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Social Networks in South Korean Society Resumed by : Yutsa Z. Ula

Cultural capital represents the collection of non-economic forces such as family background, social class, varying investments in and commitments to education, different resources, etc. which influence academic success. Bourdieu distinguishes three forms of cultural capital. The embodied state, objectified state and cultural capital institutionalized state.
The embodied state: it becomes integrated into the individual and can be increased by investing time into self improvement, so that it cannot transmitted instantaneously.
Objectified state: represented by cultural goods which can be appropriated both materially with economic capital and symbolically via embodied capital.
Institutionalized state: provides academic credentials which create a certificate of cultural competence which confers on its holder a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value with respect of power.
Social Capital has an ability to use social networks largely based on individual’s economic and cultural capital which has its own importance for achieving a social status. Further more, it’s about possession of a durable network of more or less mutual acquaintance and recognition.
The theory of social resources begins with an image of the macro-social structure consisting of positions ranked according to certain normatively valued resources such as wealth, status and power.
Social network in S. Korea
The word network in Korean language corresponds to two different meaning. Yonkyol and yonjul. Yonkyol is a neutral word, meaning the open relations among objects or people connected by universal rule. Yonjul means particularistic relations maintained by kin, school and regional ties.
Well-known Yonjuls are “SNU Republic” and “TK (Taegu-Kyeongsang Province) mafia”. Yonjuls are often analysed as a form of “class alienation” and also institutionalised corruption. As yonjul really has a strong control in Korean society, a person without a right class background has very poor prospects of social advancements.
The strength of Yonjul even reflected on a open recruitment for new employees in companies or corporation. The applicant are required to submit a list of their acquaintance and relatives who are prominent either in politics or government. It can be an efficient alternative in either market or hierarchy in economic transaction, but become barrier to those who do not share the link.
Typical Korean Social Network:
1. Social network Function as an important mode of social exchange.
2. Social Network in Korea shows high homophile, or very homogenous association within the line of sex, age and region.
3. Social network functions as a reference group so that it assert an enormous influence on individual’s value and attitude.
4. Those who have wider range of network tend to have less authoritarian attitude.

Confucian democracy: A contradiction in Terms? Resumed by: Yutsa Z. Ula

G.K.Chesterton quotes “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestor. It is the democracy of the dead”.

Roberto Unger has identified three principal sources of change in Politic world:

1.       The rise of mass politic

2.       The emergence of world history

3.       Enlarged economic rationality

There are resources within Confucianism for the development of distinctly Asian form of democracy, but it shall not be merely touted a democracy with “Asian Characteristic”.

The Confucian stress upon the priority of morality over penal law is a bedrock value in any viable form of communitarian democracy. Confucius, the Confucianism founder, is on the side of minimalist government and a self-ordering community. He is committed to the fundamental importance of proximate, self invested relationship. He sees a thriving, self-governing community, achieved through mediating institutions such as family and neighbourhood, as the optimum guarantee of a personal liberty and the best opportunity for full participation in a shared vision community.

In traditional China, as in other Asian societies, there are a harmonious blending of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism into a rich tradition that does not finally subvert any of its constitutive strands. Confucian philosophy is a doctrine of personal cultivation and articulation elaborated within the context of the extended family.

Family is the model of social organization.  The centrality of this familial model has significant consequences for the shape of Confucian democracy, since it determines an interpretation of citizen of public individual that readily contrast with the liberal democratic tradition.

In Confucian societies, one never leaves the family. On the other hand western thought is about the democratic citizen in adulthood should takes leave of his family for public life.

The most difficult of the issues relevant to the erection of a Confucian democracy, the issue of pluralism. In traditional Chinese individual he claims himself as not only a Confucian, but also a Daoist and Buddhist. Beside, most westerners equate philosophic or religious allegiances  with consciously entertained doctrine and beliefs.

Chinese philosophical idea is different with the western style idea. The difference is associated with the Chinese refusal to entertain ideas and actions as disjunctively related. The mutually entailing relations among ideas, dispositions, and actions in Chinese tradition contrasts dramatically with the positing of thinking, acting, and feeling as distinct functions among by the dominant ideologies of the western tradition.

