Reading Korean society through Stuart Hall’s cultural theory: constructing a new paradigm for socialistpolitics in the 21th century
Young-Pyo SEO
ABSTRACT This paper discusses the legacy of Stuart Hall’s cultural studies approach to socialist politics. Like many other socialist thinkers, his ideas are the direct outcome of political intervention, often through the form of theoretical practice. Because gaps will always remain between reality and theoretical explanation, political intervention tends to be an overreaction to social change or the underestimation of people’s power. Hall’s political practice cannot therefore be exceptional in that it is far from perfect. This paper attempts to establish a balance sheet in terms of his involvement in the debate on the nature of British society, Thatcherism and neo-liberalism. From this examination, some key concepts will be employed to analyze the nature of Korean society in relation to neo-liberal restructuration and the neo-liberal historic bloc. Discussing Hall’s ideas and applying these to Korea, the paper sets out to demonstrate both weaknesses and strengths in Hall’s thought. The strength consists of his open-ended and empirically sensitive reformation of Marxism. On the other hand, the core weakness is found in his post-Marxist epistemological relativism. The main argument set out here is that, in order to develop and refine Hall’s thought, there should be an ontologically realist position compatible with epistemological relativism. For this difficult task, the concept of needs can be suggested as a fresh starting point.
KEYWORDS: Stuart Hall, cultural studies, British new left, neo-liberalism, New Labour, Korean politics, needs, socialism
Note on the contributor
Young-PyoSeo studied Korean History in the Seoul National University, which was followed by MA and PhD degrees of Sociology from the University of Essex in UK. He had worked as a research professor in the Democracy Institute of the Sungkonghoe University, and, since 2012, has been teaching and studying environmental and urban sociology, and social theory in the Jeju National University. He also published the papers on the British politics in terms of the Labour Party, new social movements and new left. Now he is working on urban experiences related to body, unconscious, collective memories.