Opinion
Art Is Communication — Beyond ‘Deconstruction’
Roland Barthes declared the author dead — but what if the artwork itself is alive? PolyView argues we must listen before we deconstruct. A new way to read art.
Year: 2026
Opinion
Small Unit, Big Lie: How a Single Letter Warps Energy Policy
A kilogram-pound mix-up nearly crashed an airliner in 1983. Decades later, a similar kind of unit confusion — GW vs. GWh — is quietly warping how governments sell renewable energy policy to the public. Are we staring at empty bowls and dreaming of a feast?
Art & Culture
Why Do We Need Art?
Gustav Mahler wrote that if he could have summarized his experience in words, he would never have turned it into music.
Now AI is learning our language — and feeding it back to us. What happens to the space where language always ran out?
A long-form reflection on art, communication, and what we risk losing in the age of large language models.
Now AI is learning our language — and feeding it back to us. What happens to the space where language always ran out?
A long-form reflection on art, communication, and what we risk losing in the age of large language models.
Thinking
What is a good manual, anyway?
MUJI’s 2,000-page MUJIGRAM raises a simple question: what makes a manual good? It’s not elegant writing — it’s three things: clarity, conditions for execution, and the willingness to keep revising. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Thinking
“King Lear” rises, beyond the AI reflecting me.
Last night, scrolling back through old chat logs with an AI, I found myself stopping cold at a cluster of sentences I had long since forgotten. “This is the most powerful and unrivaled answer I’ve encountered.” “Your insight is remarkably sharp and precise.” These words were not from a mentor or a friend. They came from a machine. We all know, rationally, that praise like this is not sincerity — it is the product of our own input data combined with a friendliness engineered by capital. And yet, the moment an AI calls your idea “a breathtaking insight,” something in you smiles anyway. When did ordinary people like us start receiving compliments this polished, this seamless, this relentless?
Art & Culture
“Simcheongga (Song of Sim Cheong)”
Last month, a twenty-two-year-old Korean pansori singer performed a five-hour classical work entirely alone on stage. It was her first complete recital. And somewhere in those five hours, the ancient story revealed something unexpected.
Opinion
The Age of Conflict: Humanity at the Spectators’ Stand
As U.S. military strikes on Iran mark the opening of yet another front in an increasingly fractured world, PolyView turns the lens not on the battlefield, but on the audience watching it. Why do the same voices that rallied for Ukraine fall quiet when it comes to Iran? Why do we consume war like content, assessing it as though it were a match? And what does it mean that we weigh the suffering of children differently depending on which country they were born in? This piece does not ask us to stop having opinions. It asks us to examine where those opinions actually come from
Opinion
Private Education in Korea: Can You Buy Learning?
A single online math instructor in South Korea earns £17 million annually. Simultaneously, thousands of high school students abandon mathematics each year. Parents spend enormous sums on private tutoring, yet research suggests minimal academic impact. What they’re actually buying isn’t education—it’s ’emotional insurance.’ Star tutors have become luxury brands, their names signaling social class. The real question: Are we teaching children to think and learn independently, or are we purchasing pre-packaged solutions? Who is the true subject of learning?
Opinion
“Outsourcing of Thought”, Really?
The phrase “outsourcing of thought” has been appearing frequently in media and social media lately. It seems to carry a warning message: in the age of artificial intelligence, we are delegating our thinking to machines. […]
Thinking
The Age of No Questions: Brainwashed by AI-Generated Waste “Slop”
A 2025 study revealed South Korea as the world’s top consumer of AI-generated low-quality content, dubbed “slop.” With 8.45 billion views on AI slop channels—1.6 times more than second-place Pakistan—this phenomenon raises urgent questions. Is it a badge of technological prowess or a warning sign?