What Why and How

Ed Park

2/26/15

My digital story telling project will be on my identity as a reserve Army Sergeant and Arendt’s concept of action and its relation to the Korean Military. Arendt, in The Human Condition, talks about the Vita Activa and one of the three important activities of the human condition: Action. The basic condition for action, as Arendt argues, is the concept of human plurality, which can be described with equality and distinction. This notion of plurality, in which everyone is equal yet distinct from each other, and that no one can ever be “me” is completely unthinkable in the Army.

My experience in the Republic of Korean Army defies this human condition. In such rank-based society where everyone has to follow orders given from the commander regardless of what one thinks and feels like doing, opinions do not matter and one’s decision to deviate from the norm can lead to a greater problem for the nation. Every soldier has to follow the same rule set and governed by the Ministry of National Defense. In this manner, every soldier is trained to be equal, but even within this rank-based society, hierarchy exists between soldiers based on when they entered the Army. After living in this kind of society for two years, which has been a huge part of my life, I could not disagree more with Arendt’s human condition of action.

In my digital story telling project, I will talk about when I was once labeled as a “soldier” not as my self and how it defies the human condition of action that Arendt argues in her book. The reason why I want to do my digital story telling project on this topic is to inform people of the different dimension I took when reading about the philosophy of action. I will incorporate some personal tales and few cases of how things can go wrong when an individual is forced to live, eat, and fight as everyone else against one’s will.

During my time of service, my specialty was driving. I was a first class driver for the Commanding General of Sixth Corps. When I was a private, one of my senior soldiers went AWOL one night because he could not handle all the pressure from his seniors. His senior soldiers would keep him up all night scolding him for what he has done wrong that day, make him eat things that are not edible, and hit him if he did not eat it. There is absolutely no sense of justice or morality and whatever my senior soldiers told me was right was right and told me was wrong was wrong.

            Through my experience in the military I have been able to learn patience and the bigger society outside the realm of school. I have also been able to experience Korea’s hierarchy-based society, where the younger person (lower rank) has to give in and do as told by an older person (higher rank). These lessons I have learned will help me in the future and after going through these difficult two years, I feel like I became more mature and grew up both mentally and physically.