RM's 12/1 IG STORY

My commentary in green
Original Korean in black.The text in bold italics (except when citing titles) are the parts RM underlined.
Translation in purple

Excerpt from The palliative society by Byung-Chul Han or 고통의 사회

...지 않았다.
...did not.

예술가들은 상업을 멀리했다. 예술은 “세상에 대한 낯섦”이라는 아도르노의 격언은 아직 유효했다.
Artists distanced themselves from commerce. Adorno's dictum that "art is estrangement from the world" was still valid.

아도르노의 말이 맞다면 쾌적한 예술이란 모순이다.
If Adorno is right, comfortable art is a contradiction.

예술은 낯설게 하고, 교란하고, 당황하게 하고, 고통을 줄 수도 있어야 한다.
Art must be able to estrange, to disturb/disrupt, to unsettle/embarrass, and even to inflict pain.

예술은 어딘가 다른 곳에 머무른다.
Art resides somewhere else/in another place.

예술의 집은 낯선 곳에 있다.
The home of art is in the unfamiliar.

다름 아닌 낯섦이 예술작품의 아우라를 만들어낸다.
It is precisely unfamiliarity that creates the aura of the artwork.

고통은 완전한 타자가 들어오는 균열이다.
Pain is the crack through which the Other enters.

"the Other" in the philosophical sense - so not just "the other guy over there" but the ones radically othered, something that cannot be absorbed into sameness.

Part of the reason this translation took me longer is because, as is true for literature in English, philosophical texts often blow my mind and require ALL of my 3 braincells to work SO hard to hold each word, each sentence together to understand the author's intended spirit/meaning/heart as they're trying to unpack, usually very lofty/abstract concepts through their own interpretations.

For a little bit of background, I have a masters in ethics which necessarily includes A LOT OF reading of philosophers and ethicists which, yes, blew my brain apart [in really important and good ways] many many times over

I want to do justice not only to the sillypants nuanced translations - but as best I can - especially for those learning Korean (and myself!) to all the different kinds of art/creation that BTS might introduce to us. So thank you for reading and for your patience! okay..onward..

완전한 타자의 부정성임야말로 예술로 하여금 지배적 질서에 대한 반대 이야기를 할 수 있게 해준다.
It is precisely the negativity (or inherent resisting quality) of the Other that enables art to offer a counter-narrative to the dominant order.