‘Aesthetics of responsibility’ from the peak of power: President Lee Jae-myung’s advice to the ruling party > News

The key point presented by President Lee Jae-myung is that the language of the ruling party must change. His theory is that while the opposition party is a place to shout out ideals while holding up the spear of struggle and checks, the ruling party must be the entity that cultivates reality with the heart of farmers and serves as a vessel to embody the lives of the people. The President emphasized that the ruling party must move away from the ‘language of belief’, which only insists on beliefs, and switch to the ‘language of responsibility’, which proves the results of policies and takes responsibility for the lives of the people. This is a passage that reminds us of the ruling party's essential responsibility to gain the public's trust through actual national performance, not through slogans or inflammatory claims. It is clarified that the attitude of taking infinite responsibility for the consequences of one's actions as a subject entrusted with power is the beginning of true responsible politics.

The philosophical foundation of this message lies in the three qualities of a politician emphasized by German sociologist Max Weber. These are a passionate passion for a cause, an infinite sense of responsibility for one's actions, and a cool-headed sense of balance that balances reality and ideals. The President especially emphasized that the ‘ethics of responsibility’, which predicts the outcome and takes responsibility for the resulting repercussions, is much more important for politicians than the ‘ethics of belief’ that only puts good intentions first and is indifferent to the results. This is a warning that if you are absorbed in ideals and ignore the constraints of reality, you can easily fall into self-righteousness and camp logic. On the other hand, it is also a cool-headed diagnosis that if you become complacent with reality, you can become an opportunist. In the end, he emphasized that politics is a high-level art that harmonizes a scholar's critical awareness and a merchant's sense of reality.

In the political world, the dominant interpretation of the President's message is that it is an indirect warning to the leadership, including Representative Chung Cheong-rae, who has led the recent strong trend within the party. It appears that the judgment that the trend of seeking to unite within the party by emphasizing clarity, such as the complete abolition of the prosecution's supplementary investigative authority, is far from the principle of ‘inclusiveness and integration’ ordered by the President has played a role. The President criticized ‘realists without ideals’ for becoming opportunists, and ‘idealists without reality’ for becoming incompetent propagandists, and pointed out how dangerous it is for politics to focus only on specific factions or strong supporters. As we have won through the power of the parts and come to represent the whole, we have once again emphasized that it is now essential to have inclusiveness like a large ocean to stop exclusion and monopoly and mediate conflicts.

The President's order that conflicts should be minimized through constant dialogue and communication rather than confrontation and exclusion has significant implications. This can also be interpreted as pressure to face the reality of the ruling party, which is experiencing internal strife after the local elections, and to be evaluated for its ability to run state affairs by breaking away from the logic of struggle and caring for the people's livelihood. The President emphasized the heavy responsibility that the lives of 52 million people are in the hands of the ruling party, and urged people to take a broader and more distant view. This is evaluated as going beyond simply resolving intra-party conflicts and posing a fundamental challenge on how the ruling party will innovate itself and represent the entire people as a responsible political force that carries the country's fate.