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From top officials to ordinary people, Koreans have been expressing their remorse and attempting to offer some form of comfort and compensation -- extending sincere apologies and regrets, fasting, lighting candles in streets and churches, mourning and praying. It seems that all Koreans were affected by the tragic actions of one individual, Cho Seung-hui, who killed 32 people plus himself in a seemingly senseless rampage of violence and anger.
This saga is likely to remain in the Korean memory as an inescapable burden, an inerasable hurt for some time to come. By contrast, Americans and Westerners may more easily put this behind them. Many were able to pray for both the victims and the murderer; they then seem able to let go of the past. What's more, most of them would say that individuals, not nations or peoples, are responsible for such acts.
The contrast reflects major cultural differences. Koreans, and most other Asians, have a strong sense of collective consciousness. Their sense of belonging to a group spears to be stronger than that of Westerners. This sense of shared identity means that the words and actions of an individual symbolize the nation as a whole. An individual is "one of us," and "we" are collectively affected by his actions, whether they bring pride or shame.
This accounts for the great sense of pride Koreans felt when Korean-American football player Hines Ward was judged the Most Valuable Player in the U.S. Super Bowl last year. He received a hero's welcome when he visited his mother's homeland of South Korea. It also explains the sense of shame the same people feel over the acts of Cho Seung-hui.
Chinese people share this same sense of collective consciousness. For example, when NATO planes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and again when a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane crashed with a Chinese fighter jet near China's Hainan province in 2001, killing the Chinese pilot, nationwide protests exploded in expressions of strong collective anger. Only when the Americans said they were "sorry" did the protests somewhat calm down.
Similarly, recent nationwide protests erupted in South Korea over the signing of a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, showing the same nationalistic orientation, although the protests were moderate.
This collective consciousness tends to be the heritage of Asian people. Whether it is seen as patriotism or nationalism, it seems to erupt readily in Asian societies. Perhaps it may be considered an "Asian value."
The force of collective consciousness should not be ignored. The ancient Chinese legalist Han Feizi argued that "when people are united as a whole and become a force, even the most capable officials are feeble." Political psychologists Gustave Le Bon and Harold D. Lasswell both agreed with this - they each emphasized that collective entities can create an "uncontrollable force" that can have positive or negative consequences.
Collective consciousness, in essence, is related to values. Norms and beliefs are harder to transform than physical objects. This uniquely Asian heritage might be attributed to geographical, psychological or historical factors, but at the root it might be related to Confucianism, which stresses the cohesiveness of the family, the awareness of disgrace and the mentality of being considerate.
It is helpful for Westerners, especially Americans, to comprehend Asian consciousness in this perspective. It can encourage Americans to be more aware, broadminded and considerate of the Korean people's sense of collective remorse over the crime committed by one of their own. It can also eliminate acts of prejudice, revenge or exclusion aimed at Asian-Americans, and perhaps avoid further "clashes of civilizations."
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(Zhang Quanyi is an associate professor at the Zhejiang Wanli University in Ningbo, China, and a PhD candidate at Shanghai International Studies University, studying policy making and collective identity. He is currently a research fellow at the School of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, under a grant by the Korea Foundation. ©Copyright Zhang Quanyi.)
