The greatest external threat to South Korea is North Korea. In dealing with this threat, citizens of the South should unite, but they are not quite united.

In a democratic state diverse views and opinions are inevitable and can make positive contributions to deal with threats to national security. But if the people are divided to the extent that they undermine the very foundation of the state, the North Korean threat can’t be countered.

The state is founded on three pillars: political, economic and cultural. South Korea’s political pillar is liberal democracy, its economic pillar, capitalism, and its cultural pillar, a harmonious integration of Korean traditional culture and Western civilization. The common values linking these pillars are freedom, equality and justice, on which the Korean Constitution is founded.

In the political arena, Koreans tend to value equality more than freedom and majority dictatorship more than respect of minority opinions, while political parties are highly factionalized and hierarchical. This phenomenon is caused by traditional political culture inherited from the Joseon era. The Joseon monarchy suffered from extreme power struggles within the ruling class. Now political parties have become political factions within the ruling circles under the name of democracy. 

Korean politicians should know that democracy demands competition, but also compromise -- majority rule, but not majority dictatorship; and political freedom as well as political equality.

The general public is divided into the conservatives, moderates and progressives, and no group occupies the majority position. The main political problem lies in the fact that conservatives and progressives are becoming intransigent toward each other, while moderates are becoming more apathetic about politics. This makes compromise between the two extreme groups more difficult.

In the economic field, capitalist values are compatible with democratic ones in important respects: Both value individualism, free competition and equal opportunity. But their values conflict in other respects: Democracy values freedom and equality, majority rule and free competition, but capitalism fosters egoism, monopoly, economic inequality and market rule.

The Korean business circles attempt to emulate Western business culture, but the lower and middle classes demand that Western democratic values should also be incorporated into the economic field. In particular, they demand that the government should promote economic equality more than free competition. The lower and middle-income earners have gradually decreased, while the high-income earners have increased. 

Between 1990 and 2000, the middle class decreased, but many of them moved up to the upper class. However, between 2000 and 2010, there were more middle class people who moved down rather than up. Accordingly, the income disparity between rich and poor has become greater and the general public’s trust in big business has declined sharply.

Since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, people’s support for distribution of wealth over economic growth has risen greatly. This issue has sharpened the verbal war between conservatives and progressives over “economic democracy” or democratic socialism. According to the Human Development Report and the World Happiness Report, Koreans enjoy the fruits of economic growth in terms of wealth and health, but are not so happy with their government and society.

In the cultural domain, Korean society is suffering from the mismatch of Western and Oriental civilizations, particularly the mismatch of individualism and authoritarianism, or collectivism. After independence, the Korean society initially resisted Western civilization, but since then has become overwhelmed by it.

It is inevitable mainly because capitalist industrialization is the product of Western civilization. In the process, Koreans have mainly accepted the materialistic aspects of Western civilization while neglecting its essential values -- individualism, the rule of law, rationalism and social pluralism (civic organizations rather than primordial groups).

Because of this, they have been experiencing great difficulties in moving away from their traditional cultural values such as authoritarianism and irrationalism, while confusing individualism with egoism, ignoring the rule of law, behaving emotionally in interpersonal relations, and valuing primordial groups rather than civic organizations. According to the World Health Organization, the suicide rate of South Korea was second highest among 170 countries in 2012, and the ratio of mental patients is increasing very rapidly. These indicate that Koreans suffer from anomie.

Among three ways to deal with alien culture (homogenization, merging indigenous culture into alien culture and merging alien culture into indigenous culture), Korea is seeking the first alternative, but it is going through a difficult period. Modern Western civilization emerged through the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, but Korean culture has yet to go through its own age of enlightenment.

All mankind values and upholds freedom, equality and justice, although different people interpret them differently. These three values have individual and collective dimensions as well as political, economic and cultural aspects. Korea founded on democracy, capitalism and a new Korean culture should promote these three universal values by upholding political, economic and cultural freedom, equality and justice of individuals and groups.

It is extremely difficult to deal with the above-mentioned three threats (or challenges), particularly because South Korea is faced with North Korea and its people are divided into three sets of different generations: the Korean-War and the post-Korean War generations; the generation that lived through dictatorship and the post-dictatorship generation; and the Confucian and Westernized generations.

Economically, South Korea is qualified to join the group of developed countries, but politically and culturally it is not.

Recently, the Korean government has been trying to turn Korea into an advanced nation. The Lee Myung-bak government established the Presidential Committee on Social Cohesion, and the Park Geun-hae government set the National Movement for a New Korea with the slogan of “reconstruction of the state”.

They avoided using the term “developed country” and instead used the term “advanced nation.” Advanced nation is appropriate because Korea should become advanced not only economically, but also politically and culturally. This movement should become the Korean Enlightenment Movement.

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is a former rector of the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University and the author of “Globalized Korea and Localized Globe.” -- Ed.