A grand strategy for a first-class state/박상식

Twenty-three think tanks in South Korea are going to start a two-day “grand debate” on a grand strategy for transforming Korea into a first-class (advanced) state tomorrow. A cursory look at the program shows that they are going to discuss practically every aspect of the subject.

The topics include, among other things, global civic culture; global-level legal system; youth’s community spirit; global-level gender equality, multi-cultural families in the rural areas; advanced natural disaster control system; global leadership relating to the international financial system, climate change, green science and technology, and green energy; and information technology development for an advanced economy.

This grand strategy purports to realize a “Global Korea” which is the Lee government’s ambitious plan. I hope and believe that the grand debate will come up with tangible and concrete plans for the purpose.

I understand that Global Korea is the goal of Korea in the 21st century the Lee government wishes to realize. It is an ambitious and admirable idea.

Unless the government and the all people make joint efforts, however, it would easily remain nothing but a catchphrase. Before the plan to build Global Korea is launched, “Global Korea” needs to be clearly defined. More importantly, the principles and guidelines for the plan should be drawn. Global Korea, as I understand, means that Korea should be transformed into a country that can compete with any Western advanced countries by taking advantage of globalization.

Humankind has gone through two global revolutions -- the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Now the world is going through a third revolution characterized by globalization. Globalization is taking place in every fields of life -- political, economic, social, cultural -- and knowledge and information within states, among states and among different peoples. The forces of globalization have given rise to interdependence among states and peoples; interpenetration of national boundaries and states’ sovereign domains; clash and homogenization of different cultures; global issues; and universal values.

Korea has to build new institutions and formulate new policies to deal with these issues. But a more important task is how to adjust Korean culture to these new phenomena.

In order to do so, the traits of Korean culture need to be examined. At present, Korean culture is a not - well- integrated amalgam of traditional Korean culture and modern Western culture with the former dominating. Some cultural traits are functional and others dysfunctional to modernization and globalization.

In the case of Korea, traditional Korean culture and the modernization of Korea have negatively affected each other. However, the traits of the former which are incompatible and detrimental to the latter have weakened or faded way. The main force of modernization, industrialization, is powerful enough to destroy those traits.

What are the traits of the present Korean culture? They are: the mishmash of individualism and collectivism, the dominance of emotionalism over rationalism, conflict between sadaejui (big power worship) and extreme chauvinism, the mixture of achievement orientation and ascriptive orientation, and tension between the rule of law and customary patterns of behavior.

In this sense, Korean culture is a transitional culture between traditional culture and modern culture. It is transitional because it is still resistant to alien cultures, but modernization is so powerful that it cannot resist for long. In this connection, it is worth reminding of ourselves that the West became modernized earlier than other parts of the world mainly because Western civilization was the driving force of modernization.

Now, Korean culture is faced with another challenge: globalization. This time the challenge is so powerful as to destroy traditional Korean culture completely. The moving force of globalization is still modernization and the forces of modernization this time not only reinforce the forces of Westernization but also penetrate deep into traditional society.

The traits of global culture include universal values (human rights, common heritage of mankind, etc.), homogenization of different cultures, cooperative security, global citizenship, common responsibility for the preservation of nature as well as the above mentioned modern values. In view of this development, the grand strategy for Global Korea needs to be based on the following principles and guidelines:

First, all institution building and political, economic, social and cultural and educational policies should be based on enlightened individualism, achievement orientation, the rule of law, universal values, and common responsibility for the preservation of nature.

Second, sadaehjui and extreme chauvinism should be replaced by open nationalism. In a sense, sadaejui is the legacy of Chinese imperial domination, and extreme chauvinism the legacy of Japanese colonialism. Now, the Korean people are struggling with another dilemma: whether they seek sadaejui or extreme chauvinism toward the U.S. Unless the Korean people overcome these two colonial legacies and pursue an open nationalist policy toward the U.S., they can hardly enjoy the fruits of globalization.

Third and last, Korean culture should be sublimated into a cosmopolitan culture. In other words, the Koreans should become the oriental Athenians. According to Toynbee, the Athenians rejoiced in “a cosmopolitan civilization for which the entire Hellenic and non-Hellenic worlds (had) been laid under contribution.”

Now is the time for creating a new Korean mind based on these principles.

Park Sang-seek is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. -- Ed.

코리아해럴드/2010년 4월 26일