[Admin] BTS: How Far Can Korean Culture, Opened to the World, Expand the "Language of Peace"?

 

Over the past decade or so, a new channel has emerged through which the world encounters Korea: te music and messages of BTS. Young people around the world have listened too songs in Korean, searched forthe meanings behind the lyric, and shared the experience of connecting with one another through music despite coming from different countries and ethnic backgrounds.

This is also why BTS's global influence cannot be explained simply through music-chart results or the scale of their concerts. Through their music, they have repeatedly spoken about how to love oneself, how to find one's voice, how to acknowledge and accept the difference of others, and how to connect with one another. At the heat of these messages lies what could broadly be called a "language of peace."

The peace being referred to here is not a grand political concept. Rather, it is closer to a way of relating to one another—one in which people respect each other, do not exclude others because of their differences, and acknowedge each person's life and voice.

Peace Begins with the Way We Relate to One Another

When we follow the messages BTS has shared over the years, the meaning of the word "peace" becomes considerably broader. Reducing violence, recognizing each other's differences, refusing to lose one's own voice, respecting the existence of others, and believing in the possibility of connection between people who are different—all of these can be understood as part of peace.

The "LOVE MYSELF" campaign launched by BTS and UNICEF in 2017 is a representative example.The campaign began with the goal of helping reduce violence and abuse against children and adolescents, bbut its message went beyond simply opposing violence.

It expanded from respecting and loving oneself to recognizing the dignity an dworth of others. It follows a progression from self-respect to respect for others, and from the individual tot the community.

If peace is understood as a way of relating to one another, this message carries important meaning. Rather than trying to charge or control one another, simply acknowledging each person's existence can itself become a starting point for peace.

Peace Begins with "Differences"

A similar message emerged when BTS visited the White House in the United States in 2022. SUGA spoke about how being different from someone else is not something that is wrong, emphasizing that equally begins with recognizing those differences. V also expressed the idea that everyone has their own history and that we should recognize and respect one another as valuable human beings.

Although these were brief remarks, they encapsulated the attitude BTS has demonstrated for many years. Peace does not mean reaching a state in which everyone becomes the same. Rather it means creating a state in which people can coexist despite their differences.

Even when people speak different languages, come from different cultures, or have grown up in different environments and developed different ways of thinking, peace is not about denying the existence of the other person. Instead, it is about building relationships while acknowledging those differences—a far more realistic form of peace.

The way BTS has built relationships with its global fandom resembles this as well. Their countless fans do not all speak the same language, nor do they come from the same cultural backgrounds. Yet they have translated one another's languages, shared emotions, and built relationships around a common love of music. Rather than eliminating differences, they have demonstrated that connection is possible even when differences remain.

What It Means to Find Your Own Name and Voice

RM's speech at the United Nations headquarters in 2018 revealed this philosophy even more clearly. While speaking about his own shortcomings and fears, he encouraged people to begin by loving themselves, find their own names and voices, and tell their own stories.

What is important is that the subject of the message was always the individual. Regardless of where someone was born or the environment in which they grew up,each person has a life and a story of their own. This is also an important characteristic of their own. This is also an important characteristic of the worldview BTS has built through its music: an attempt to see people not as members of some broad category or as an image, but as individuals in their own right.

Someone may speak a different language, live within a different culture, and hold completely different values. Yet that person is still an individual with their own story of anxiety and hope, failure and growth. The more this perspective expands, the more the distance between people can narrow.

The Expansive Power of Peace Through Culture

One fascinating aspect of BTS's global success is that they did not become global by erasing the elements that made them Korean. They entered the world carrying the language and experiences they had developed in Korea.

Specific experiences—Seoul and Ilsan, schools and practice rooms, the anxieties and competitions faced by young people, self-loathing and growth—crossed national and cultural boundaries and connected with the experiences of others. Cultural differences did not disappear. Instead, BTS demonstrated the possibility of empathizing with one another even when those differences remain. This is the expansive power of peace through culture.

Culture does not command people to charge directly. Instead, it allows them to briefly experience someone else's life. As people listen to music, read lyrics, and encounter stories, someone who once seemed distant can begin to feel like a more tangible human being.

Someone may initially be viewed only as a member of a particular country or ethnic group. But the moment we learn about their favorite music, their worries, their sadness, and their derams, they move from being a category to becoming a person. Perhaps peace can begin with precisely these small shifts in perspective.

