The slave islands of Sth Korea

[stui magpie]

I read this article this morning. Interesting nuances about how a society treats it's disabled. Some don't want to leave cos they have no where else to go.

And this is not past history, it's now.

[think positive]

That's really £$%$ed

[pietillidie]

Don't start me, though this round of naming and shaming will hopefully be a tipping point. You're basically looking at an unholy mix of traditional culture, and something being out of mind, out of sight.

However, even in Seoul, there seems to be thousands with disassociative disorders wandering the streets who probably only need basic anti-psychotic medication and a bit of support (not to mention the alcoholics, though my understanding is alcoholism is quite a bit harder to treat).

From what I can tell, several factors have converged to create such horrors:

1. Persistent, prescientific views of mental illness (time to dispel the mythology of older generations on this front; there is no reason to sustain it anymore out of deference for age, especially given South Korea's highly advanced medical science community lives in a parallel universe and could easily assume full responsibility for mental illness discourse)

2. Face and shame culture (time for much stronger discrimination law generally; expectations of discrimination and shame still drive way too much behaviour, from people getting unnecessary plastic surgery, to rape not being reported and depression being dismissed)

3. Anachronistic familial social assumptions (time for a serious welfare system that treats people as citizens; family members can no longer be relied upon to carry the welfare burden as old familial ties and duties are fast becoming a thing of the past)

4. Tolerance of rural difference (this is a difficult one because rural areas are ageing and genuinely are of a different cultural and historical period)

5. Judicial corruption (an ongoing problem that will gradually recede IMO as it's more a transitional cultural phenomenon that depends on the social structures around it being reformed, such as discrimination and familial assumptions)

My immediate reform focus is on 1-3. However, you will find that the younger generation is being held back on such reforms by older folk and those who benefit from discrimination. I half expect a local analogue to a 1960s/1970s Western cultural revolution to speed up a resolution to that social contradiction. Talk to young Koreans and you get the impression it could happen any moment, such is the disconnect.