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Koreans react to startling results in Pew "what makes life meaningful" poll
- karaterobot 5y agoI would recommend reading the entire article before drawing any conclusions, not just the headline or the summary graphic.
- rambojazz 5y agoThis looks like a wishlist, ranked by what people desire the most (but don't have).
- TurkishPoptart 5y agoBesides material well-being (19 percent), the things that are more likely to give Koreans meaning in life are health (17 percent), family (16 percent), general satisfaction (12 percent), society (8 percent), personal freedom (8 percent) and work (6 percent). But even then these higher levels of interest are far below the median, except in the category of general satisfaction, where Korea has the second-highest portion of respondents (12 percent) saying they are satisfied with life, after Germany at 17 percent (at the other end of the spectrum only two percent of Americans say they are satisfied with life, and one percent in Greece). If "material well-being" was at 19%, health 17%, and family 16%, that doesn't sound like an outlier in and of itself, and not entirely that alarming. Somewhat concerning to me is in the next statement, where it's stated that only 2% of Americans say they are satisfied with life, compared to 17% of Germans. As an American, that speaks volumes about our lifestyle and culture, and I find it disappointing. Satisfaction is contagious; I want to live among others who feel this way. Most of my friends work from home and are either alone most of the time, or have significant others but few friends whom they see on an active basis. Secondly, I wonder (not trying to cast doubt, genuinely wonder) how surveymakers level-set these questions to be linguistically neutral. How do they account for "material well-being" translating perfectly across most European and some Asian languages? Or even the expression "meaningful"? Just something I think about when it comes to large surveys.
- rootusrootus 5y ago> As an American, that speaks volumes about our lifestyle and culture, and I find it disappointing. I wonder if the dissatisfaction started the tribal political wars, or if the wars precipitated the dissatisfaction. In the end, I think that much of the problem lies with politics at this point, regardless of whether it was the chicken or the egg.
- pestaa 5y agoSo in a way, does the current political atmosphere fulfill our need to feel dissatisfied?
- nomorecommas 5y agoI think that's probably true for some. It's a kind of perverse power fantasy. Fills the void of knowing deep down that you've never done anything worthwhile, and never will.
- rootusrootus 5y agoYou may have a good point there. Life has been so peaceful over the last 50 years or so (at least in the grand scheme of things; by comparison the earlier part of the 20th century was all kinds of exciting). So we need things to complain about.
- dboat 5y agoThe problem lies with all of the little ways a dysfunctional democracy fails to take care of it's people. I don't think it makes any sense to suggest dissatisfaction causes these policies. Politics is the culprit only in the sense that many otherwise straightforwardly practical issues have become politicized to the point that objectively poorer and often dangerously irresponsible choices are preferable to any choice that is associated with one's political opponents. Looking at it this way, it is clearly the political situation that is causing dissatisfaction.
- rumblerock 5y ago>* As an American, that speaks volumes about our lifestyle and culture, and I find it disappointing. Satisfaction is contagious; I want to live among others who feel this way. Most of my friends work from home and are either alone most of the time, or have significant others but few friends whom they see on an active basis.* This puts into words my motivation to enact policies that would free up time and resources for people to better optimize or remove unnecessary weight from their lives. Whether it be healthcare, childcare, rising rents, etc. – the time-suck nature or just constant level of financial stress created by some issues weighs on the individual psyche, and in turn the collective one. When you can't leave your job because of healthcare, need the money for childcare or to service debt or pay rising rents, of course personal life and overall outlook on life take a hit. I may not live in a cycle like that, but I don't want to walk down the street knowing how common it is among the people around me. Death by a thousand cuts, it seems like. And yes, much of this lives at the societal / cultural level as well, not purely the political. But in my opinion the collective burden of the problems that can be fixed by political means imposes an inertia on life that drags everything else down with it.
- lisper 5y agoWhat an egregiously misleading title. The actual underlying facts are that South Koreans' resposes to a survey about what makes life meaningful were different (when placed in rank order) from all of the other countries in the survey. Not absent, just different. And also, if you actually look at the numbers, not all that much different.
- politician 5y agoMaybe? The final two paragraphs: “What the Pew survey shows isn's that Koreans are far more materialistic than their counterparts in other developed economies. It's that Korea suffers from an absence of existential purpose. Many of its people say they have nothing to live for, and that's the country's biggest problem.”
- lisper 5y agoBut the data don't support that conclusion at all. It's a value judgement that materialism is somehow invalid as an existential purpose.
- politician 5y agoThat’s a good point. Historically, groups religious and otherwise have looked unfavorably on the idea that one’s purpose in life is to concentrate material wealth for one’s self. Acceptable beneficiaries are usually the government or family or religion, depending on the period.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dang 5y agoYep. I've replaced the title with something more neutral now. Unfortunately I actually had to write something new (this is almost never necessary— https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=representative%20article%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
- amelius 5y agoPerhaps this explains the quirky TV shows like Squid game, which basically revolves around the misplaced idea that if one can't have wealth, they might as well be dead.
- thatguy0900 5y agoThe characters weren't just poor, they were in crippling debt or desperately needed money for other pressing reasons.
