Kari Lake, signature verification, and "high-trust societies"

So Kari Lake's crusade continues, and she has evidence—now brought up in court—that there were shenanigans with signature verification for mail-in ballots.

Liberal Hivemind brings up the notion of the "high-trust society," and he uses Japan as an example of one. In Japan (and it's true here in Korea, too), you can walk into one of those automated convenience stores, pick out your items, pay for them electronically, and walk out like civilized people. In America, our guy argues, such a store would be ransacked and emptied out in short order. Unfortunately, that's probably true. So from Hivemind's perspective, America is a low-trust society.

I see signs that America is becoming a low-trust society, but it's not completely there yet. I've long argued that, here in Korea (I don't know enough about Japan to say), society has been low-trust for a long time. Koreans generally assume that a stranger is out to fuck you over. If there's none of that nebulous jeong (very roughly, warm fellow-feeling) in your relationship, then Koreans can be very circumspect and stand-offish. Koreans are constantly looking for loopholes, opportunistically seizing any random advantage that comes their way. With strangers, it's a competition, a free-for-all. Watch how Koreans drive to see this up close—or how aggressively they behave when entering subways or elevators.* Watch the general lack of consideration in public spaces. I'd say there's more evidence of a low-trust ethos in Korea than of a high-trust one. But as I said, America is changing as my fellow citizens also competitively seek advantages and fuck each other over. 

One area where Americans show high-trust behavior is in how we supposedly value things like contracts. When an American business team hammers out a contract with a Korean business team, the American side assumes the matter is settled for the term of the contract. You've signed; that's an ironclad promise. So it's surprising and disappointing when the Korean team comes back a few months later, hat in hand, and says, "Circumstances have changed. We need to renegotiate the contract." The American reaction is one of betrayal; Koreans appear to be dishonest and untrustworthy—flaky and disrespectful of the very concept of a contract. Of course, it's more complicated than that, starting with the fact that a contract is a Western concept that hasn't sunken into Korean culture as deeply as it has in the West. In Korea, many contracts are merely pieces of paper that get you through a bureaucratic hurdle and on to the next phase. The only time contracts seem to matter is when you go to court (ask me how I know this). American expats who work in Korea know the experience of feeling fucked over by the Korean system. It happens a lot. So there's still a clash of American high-trust values and Korean low-trust values. Things are changing as America deteriorates, yes, but in many ways, things are still the same, with a high proportion of Americans continuing to believe in contracts, rule of law, and Western-style notions of justice.

Anyway, all that is a side discussion. I wish Kari Lake well; the judge in this case is about to make a decision, and given the crookedness of the American legal system in general, I suspect the decision will go against Lake, which means she'll just appeal and appeal again. I'm glad she's not letting this go. The left doesn't let anything go, and the right's problem has long been its lack of tenaciousness thanks to a deep streak of laziness combined with a misplaced sense of "we're better than that" dignity. This is why so many conservatives hate Trump: they're repulsed and aghast that a man might actually fight. Until the right grows some balls and becomes actively combative, nothing's going to change. What's happening now is the "I care; you don't; I win" rule from the TV show "Battlestar Galactica." Lawyer Romo Lampkin illustrates this rule to Apollo at one point: the person with more invested in the situation will always roll over the person who chooses to remain politely indifferent. Politeness is a losing strategy when you're at war. The first step to success is realizing you're at war.

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*Granted, some of this could be explained away as urban-versus-rural behavior. But even when I lived in the small town of Hayang, near Daegu, I saw plenty of unnecessarily inconsiderate conduct. I don't think the problem is uniquely urban at all.