• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.837-851
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• 2013

This study investigates the relationship between dystopian ideas and fashion since the $20^{th}$ century and examines the social meaning of fashion influenced by dystopian ideas. From the 1900s to the 1950s, the idea of dehumanization by authoritarian governments and technology gave rise to fashion for freedom and self-introspection, which includes surrealistic fashion and beat style. In the 1980s and 1990s, a society marked by monopolistic power and the hi-tech control of humans was regarded as dystopia. It influenced a fashion that expressed dehumanization by hi-tech means such as cyberpunk style and designs that depicted or used electronic elements. The ongoing fear of ecological disaster since the late $20^{th}$ century also influenced designers to present collections concerned with environmental problems. Designers have created designs with printed messages on environmental issues or designs that express environmental devastation, and protective designs that use hi-tech fabrics or mechanical devices. Fashion influenced by dystopian ideas expressed contemporary fears, provided a critical view of society through defamiliarization, and sought problem-solving actions and alternatives to change or cope with the dystopian situation. Dystopian fashion gave society a chance to face contemporary problems and pursue a better society.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.47
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• pp.1-37
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• 2023

This essay seeks to answer the question of how best to understand Korean new religious movements (KNRMs). KNRMs have the characteristics of folk religion, ethno-religion, or popular religion. KNRMs are products of the national consciousness promoted by Korean society during the Late Joseon Dynasty at the turning point of modern Yi-Jing Studies. From the perspective of social evolutionary theory of developmental history, during that period, Joseon (Korea), like China, was faced with a double-edged sword consisting of the strength of tradition and the upheaval of modernity. If the strength of tradition depended on the Yi-Jing Studies to promote national enlightenment toward anti-imperialist aims, then it was equally the case that modernity depended on the sense of urgency to guide the people to secure livelihoods and edification regarding anti-feudalism. In this essay, the KNRMs that appeared during this transition period of Yi-Jing Studies will be a significant focus, and the worldview of Daesoon Thought will be the main focus. As one of the central topics, intensive discussion will be dedicated to the issue of the nature of pre-experientialism (先驗主義) which characterized the Great Opening (開闢). The principles of Daesoon Thought have a religious dimension of realistic awareness that guides the people's lives and edifies them. The process of the Great Opening aims to secure an ontological clock that tracks the Great Itineration of the world toward Daesoon Truth. This in turn as a process establishes the epistemological world of the Reordering Works of Heaven and Earth (天地公事) and reaches the axiological boundary of the future world. The links among the Three Realms is characterized by a pre-experientialist line that experiences the space-time nature of the universe as the Great Opening of the Later World (後天) within the framework of Heaven and Earth. Throughout this course, humans look to enjoy the infinite vitality of the universe from within their own finite vitality. Therefore, Daesoon Thought can overcome perceived reality through pre-experientialist channels such as the Great Opening of the Later World and aim for a state of self-awareness such as the Earthly Paradise. This is an attempt to participate and practice in the actual world rather than pursuing a world of transcendental ideas, and therefore, it tends to be proactive in the world rather than exhibit a passive tendency to be worldliness. In conclusion, the truth of Daesoon Thought, which is characterized by the Great Opening of the Later World, contains a future-oriented outlook that longs for a Nextopia full of hope and promise rather than idealistic fancy towards a Utopia or well-founded dread and disdain towards Dystopia.