• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.148
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• pp.49-72
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• 2018

In this paper, I tackle the question as to why the Confucian tradition in East Asia failed to generate democracy. In the first section, I discuss various forms of Confucianism and come up with a most suitable one before I define democracy. I then consider the view that, even though Confucianism, thus defined, had the democratic ideals, it could not generate democracy because it failed to secure democratic institutional structure. I call this view 'No Institutions' View. However, there are two versions of it. First, a thin version of the view holds that the theoretical resources are clearly found in Confucianism yet they failed to provide the democratic institutions. Second, there is the view (a thick version of 'No Institutions' View), according to which the theoretical resources do exist in the Confucian tradition, though only as potentiality and not as a historical reality, and this is why the tradition failed to produce democracy. Third, some hold the view (which I call 'No Ideals' View) that Confucianism simply lacks not only the practical institutions but also theoretical ideals of democracy. In the conclusion, I discuss the reason why I reject these views and offer my own view. In particular, I offer a hybrid view concerning the relationship between Confucianism and democracy.

• Korean Educational Research Journal
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.189-210
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• 2018

This paper begins with the notion of 'pick-me generation', which refers to today's young generation in Korea. It is named after the title of a song introduced at the Television programme for the competitive audition for girl-group singers. This name gives an idea of the atmosphere of the competition that the current young generation experiences in South Korea. In parallel to it, the research examines the meaning of freedom and choice in democratic education in Oh Chunsuck, in his later work in particular. This paper attempts to demonstrate the possibility to relate Oh's notion of freedom and democracy in relation to Han who critically analyses contemporary discourses on neo-liberalism and democracy. This paper re-views Oh's ideals of democracy and education within its own limitations on freedom. The argument extends Oh's idea of freedom and ethical democracy to the idea of freedom that is relevant to today's younger generation.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.16
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• pp.71-103
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• 2013

This paper explores the key figure of minjung misul ("the people's art"), Kim Bongjun, and the art collective Dureong in the relationship between 'dialogue' and the dissidents' structural critique of Korea's modernities. During the 1980s' prodemocracy movement, the minjung artists and other dissident intellectuals used the notion of dialogue as metaphor for and allegory of democracy to articulate not only Koreans' experience of modern history, which they saw as "alienating" and "inhumane," but also the discrepancies between Koreans' predicaments and their political aspirations and their working toward the fulfillment of those ideals. Envisioning alternative forms of modernities, Kim Bongjun and other Dureong members paid attention to the fundamental elements of art, which consist of art as a modern institution, as well as the everyday lives of people as the very site of Koreans' modernities. They endeavored to create "art of life," which presumes its being part of people's lives, based on the cultural and spiritual traditions of the agrarian community. They also participated in the national culture movement, the minjung church, and the alternative-life movement to radically envision everyday lives through the indigenous reinterpretation of democratic values. Despite the significant role played by the church mission and its community involvement, its effects on minjung misul have received little attention in the relevant studies. Thus, I consider in particular the minjung church's and the alternative-life movement's confluence of multiple cultural and social constituencies in relation to Kim and the Dureong collective's vision of a new art and community.

• Archives of design research
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• v.18 no.4 s.62
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• pp.237-246
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• 2005

This study was intended to enlighten two-faced desires of the Bauhaus, revealing that it is closely related with the child education rooted in Frobel. The Bauhaus declared to disconnect with the traditional education standing for Academies and asked students to go bad to such 'innocence' as children had. The faculty of Bauhaus tried to understand of the essence of the world through primary geometrical forms as 'purity' without any inessential things as $Fr{\ddot{o}}bel$ did. Their attempts not to admit any nonessential things, however, and dinging to purity was rather a sort of neurosis. The modernism is not different from the child art hiding sadistic and dictatorial elements behind the myth of 'innocence'. Considering the child education was born and grown with nutrition from the bourgeois development, it was not compatible with democratic ideals of the Bauhaus. While the new types of schools for children provided an excellent preparation for the Bauhaus to initiate a new design education, people of the Bauhaus were going toward a different direction from aspiration of the bourgeois, strong supporters of the new schools.