The characteristic of power in modern society is that there is no specific subject of power. Power silently permeates into society like a ghost and manipulates people in the dark. Truth is concealed in falsehood by the will of power and false truth is...
The characteristic of power in modern society is that there is no specific subject of power. Power silently permeates into society like a ghost and manipulates people in the dark. Truth is concealed in falsehood by the will of power and false truth is shown to us as truth. Record is on the top of this operation.
Record has power to let people believe certain thing as fact. Thought it had not happened, record can let people believe that it had happened and it is true. People believe that record is prepared based on fact; however, such belief is made by power. Anytime, dependent on situation, record can be manipulated, exaggerated, distorted or scaled down.
We talk about thoughts, cultural trend and sense of value of certain times. By what do you think those had been conveyed to us? Power willfully recorded those and we learned those by way of education and learning until they are inscribed in our memory. People close to power have known about such power of record than anybody else, since long time ago. And they use it as means for their own purpose. If we do not look straight into the relationship between power and record, we may become an accessory of power without knowing. If we open our eyes to the truth of power/record relation, the spirit of times, which is the base of power’s exploitation, would fall down in front of their eyes like a sand castle.
Purpose of this research is to warn on such danger of power in modern society. I also intend to show that record can also be used as a weapon to restrict power; contrary to its role as excellent tool supporting the oppression characteristic of power. But actual relation between record and power is not as simple as we think. It contains more fundamental undertone. It is not unrelated to the fact that everything is understood, interpreted, related and meant, focusing on human. Human relation is not fixed but always changing.
The relation between record and power is same. As various people exist, various human relations would be made. And all such relations would have different interests, dependent on their cultural environment, belonging group/country, mutual positions or thoughts. Therefore, it is impossible for us to simplify and understand the relation between record and power. However, even though we cannot understand all meanings contained by record/power relation, I think at least we can watch out for the danger of power, by knowing the fact that record and power have some kind of relation. And we can forward one more step from watch-out. We can restrain power abuse and search for the possibility of balanced power.
This research paper contains viewpoint on the facts which we had avoided long time. I intend to explore the original meanings on record/power, which we had avoided to look at long time, by way of post-modern thinking. And, I will raise legitimate suspicion on existing things, which we had believed up till now without any criticism, from this viewpoint. I will look at the undertone of record/power relation through this work in mental, physical and social context. As last, I will use those characteristics exposed by above work in exploring the possibility of power balance through record management in Korea. Here, the power balance would be among three parties of state, market and citizen, with record archive in the center.