The benefit of face saving as a cultural idea
This month, one of the hundreds of scandals from the Trump administration was ICE arresting a few hundred workers from South Korea, who came to the US on visas in order to help US companies learn more about battery technology. Capacity-building and all that shit, to help the US be more like South Korea in that regard. The fact that they had valid visas (or at least weren't told they didn't, were let into the country for years etc) didn't matter to ICE. And Trump eventually wanted them to stay but almost none did: who'd want to stay in the US after being treated like that?
Many of them have told their story once back home. They were handcuffed or put into zip ties. They were held in the same conditions that ICE typically holds people. Possibly better than average but still horrific. Like usual they were asked to sign ridiculous things and their embassy representative said to just do it, say anything you have to in order to get out. Now that they're back and South Korean authorities are aware of the full details, this is becoming a major international incident. Not only is South Korea's investment in the US under question (as well as willingness to send people), but some politicians are starting to question the whole military alliance and Korea's reliance on the US as a "trusted partner".
This part has all been in the news cycle but it made me think of saving face.
This is something a lot of East Asian cultures have including South Korea. Some basic ideas here. And like all aspects of all cultures it can have its downsides or cases where it makes things difficult. However here it's proven quite useful to South Korea.
I think that the issue of the handcuffs is one that wouldn't have mattered as much if ICE were arresting nationals from countries where saving face wasn't as much of a thing (eg. Australia). In which case the source of the issue might have been the terrible conditions, the arbitrary nature of the decision etc. And those are important. But the workers were marched in handcuffs. They did nothing wrong. ICE subjected them to a humiliating procedure and I think this is what will end up biting the Trump administration more than the other things. Because South Korea is making a big deal out of this probably because of this humiliation. As they should.
To me it's a good reminder that harm can't necessarily be easily quantified and we should be wary of trying to reduce it to just the "objective" measures like the details of the workers' imprisonment. Because that doesn't capture it all. Harm is harm against people, it's doing what harms them. Which has a subjective element.
As Lindsay Ellis said in her amazing video, talks of casualty counts in atrocities can also obscure the fact. (I should talk, as someone who built a casualty bot.) Because if people aren't horrified enough to act based on the subjective experience, why think that they'd be convinced if you quote an ever-increasing number at them? We should consider the loss of face as enough of a reason to act.