Ruling People Power Party lawmaker Jeong Jeom-sig (left) and main opposition Democratic Power of Korea lawmaker Park Hong-bae hold a demonstration for and against President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment, respectively, in front of the Constitutional Court in Jongno-gu, Seoul on March 25. Reporter Kwon Do-hyun

“The time of the Constitutional Court” is lengthening. Like the time of March, which is neither winter nor spring, Korean society is enduring a dismal season of unexpected “value reversal.” Faith in democracy is shaken, and the lines between good and evil are blurred. The future of values that the community believed to share to a minimum is as cloudy as a dusty spring day covered by yellow dust. Although it may be the tip of the conservative, I never imagined that claims such as "emergency martial law is a two-way fault" would go viral. Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo said in a YouTube broadcast on March 18, “The sudden decision to impose martial law is wrong, and how badly the opposition parties behaved to let the government make such a decision?" So the conclusion is “both are at fault.” A column in a conservative newspaper said that martial law is something that President Yoon Suk-yeol and main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) leader Lee Jae-myung should “jointly take responsibility for.” It seems that they regard the impeachment of the president as a matter of distinguishing between right and wrong over an assault case and arguing for insurance liability for a car accident. While it is understandable that Yoon would want to get rid of Lee, who is an eyesore, since he had already caused havoc, there is a line to keep even with his shamelessness. The good news is that the court acquitted Lee of the appeal in election law violation on the 26th, so Yoon will be “like a dog that has been chasing a chicken watching a roof.”

The most serious pathology of value reversal is the lack of distinction between degrees of “evil.” It is called “yangbiron,” meaning denying both sides’ claims, and if it becomes severe, it shakes the gravity of evil and reverses it, and mixes cause and effect. In the end, it aims to neutralize evil as if it were “nothing.” If you can package it in a way that makes it look like balance, it will be technically the best. Balance is about being politically fair. It requires a keen sense of the weight of good and evil. This is what gives balance its principle and authority. This is what distinguishes it from yangbiron.

Not all yangbiron is the same. If the so-called “mechanical balance” is the balance of “naive fools” who failed to weigh evil properly, the problem is the “designed yangbiron” that is built from the start. This sinister yangbiron aims to blur the “dimensions of evil” to attack and defend any political position and “fairness” is out of concern. It is said that all evil is nothing but evil. Since they are the same evil, they force reflection without distinction. Then, they become insensitive to evil as the hypocrites of yangbiron aim for. Martial law of negligence comes from this structure. Evil is all evil, and there is no difference. It forces reflection on the same evil without distinction. As a result, we become desensitized to evil, which is exactly what the hypocrites are aiming for. The “martial law that is mutually at fault” comes from this structure.

As it is increasingly internalized based on yangbiron, the impulsive martial law declaration turns into a patriotic act. The ruling People Power Party (PPP), which said “emergency martial law is wrong” at the beginning of the impeachment, has now changed to “martial law to save the country” and even to “(martial law) is a reform for the future.” Throughout history, we have heard many outrageous “Yongbieocheonga” that bow to power, but we have never heard or seen such a hymn of evil that glorifies evil deeds in a 180-degree reversal. We are witnessing the revival of the language and “evil” of a dictatorship that seized power at gunpoint and oppressed its citizens more than 60 years ago.

There are levels to evil. Can it be said that the crime of an old loan shark who backs up the weak and Raskolnikov's crime of killing the old woman are the same? If the evil of the elderly is prevalent in an unequal society, the act of murder is an evil that destroys humanity itself. The “half fault” that has ravaged politics cannot be equated with the evil that has destroyed the separation of powers and robbed people of their basic rights.

The very idea of punishing evil with greater evil is a lie that deceives itself. Like Raskolnikov, who rationalized his murder as an act of superhumanity, but ultimately needed the old woman's property, there is always personal greed at the bottom of evil deeds. This is why the whole world laughs at Yoon’s lie of "martial law declaration for warning" aiming for the series of impeachment and budget cuts by the opposition parties, and assumes that Yoon is afraid of having his dirty laundry exposed.

Value reversal is a serious disease that erodes the ethical foundations of a community. It covers the identity of a nation and society with a cancerous tumor and kills it. When the difference in evil is not recognized, “ordinary evil” that follows orders without guilt, such as the Holocaust of the Nazis, becomes possible. In this way, yangbiron destroys the human conscience. The conscience of the citizens and soldiers, who stood up in screams on the night of martial law, when their hearts were bleeding, must be vomiting blood now.

We must never allow “martial law yangbiron” because we will all be victimized by its evil. The parties to yangbiron are no exception. The monster destroys everything. It was not the chaos of Weimar that unleashed the Nazis on the world, but the craftiness that does not distinguish between the levels of evil. In order to prove that our nature is not “evil,” we must not tolerate yangbiron. It is the pride of a dignified human being.