Best-selling author Mark Manson visited Korea to learn about “depression” in Korea./YouTube
Mark Manson, the most well-known influencer in the United States, shed light on “depression” in Korean society. Manson is a best-selling author who has written popular self-help books such as “The Art of Not Paying Attention.” He pointed out that the profound problem of depression among Koreans is behind the global attention that Korea has received economically and culturally, and that this is a result of ignoring the strengths of Confucianism and capitalism and maximizing their weaknesses.
Manson recently posted a video titled “Travelling the Most Depressing Country in the World” via his YouTube channel, which has 1.4 million subscribers. Manson, who visited Korea, met with Americans living in Korea, psychologists, and psychiatrists to examine depression in Korean society.
Best-selling author Mark Manson analyzed that Korean society ignored the advantages of Confucianism and capitalism and maximized the disadvantages, which had a negative impact on the mental health of Koreans./YouTube
Manson believed that the cause of depression in Korean society was Confucianism and capitalism. “Unfortunately, Korea has maximized the worst aspects of Confucianism – shame and judgment – while abandoning intimacy with family and community,” he said. “Meanwhile, they promoted the worst aspects of capitalism – flashy materialism and the obsession with making money.” emphasizing that the best parts, self-expression and individualism, have been ignored,” he said. He said: “Conflicting values have led to tremendous stress and despair.”
StarCraft Player Training Camp./YouTube
To understand Korea’s mental health crisis, Manson first analyzed the “StarCraft success story.” Nick Plot, an American game commentator who has lived in Korea for 15 years, explained that in the past, in Korea, about 10 StarCraft players lived together in a dormitory and trained together. An ecosystem has been created where players share secrets and compete with each other to grow each other further. “From that point on, Koreans started to dominate (the gaming industry),” Float said.
StarCraft’s formula for success has also worked in many fields, including K-pop and sports. Even big companies like Samsung are setting up dormitories near their companies. “You create an environment where people can focus on what they do, and then you apply intense social pressure and competition to get the most out of them,” Manson said. “This formula has proven effective, but it also creates psychological discouragement.” .” .
Manson explained that Korea’s emphasis on competition lies in its history, including the Korean War. He said: “Korea’s economic growth after the war was not a matter of choice but a matter of survival” and “to build the country economically, the government had to create an absolutely cruel education system. “As a result, it has placed a huge burden on young Koreans.”
Author Seohyun Lee, a psychology graduate from Korea University, said: “Competition is fierce not only in education but in all sectors of Korean society. There are many perfectionists in Korea. “If you don’t get 100 points, you are considered a failure,” he said, “this is closely related to depression.” “You always feel like you’ve failed,” he said.
In response, Manson explained the concept of “cognitive distortion.” One of the most common cognitive distortions is “all or nothing” thinking. The Korean education system has imposed this mentality on young Koreans, which has had a negative impact on their mental health, she said.
5 Factors That Influence Depression Organized by Mark Manson. These include physical health, stress, social isolation, lack of choice and shame. /YouTube
Manson explained that some of the factors that contribute to depression include physical health, stress, social isolation and loneliness, lack of independent choices, and embarrassment. Among them, Koreans tend to feel the rest of the factors except physical health more strongly than people of other cultures, and this is analyzed as related to Confucianism, which has influenced Korean society as a whole.
In Confucian culture, society revolves around families rather than individuals. The more you sacrifice for your family, the better you become. Even if you feel depressed and stop working, you will be treated as a “lazy person” who fails to fulfill his obligations to his family. For this reason, Manson said, Koreans are embarrassed to talk about mental health. In fact, Korea’s suicide rate is the highest among OECD countries, but the rate of depression diagnoses is very low. According to one study, only 7% of people suffering from depression seek medical help.
In particular, Korean employees often lack autonomy in making their own life choices. You must match your working time with your boss’s working time, and you must follow your boss’s company dinner unconditionally. If you don’t live up to these expectations, you feel “shame.” Because they are constantly evaluated harshly by Confucian values within society or their families, they come to feel inferior.
“Korea is making extraordinary achievements in both art and science,” Manson said. “The mental health crisis is a side effect of the most astonishing success in world history,” she said. “The driving force that has made Korea strong is not its remarkable economic growth or its dominance of popular culture, but the rarer and more widespread extraordinary resilience. “Koreans always look for a way out of a crisis, just like they survived the Japanese colonial period and the war,” he said.
Furthermore, “Koreans must now look deep within themselves. “It’s a new challenge they have to face,” she said, adding: “I believe they will find a way.”
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