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For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

nytimes.com

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Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#71

Post by DanBC »

moksly wrote: post #69
madengr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Mr. Kim owns his place in the building, bought for $30,000 after he sold his house in a better neighborhood 20 years ago to help pay for his late wife’s cancer bills.” How does that fit into universal health care?

Even in countries like Denmark we’re forced to deny certain cancer treatments because the cost of their medicine is so high it would cripple our entire healthcare system to buy a few patients 6 more months to live. You can debate the morality of such a discussion, or how the private medicine industry is allowed to charge these prices, but the effect is that some cancer treatments are only available through private in…

> to buy a few patients 6 more months to live.

More like two weeks, and with a lot of painful side effects.

https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2097

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#72

Post by sgift »

redis_mlc wrote: post #62
refurb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. "Universal healthcare" in some countries doesn't mean "we'll pay for everything including the latest and greatest cancer drugs."

> the latest and greatest cancer drugs. My understanding is that cancer drugs are considered to be experimental, so there's no "latest and greatest" with any guarantee. Also, US doctors usually prefer to not get cancer treatment when interviewed, since they know "how the sausage is made."

> Also, US doctors usually prefer to not get cancer treatment when interviewed, since they know "how the sausage is made."

I would like to ask for a source please. Maybe they don't want cancer treatment in very special circumstances (e.g. cancer with extreme low survival rates, new experimental drug with very painful side effects), but in general and for most cancers? That sounds rather outlandish.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#73

Post by Gatsky »

redis_mlc wrote: post #62
refurb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. "Universal healthcare" in some countries doesn't mean "we'll pay for everything including the latest and greatest cancer drugs."

> the latest and greatest cancer drugs. My understanding is that cancer drugs are considered to be experimental, so there's no "latest and greatest" with any guarantee. Also, US doctors usually prefer to not get cancer treatment when interviewed, since they know "how the sausage is made."

This comment is wrong twice.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#74

Post by netsharc »

2drew3 wrote: post #13

For those who watched the movie, I found the ending interesting. I won't spoil it for everyone else, but Bong Joon-ho made his perspective unambiguous: he's not a believer in social mobility in Korea. 6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient…

Bill Gates had rich parents, who bought a computer for his private school (ok maybe that's an urban legend, but Wikipedia says: When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers' Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the students.).

Zuck went to a private school.

Not really basement dwellers...

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#75

Post by watwut »

barry-cotter wrote: post #41
totorovirus wrote: post #28

One of the most interesting culture in South korea is that under treated low class people (dirt-spoon class) don't really try disrupt current society model. To elaborate, people put poverty on their own responsibility rather than complaining about structural inequality. The rage towards class inequality is emitted at competition for higher ranked university and the reward of being in a prestigious college.

Always and everywhere the people at the bottom of the class hierarchy have enough problems that complaining about inequality or engaging in politics is not a priority. Social unrest is always about conflict within the elite or wannabe elite. The American Revolution was led by the richest of Americans. The French Revolution was led by the highly educated as was the Russian one. We have one historical example of a succ…

I think that you are simplifying those events quite a lot. The willingness of "bottom of the class hierarchy" to join counts for quite a lot. That is involvement and engagement in politics. The actual bottom is despised by everyone and comes with host of social problems. One of massive sparks for these political groups is fear that I will become part of the bottom.

Both French Revolution and Russian one involved quite a lot of sides that fought among themselves and quite a lot of uneducated mobs attacking this or that place - these lost quickly. And yes, they are led by people in position to be leaders with education that gives them advantage. That does not mean the bottom is passive.

