail.net.