- terrorOf 5y agoThat person surely hasn't watched the show so no idea about it in the first place.
- honkdaddy 5y agoDefinitely. Some of the most powerful scenes in that show stem from the notion that a life crippled by debt is worse than no life at all.
- Barrin92 5y agopretty hard to square the results with lived experience on several fronts. For one Singapore turns out to allegedly rank material well being-relatively low, when from personal experience it's kind of 'late capitalist' on steroids even compared to SK or other East-Asian countries. Often in Singapore when I asked what people do for fun the first answer was 'go to the mall'. SK still does have a fairly active cultural life besides work in comparison and a thriving art scene. The general trend of a lack of life satisfaction beyond material terms is right but I'd say it's a global condition, somewhat more intense in East-Asia but not by much, the differences in the survey seem random or probably dependent on how open people are about these questions.
- throw3849 5y agoFirst you buy a house and get established, then you start family. In Asian culture it is not even possible to get married without that.
- Jensson 5y agoI wonder how much this has to do with language barriers? I doubt these terms have the exact same meaning in every language as they are very abstract.
- colinmhayes 5y agoI've got a feeling that the reason most Koreans only gave one answer as opposed to western countries where most gave multiple is language barriers.
- mdorazio 5y agoPew is not some random company doing research - it's a well-respected non-profit that focuses on demographic and religious research and has been operating for ~17 years. I'm quite sure they know how to run a proper survey to account for things like language differences.
- Jensson 5y ago> I'm quite sure they know how to run a proper survey to account for things like language differences. I'm quite sure it is impossible to do that since there are no perfectly equivalent terms between languages for these things. The results can still be interesting, but if there are big outliers I'd look at that first. For example, what is included in the word "family"? Or "health"? Those things can cover very different things in different languages.
- james-redwood 5y agoYou'd be surprised at how incompetent big companies are sometimes. Used to do a lot of work with S&P500 companies and the amount of times we used to have problems with incompetent translations was startlingly high
- carabiner 5y agoI'm surprised by some of the things reported by zero percent of respondents to make life meaningful, particularly pets and nature. It's been reported that Koreans are obsessed with their pets and that hiking is practically a national sport. When I lived in LA, there were huge groups of Korean hikers on popular trails. I wonder if there is a language barrier in Pew's survey, if "life meaning" carries some other nuance or significance to Koreans (maybe it means "outward life" or something?). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-economy-pets/like-a-son-but-cheaper-harried-south-koreans-pamper-pets-instead-of-having-kids-idUSKCN1PI029 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-economy-pets/l... https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/travel/along-the-trail-of-koreas-mountain-spirits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/travel/along-the-trail-of...
- InfiniteRand 5y agoI wonder if the people who find pets give them meaning might consider pets as family
- 999900000999 5y agoTo be fair, if you don't have material well being, you can't afford your partners healthcare and ... The ability to provide for your family is also key .
- franciscop 5y agoThat's mainly in the US; in e.g. EU you can afford your partners healthcare because it's been already paid with your taxes. In Japan it's "affordable" and I am unsure of Korea but if media is correct it's not as cheap as Japan.
- kazen44 5y agoi don't know if the survey stated it as suchs, but material wellbeing doesn't mean you need money (per se). It usually means you have the means to live your life in safety. having proper infrastructure, housing, food etc to not have to worry about basic needs in life. (like, getting food).
- 999900000999 5y agoWhat if said partner can't work due to illness, what about kids who generally like eating. You can't live a decent life in poverty
- franciscop 5y agoSocial security pays you if you need to take a leave because you are sick of course. 60%-75% of your salary if you get sick/injured outside work, 75% if you get sick/injured at work (in Spain, YMMV). Of course it's better not to live in poverty, I'm just saying that in most of EU someone in the family getting sick is normally just a health event in the family, not a financial event. Edit: landlords will also be flexible with the rent (they are basically forced to it) if with that 60-%75% you cannot pay the full rent for a couple of months.
- aspenprestige 5y ago
- smexy 5y agoIn Korean and most Asian cultures, it goes without saying that material well-being is a means to supporting your family. I wouldn't take much away from a multiple choice question about such big, abstract, interconnected concepts.
- tmm 5y agoThe actual survey results seem more interesting: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/11/18/what-makes-life-meaningful-views-from-17-advanced-economies/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/11/18/what-makes-lif... For instance it highlights the finding that 62% of South Koreans and 58% of Japanese respondents provided only one source of meaning in life vs only 1% of Spanish respondents and then goes on to clarify how that skews the results: > These differences help explain why the share giving a particular answer in certain publics may appear much lower than others, even if the topic is the top mentioned source of meaning for that given public. To give a specific example, 19% of South Koreans mention material well-being while 42% say the same in Spain, but the topic is ranked first in South Korea and second in Spain. Given this, researchers have chosen to highlight not only the share of the public who mention a given topic but also its relative ranking among the topics coded, both in the text and in graphics.
