The New Normal of Corruption

| Joint government task force announces first-round results on the 10th
| LH employees' snark: "If you don't like it, switch jobs too"
| Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun: "This is unacceptable.. we'll investigate and hold them accountable"


This morning, browsing the mobile news, a thought crossed my mind:
"Right, the new-normal era of corruption has arrived."


Any job, any tech, any corruption —
the moment "it's not just me, everyone does it" kicks in,
"I studied TOEIC too, I went to college too, I studied abroad too"
the moment "it's not just our company, everyone can do this tech,"
society — and the market — meets a new normal, a new singularity.
And at that exact moment, individuals overcome the cognitive dissonance they'd been uncomfortable with.
"It's not just me, everyone's like this."


The corruption that used to belong to some politicians, top-tier senior officials,
is now spreading into the qualifications, capabilities, and authority of most civil servants.

Just as social/cultural/information asymmetry is fading, civil servants' information asymmetry seems to be fading too.

Corruption is hitting a new normal.

It's not "the poor are guilty, the rich are innocent" anymore —
it's "no-connections-guilty, connections-innocent."

In a land of one-eyed monkeys, having two eyes is treated as a disability.
There's a similar saying in the market these days — "uselessly high quality." Quality beyond what's needed is branded "unreasonable."
Lately it seems "uselessly honest" is in fashion in politics and the civil service. In that kind of organization, anyone uselessly pure or honest gets scolded for being stuck-in-their-ways or inflexible.

Between the minister who knows the civil-service ropes well and is quite flexible with land,
and the clean-cut politician who knows the political ropes well but is inflexible with land — who do you think wins?
My guess: it'll be a win-win.
Their relationship with each other is closer and more intimate than their relationship with citizens.

The rule-breaking of a powerful minority becomes "cunning."
They may not be punishable, but at least they can be openly condemned.
The rule-breaking of a powerful majority becomes "common sense."
Not punishable, and if you criticize it, you're the pathetic loser.

This is truly a new paradigm.
I don't think it can be changed. It's not a problem that can be carved out; you can't carve it out. More likely, the law and the common sense itself will change.

Those who aren't civil servants
curse civil servants and yet want to become civil servants.
They're forming their own new paradigm.

If a wound has progressed and a part of it is rotten,
it's painful but you can cut it out.
But if the progression has gone from a part to most of the body,
it's no longer "rotten" but "festering."

A festering wound kills you whether you cut it out or leave it alone. And the knife is held not by the ordinary citizens, nor by some politicians, but by ordinary civil servants.

Numbed corruption, individual consciences
outlasting each person's cognitive dissonance,
and now becoming able to shame the criticism of their own wrongdoing —
from that point on,

those who can't perform what used to be called corruption
end up becoming losers and unqualified.

Those who say corruption is also a skill,
those who say "if you don't like it, switch jobs too,"
those who now execute public duties by memorization skill.