It is like placing a pine tree on a rock and hoping it will take root and grow well for a right-wing regime to stand on left-wing culture and society.

It is like placing a pine tree on a rock and hoping it will take root and grow well for a right-wing regime to stand on left-wing culture and society. This is by no means an exaggerated metaphor. 

Political power is the visible top, and culture is the invisible foundation. The lifespan and stability of a structure built upon a foundation depend on what it absorbs and what it repels. 

You Cannot Expect Trees to Grow Without Changing the Soil

The expectation that a right-wing regime can shift direction with a few policies when the culture is saturated with left-wing sensibilities, language, and moral norms is akin to commanding a tree to grow without changing the soil.

Regimes control laws and budgets. However, culture influences habits, language, standards of praise and criticism, in other words, common sense. People act based on what is cool, what is shameful, and what constitutes a 'good choice.' 

If these standards are solidified by left-wing culture, the right-wing regime's policies will always become subjects requiring painstaking explanation and exceptions needing defense. 

For example, tax cuts are automatically translated as 'privileges for the minority,' deregulation as 'the greed of chaebols,' and restraint of state roles as 'government irresponsibility.' The results of this already established left-wing interpretation, rather than the policy's intent, dominate public opinion.

The Left Preempts 'Rightness' by Mobilizing Emotions

The strength of left-wing culture lies not in institutions but in emotional stories. It preempts 'rightness' through victim-centered narratives, language of moral superiority, and mobilization of emotions. At this point, the right-wing regime is always late. Even when presenting statistics and achievements, the verdict has already been delivered. 

The numbers of the right-wing government are cold, while the stories of left-wing culture are warm. Moreover, the moment warmth dons the mantle of morality, the policy's effectiveness becomes a secondary, unnecessary concern. The pine tree on the rock fails to get water not because there is no sunlight, but because there is no room for its roots to grow.

Culture is repeated in schools, media, arts, and humor. The choices of what to make a laughing matter and what to make an object of tears accumulate (common sense) to determine the direction of society. Left-wing culture cultivates suspicion of 'structures' rather than suspicion of power, and trains people to blame 'systems' rather than questioning individual choices. 

In such a left-wing cultural environment, when a right-wing regime speaks of individual responsibility and market autonomy, it becomes an excuse rather than an explanation. Excuses always lose their persuasiveness.

Culture Votes Daily in Everyday Life

A bigger problem is the delusion within the right wing. The belief that culture will follow if they win elections. However, culture does not wait for election results. 

Culture votes daily in everyday life. The accumulation of subtle judgments about what words are natural, what expressions are taboo, and what jokes are permissible creates the upper limit of politics, that is, public common sense. Below this upper limit, no policy can truly breathe. 

A pine tree placed on a rock may withstand storms, but it cannot grow. 

A right-wing regime on left-wing culture ultimately becomes a short-term manager. A mediator, not a reformer; a firefighter, not a creator. Constantly putting out fires leaves no time to design the next forest. In the meantime, left-wing culture becomes even more entrenched. 

Left-wing morality becomes sharper, and the stigma of greed is more rapidly applied to the right wing. The right-wing regime repeatedly offers explanations like 'no ill intent,' thereby constricting itself. Constricted power struggles to achieve results, and power without results loses elections again. It is a vicious cycle. 

The solution is culture before regime. It is language and morality before policy. We must restore concepts like freedom and responsibility, achievement and reward, and the right to fail through everyday language. 

It is culture before regime. It is language and morality before policy. We must restore concepts like freedom and responsibility, achievement and reward, and the right to fail through everyday language. 

We need to break the inertia of translating markets as greed and practice speaking of exchange as cooperation. The state should be a protector, but its limits must be clearly defined, and it must repeatedly demonstrate that solidarity is a choice, not a compulsion. 

This task is slow and tedious. However, changing the foundation is always like that. 

A regime is the trunk of a tree. Culture is the soil. To make the trunk strong and the leaves lush, the soil must be tilled first. Instead of placing a right-wing regime on left-wing culture and society and expecting miracles, we must begin the work of planting seeds and watering them. 

A pine tree on a rock may look impressive in a photograph, but it will not become a forest. If you want a forest, you must create the soil first. 

Poet, Researcher of History and Philosophy

◆ Songsan 

A poet and researcher of history and philosophy, he previously served as the director of the Rhee Syngman Academy and currently works as a senior researcher for the Korean Modern and Contemporary History Research Association and as the representative of the philosophy forum Lyceum. He has published four poetry collections and co-translated 'Heroes of Hook Point.' Songsan is a pen name.