A simple basic question of the ancient Chinese thinker is about “how” (way-seekers) rather than “what”(truth-seekers) question as the ancient Greeks thinkers did. It is often remarked that the breakdown of moral and political order at the very period in which reflective thinking began in China caused the Chinese to be concerned with the social harmony. It is said that they were pre-eminently concerned with the continuing a moral path that world guarantee of sufficient degree of social ability. In Chinese thinking, there is no separation between idea and action. Idea is considered as part of action.

The implication of this contrast between Truth-Seekers and Way-seekers is that it is easier to promote cognitive pluralism in a society that distinguishes idea from moral action. Freedom to think as we please is one of the advantages, but there is a downside of this effort  to dichotomize theory and practice.

The Chinese have a synthesis that combined from Confucian, Daoist and Buddhism as well become a harmony. The harmony of these tradition is a function of unspoken consensus. 8 percent minority populations of China are balkanized and isolated from the Han majority. Thus, with respect to minorities, at least the fact of pluralism has not been confronted ain any significant manner.

In Confucianism the privileges and duties entailed within familial living are seamless and extend beyond the family to become the basis for proper government. In Chinese religious experience, we must look to ritually  constituted community as the primary locus for spiritual cultivation.

In Confucian, rituals are the specific content of both Tian (heaven) and Dao (the way) as these ideas are relevant to the human community. The “democracy of the dead”, the Confucian model of democracy directs at ancestors and  cultural heroes.

It is possible to combine Chinese and Westerners thought of democracy. Confucian democracy from the Chinese thinker combined with the liberal model of democracy from the westerners. Three principal concepts inderlying a model of Confucian democracy are the individual, the community and human rights.

The Surabayan Culture and Values that Support it. (Yutsa Z. Ula)

1. They Cursing a lot.
Value: Most of Surabayan (especially youths) believe cursing in Surabaya style curse can relieve peevishness. Even it can be used as an expression booster. Especially Happiness and amazement can be ‘cursed’. But it can be told to close friend only. But still, it is usually used to bluff someone.
2. If they don’t like something or like something they will tell it directly.
Value: It is better if we know what is the mistake we’ve done. It’s not okay if you don’t like someone and told it to everyone behind your back. By express your anger directly, the people whom you angry with will introspects by himself.
3. A new born baby will be hold by the neighbours or peoples in one’s range.
Value: Usually, a mother will fell their motherly instinct when they see a new born baby. There is also kind of a reason that babies are very cute. But sometimes, for married female who doesn’t have baby yet, they believe maybe God also blessed them with a baby after that.

about values and Culture (yutsa Z.Ula)

Type              : Summary

This chapter deals with mental program in people in general, value and culture in particular. Mental programs are physically are determined by states of our brain cells. Therefore, mental programming is partly unique and partly shared with others. Mental programs its elves distinguished to three levels, individual, collective and universal. The last one is the least unique but the most basic because shared with almost all mankind. Four strategies for operating construct about human mental programs is available. We can only observe behaviour, deeds and word. Through observing behaviour we can infer the stable mental program’s presence. Although in social scinces this type inference is not unique, but it does exist.

            Deeds and words can be observed with two different ways, provoked and natural. Naturally word can be inferred from content analysis, speeches, discussion and document, deeds on the other hand can be inferred from the observation, use of available and descriptive  statistic. By provoked system, interview, questionnaires and projective test are the classic way but the trusted one. Deeds can be inferred from laboratory, experiments and field experiments.

            Values are classified into values as desired and values as desirable. Culture a word that set aside for describing entire societies is defined as collective programming of the mind.

            Values have both intensity and direction. Mathematically values can be symbolized with line or direction arrows. It revolves on two contrary word, such as good and bad. Values as desired is about what people actually desired, while values as desirable is what they think ought to be desired. Both of them can not stand independently, but they should not be equated.

            Culture can be defined in many ways. Culture a word that set aside for describing entire societies is defined as collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another. Culture includes system of values, and values is among the building block of culture. Kluckhohn said that culture consists in patterned way of thinking, feeling and reacting.

            Comparing culture chapter clarifies the ways to compare culture, changing the level of analysis, ethnocentrism, the need for multidisciplinary approaches, and matching samples. These ways commonly used in cross-culture studies to compare one citizen to another.