BTS and ARMY: A "Community of Translation"

The relationships BTS and ARMY have created around the world can also be viewed from this perspective. People from different countries listened to the same songs and translated the lyrics. One person conveyed their understanding of a message to another, while explaining expressions from different cultures and learning one another languages.

Translation is not simply the act of changing words from one language into another. It is a process of trying to understand the language and cultural context of another person. In that sense, the translation culture within the BTS fandom can be viewed as a small form of peaceful practice.

Rather than immediately rejecting something they do not understand, people make an effort to understand it. Rather than giving up on a relationship because of a language barrier, they look for ways to cross that barrier. Much of the connection created by BTS's global fandom has been made possible precisely through this process of translation and sharing.

The Expansive Potential of LOVE MYSELF

Among the many messages BTS has repeatedly shared, perhaps the most important is "LOVE MYSELF." On the surface, it may appear to be a personal message about love oneself. But when we follow the trajectory of the actual campaign and their statements, it does not end with self-love. Instead it expands toward the idea that someone who respects themselves can also recognize the dignity of others.

This structure resembles the principles of peace as well. It begins with acknowledging one's own existence and moves toward acknowledging the existence of others.

If peace cannot be achieved through grand declarations alone, then these personal attitudes also matter. Someone who constantly despises themselves may find it difficult to respect others, while someone who feels that their own voices being suppressed may lose the emotional space needed to listen to the voices of others.

This is why BTS's message connects an individual's inner world with their relationships within society. Peace begins with our relationship with ourselves and expands into our relationships with others.

What BTS Has Shown Us May Be a "Technology of Peace"

When BTS's various activities and statements are viewed as part of one continues thread, several common themes emerge. Through LOVE MYSELF, they spoke about self-respect. At the United Nations, they urged people not to lose their voices. At the White House, they emphasized that being different is no wrong.

Each statement was made in a different place and context, but the direction was similar not erasing people. It means refusing to reduce an individual to a single group or image and instead seeing them as  person with their own name and life.

Perhaps this is the most practical "technology of peace" that BTS has shown the world. Before declaring peace as some grand ideal, it is about respecting one's own existence, acknowledging the differences of others, and building relationships in which people are willing to listen to one another's stories.

it is a way of bringing the unit of peace down from a vast community to a single person. And BTS and ARMY have demonstrated in practice that the small relationships created in this way can expand on a global scale.

What Korean Culture, Having Gone Global, Can Give Back to Us

The emergence of BTS is one of the most representative examples of Korean culture expanding throughout the world. But now, we can also ask the question in the opposite direction: If the ways of creating connection that Korean culture has generated around the world were brought back into our own society, what might change?

Countless people around the world have translated Korean lyrics in order to understand their meaning, while fans from different cultural backgrounds have listened to the same music and found common ground. Their individual identities did not disappear in the process. Relationships were created despite the existence of differences. This experience may be one of the most valuable assets Korean culture has gained through globalization.

Peace is probably not a state in which everyone thinks alike. It is closer to a state in which people can continue to see one another as human beings even when their thought, cultures, and life experiences are different. The language BTS has spread throughout the world for so long points toward precisely this idea.

From loving oneself to respecting others, from respecting others to connecting with different cultures, and from understanding different cultures to seeing strangers as fellow human beings, the language of peace gradually expands.

This is not to say that BTS can resolve conflicts around the world. There is no reason to expect them to take on such a role. What is meaningful, however, is that the language and actions they have repeatedy demonstrated over the years leave us with an important question.

If people from different parts of the world have been able to understand one another's existence through songs in Korean, then how often do we, in our everyday lives, truly see eople who are different from us as individuals?

The place where peace is ultimately completed may not be a grand stage, but the space between one person and another. It means acknowledging differences without abandoning the dignity of the other person, making an effort to listen to the voices of those whose people who are different from us also also love, worry, and dream just as we do.

Perhaps the most important asset that the Korea culture having opened itself to the world, can give bak to us is precisely this language of peace—and the possibility of expanding that language.

What BTS has shown th world ove the years is the possibility that peace does not have to gegin with a grand declaration. It can begin with the simple attitude of seeing another person, all the way through, as a person.