- franciscop 5y agoThis might be a direct consequence of language; in Spanish, when you ask questions like this you are normally specifying whether you expect a single or multiple answers by default (akin to "what thing(s) make life meaningful", noting that you can ask with or without the "s" but that is a choice). In Japanese, singular and plural are not distinct except in very particular situations, and IIRC the singular is normally the default unless context makes you think it's plural, so I expect this to contribute greatly (akin to "which makes life meaningful?"). I don't know Korean to comment on that though.
- greggman3 5y agoThat Koreans and Japanese only choose one answer would suggest to me a poorly worded form that made most of them think they were only supposed to choose one.
- didibus 5y agoThese surveys in my opinion are meaningless (pun intended). It depends too much on interpretation, who answered them, what their current life situation is, and most importantly the set of answers is too reductionist, and can't possibly capture a complex dynamic system like human meaning and happiness.
- dsizzle 5y agoSupposedly the group is more important than the individual in "Eastern" cultures, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170118-how-east-and-west-think-in-profoundly-different-ways https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170118-how-east-and-wes... so it's perhaps curious that Korea is the outlier in rating "family" relatively low.
- angelzen 5y agoThat is a rather superficial "narrative" article that ignores the major impact of industrialization on culture. It is not Western vs. Eastern cultures, it is pre-industrial vs. industrial cultures. Obviously, within those two big clusters there are differences, the point is that those differences are dwarfed by the industrialization variable.
- dsizzle 5y agoAnecdotally I first heard this distinction from a Japanese person, that Japanese culture is more "collectivist" than in the US. The article includes general statements like this that also include Japan: > Generally speaking - there are many exceptions - people in the West tend to be more individualist, and people from Asian countries like India, Japan or China tend to be more collectivist. One thing Japan is not is "pre-industrial"! As an aside, you labeled the article as superficial, but I thought it actually went deeper into some nuance. For instance, it mentions that in Hokkaido, people tend to be more individualistic, possibly because it's a "frontier" of sorts compared to the rest of Japan. And the US is largely populated by people who (themselves or their ancestors) went to a similar "frontier".
- didibus 5y agoI think oftentimes people find meaning in what they can have, because simply put, you have too, otherwise your life would be meaningless. So I wonder if that means a lot of countries still see that material wellbeing, health, hobbies, nature, travel, new experiences, romantic partners, friends, etc. are all too hard to have or keep or sustain, where-as family is all you end up with, and thus what you have to find meaning in of itself? That would mean from a different lens, seeing family as number one would be indicative of issues in that country in acquiring anything more? And if you were to see family rank low, it be a good sign, which means that you don't have to find meaning in family, because while you have family, you also have other avenues you can rely on to find meaning.
- zwkrt 5y agoif it’s worked for 10000 years I wouldn’t be so quick to knock it.
- didibus 5y agoThat just reinforces my statement. For 10000 years, most people only had family, because they couldn't afford the cost/time for friends, material wellbeing, good health, nature, travel, new experiences, etc. Thus you had to find meaning in family. My thesis is that you will always find meaning in what you have. If your whole family is dead, you might find meaning in your pet dog for example, or in your friends. Similarly, if you only have family, you will find meaning in them. Family tends to be the only thing you are given for free at birth, so it makes sense that it ends up what most people find meaning in. All the other stuff require work/chance on your part to acquire. And are thus much harder to lean on to find meaning, since they can be easily taken away, or simply be unaccessible to you. Which means maybe in a country that shows other things beyond family as what they find meaning in is actually a sign that in that country people are easily able to have a lot more than just family, and can thus find meaning in more things.
- pertymcpert 5y agoThat doesn't seem to be what the article is suggesting.
- terrorOf 5y agoPeople got to consider at least two following points: - Chosun Ilbo is news media that is right-wing and always produce news articles (even fake news) that against left-wing parties inc. current government. Many Koreans do not trust Chosun Ilbo. I have no idea why Chosun Ilbo was even interviewed. - South Korea has even poorer than any other countries only 50-60 years ago. There was pretty much nothing to feed on back then after the Korean War which was happened after Japanese horrible invasion was just over. This is different situation than any European countries.
- InfiniteRand 5y agoDidn’t a lot of European countries have hunger issues after world war 2? Certainly Germany. There’s only 5 years between the end of world war 2 and the beginning of the Korean War
- SlowBall 5y agoIn Spanish the idiom "Salud, dinero y amor" (health, wealth, and love, in that order) is (very) commonly used when talking about what's important in life. I wonder if that had an influence in the results for Spain, which seem quite different from the rest of European countries.
- singold 5y agoMy grandma used to say that and added "que lo demás, todo se arregla" (that everything else can be fixed). I'm not from Spain but from a Spanish speaking country
- zz865 5y agoThe article didn't talk about how S Korea was dirt poor two generations ago. All the other countries have been wealthy for centuries.
- arcturus17 5y agoI find it funny being Spanish but having lived in Germany how we rank family third and yet family bonds into adulthood seem much more important in Spain than in Germany…
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoPerhaps more reliance on family makes the relationship more difficult.
- nurumaik 5y agoI have read their paper several times, but can't find translation of their question to other languages. Wanted to find the exact question they asked koreans, in korean