I Don't Place People Below Me From the Start

Rather than the expression “protecting the weak,” I find “not placing people below you from the start” more accurate.

The moment you call someone weak, you may already be looking at them from a position above. Even the word “protect” sometimes carries the gaze of the powerful bestowing something on those who aren't.

That is not the relationship I want.

I see people as equals first.

Money or no money, high education or low, whatever the occupation, eloquent or not, socially powerful or not — I don't believe any of it decides a human being's height.

Of course, real gaps exist. Resources differ, starting lines differ, and access to information and opportunity differs. That is precisely why institutions and systems are needed.

But the purpose of those systems should not be to pity someone and pull them up from above — it should be to guarantee equal opportunity to people who were equal from the start.

I don't first see anyone as an object of protection.

I see them as one person who can choose, judge, fail, and stand up again on their own.

What's needed is rights, not charity; respect, not pity; fair rules, not one-sided protection.

So this is how I'd like to say it:

rather than protecting the weak, I never place a person below me in the first place.

The equality I have in mind is not making everyone identical.

It is that no one is placed, by birth, in a seat lower than anyone else's.

And that each person is treated as the same kind of human being, free to build a life from their own abilities and choices.

That is closer to what I mean by equality.

I don't place people below me from the start. Rather than the instinct of designating someone weak and then protecting them, I look first at each person as an independent agent, and at the structures and rules that would let them move.

And I admit this disposition of mine up front.

Because I don't believe I represent every value.

There are things I watch closely, and things others see better. Some look first at care, some at freedom, some at community, some at safety.

The moment a system's designer believes their own values are the finished answer, the system becomes trapped inside that one person's worldview.

So I don't force myself to define even the things I don't see.

I leave a margin for others to enter.

That margin is not a defect.

It is the space a system needs in order to outlive a single person.

Others must be able to question from their own perspective, revise, and add new values. Only then can a system exceed its designer's limits.

I am not trying to be the person with all the answers.

I want to be the person who builds a structure that doesn't collapse when different people add answers of their own.

That is what I believe a system designer's role is.

Rather than being either a cold person or a warm person,

if I had to choose — I think I'm something like metal. Iron, or steel.

I don't assume that because someone's speech is slow, their thinking is shallow.

Their expression may be clumsy; arranging sentences may take them longer. But that alone is no reason to treat their thoughts and feelings lightly.

For example, suppose someone speaks slowly and takes a long while to finish one sentence. Many people complete the sentence for them mid-way, or decide they already know what was meant and end the conversation.

I wait, as much as I can, until that person has spoken to the end.

Even if it takes a little longer, I listen.

If I can't hear well, I lean my body in and listen.

I ask again what they mean to say, and confirm what thought lives inside it.

The reason is not that I consider them someone requiring special consideration.

It's that I believe their words deserve to be heard to the end, exactly as much as mine.

The equality I believe in reveals itself more clearly in these small acts than in grand declarations.

Not placing a person below you from the start.

Waiting until their words are finished.

Leaning in when you can't hear well.

And listening, as far as possible, to the very end.

Asking again when you didn't catch it.

I don't assume slow speech means shallow thought.

I have a friend with a mild intellectual disability. I understand, to some degree, why that friend gives so much of his heart to people, and sometimes clings.

If anything, it is Korean society itself that carries the severe disability — the inability to see a person simply as a person and wait, to the end, to hear what they are saying.

When speech is slow, people cut in, speak for them, assume they've caught the gist. They judge first, through prejudice.

I just wait.

I listen to the end, to what he's saying.

If I can't hear well, I lean in and listen.

Because I want to know what that person is thinking.

Honestly, there are many moments I feel this friend thinks more deeply than I do.

So I do not treat the speed of speech and the depth of thought as the same thing.

This is the equality I believe in.

Not placing a person below you from the start.

Knowing that even if their words come a little slowly, their story deserves to be heard to the end.

And actually hearing it — to the end.