The Path To Sokkuram Summary

In his article ‘The Path to Sokkuram’, Robert Hass develops the idea that reality is subjective in nature, and something that is sometimes based more on the overriding feelings and opinions of large groups of people than on an impartial analysis of the situation. Hass illustrates this through examples of various groups of people in Korea and the political ideologies they subscribe to, which he compares and contrasts with his own creeds.

In psychology, the projective hypothesis suggests that the way a person interprets a neutral stimulus is based on what’s occurring in their mind at the time, which is why it’s possible for something like a Rorschach test or a Thematic Appreciation Test to be interpreted to mean many different things to different people. When Hass visits the giant Buddha, he finds it overwhelmingly peaceful, and imagines it to be focusing on that peace, and on freedom. After a while, he notices a sign that says that the Buddha is actually guarding the Silla kingdom from marauding Japanese pirates. He finds this mildly amusing at first, another peace of propaganda from the older generation, but eventually he realises that both his and the older …show more content…
These are very different perspectives on what occurred during this period. The one offered by Robert is closer to a more widely accepted version of the truth, but he realises that disagreeing with McEwan’s interpretation would be a bad idea. When discussing history, what actually happened is often less important than what happened according to popular opinion, and in Pusan, that means McEwan’s take is the right one, as his is the more widely accepted sentiment in the