Also, counting only successful attempts is probably not good enough. The slaves were running away and were resentful of inequality. What they did not had was the remote option to engage in politics - but they did engaged in it a lot when the opportunity arose. The subsequent suppression of black voting and politics did not happened because they were engaged or passive - it was because they were active.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#76

Post by mcv »

2drew3 wrote: post #13

For those who watched the movie, I found the ending interesting. I won't spoil it for everyone else, but Bong Joon-ho made his perspective unambiguous: he's not a believer in social mobility in Korea. 6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient…

Looking at billionaires who came from well-to-do middle class is not quite the same as looking at social mobility of the poor. I don't think any of the Forbes top 10 started out as Parasite-style basement dwellers. There's undoubtedly some exceptions, but in general poor in the US have very little social mobility. They get stuck in debt and shitty jobs.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#77

Post by mschuster91 »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #68
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caregiving, in-home nursing care, rehabilitation and long-term care (assisted living/nursing home/hospice) should be provided by a different social safety net department because of it's specialized and complex nature that also requires licensure and auditing (making sure elderly and disabled aren't abused or neglected). Single-payer, universal healthcare should also include (all but cosmetic and elective procedures):…

Hearing aids are insanely overpriced for being a glorified microphone and earphone. $30 in parts.

It's not the parts that are expensive, it's the R&D and the initial and ongoing adjustments that drive up the price.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#78

Post by mcv »

Aunche wrote: post #14
cycrutchfield wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lied and cheated constantly because they were forced to due their poverty. It is absolutely a movie about class inequality and resentment.

They were absolutely terrible people. They weren't so poor that they had to trigger an old lady's dangerous allergy just to get the mother a job.

There's definitely a point in the movie where they squander your sympathy. The kids tutoring their kids isn't so bad (though certainly the second one is more a con than honest tutoring), but as soon as they start to push the other employees out of their jobs, they're advancing at the cost of other poor people. Though some of those others are also dishonest, like the lady with her husband living secretly in the basement.

On the one hand, it's easy to dismiss them all as evil people, but on the other hand, people must be pretty desperate to live like that and do things like that. Extreme economic inequality puts a lot of strain on social relationships.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#79

Post by jlawson »

dsego wrote: post #63
remote_phone wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren’t scumbags because they were poor. They were poor because they were scumbags. That was what I saw. They were an entire family of cheaters and liars but none of the other characters in the same economic class were like that. The rich people were never mean or overbearing to less well off people and treated their workers well. The workers were very loyal to them until the family lied and cheated their way in…

What was the difference between the rich and the poor family? Who is the parasite? What is it exactly that the rich family does better or gives to this world that they deserve the exceptionally better lifestyle? Are they more intelligent? Surely not, since they were duped by the other family. Do they really care about other people and what's going on in their surroundings? Not really, they never bothered to figure ou…

Is it made clear what the rich father does for work? We have no idea how great his contribution to society could be.

He could be more intelligent and productive than the poor family. Just because some people deceive you (in your off time) doesn't mean they're smarter than you in any general sense.

They do care who serves them; that's why they fire their driver for his perceived infractions, and housekeeper for her illness. They're looking out for the safety of their family.

You compare their behavior at the party. The rich guy held his nose. The poor guy stabbed someone to death. You complain about him not helping the wounded people - well who wounded them in the first place?

The poor dad isn't forced to play a clown any more than the rich dad; they're inhabiting equal roles in the playacting. Nobody's humiliated or owned; the dad is quite apologetic about the whole thing.

Re: For Seoul’s poor, class strife in ‘Parasite’ is daily reality

#80

Post by mcv »

Aunche wrote: post #58
Barrin92 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the key findings of research done by Robert Sapolsky is that poverty, on a biological level, increases the tendency to prioritize short-term thinking over long-term thinking. This is not surprising, because people in poverty need to be opportunistic to survive. Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character, it's a valid strategy to make it day to day. Being generous is something one ha…

>Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character I can tell that Dick Cheney is a shitty person, even though he donated more money than I'll make in several lifetimes to charity. Likewise, I can tell that the Kim family had poor moral character, even though they were in poverty. > it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that makes others look down on them as undeser…

Had they stopped at the tutoring, nobody would have a problem with it. It's when they started to hurt other (poor) people in order to advance that the situation turned to shit. Of course had the movie stopped at the tutoring, it would have been a boring movie. It's taking the situation to the extreme that makes it an interesting movie. I really hope that in real life, such a family would be happy to have their kids in cushy tutoring jobs and use that windfall to improve their situation.
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