전후 재건과 지식인층의 `도의(道義)` 담론 = Rebuilding the nation from the aftermath of the Korean war, and the intellectuals` discussion of the `Morality` discourse

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Since the breakout and aftermath of the Korean war, members of the government (more like powerful officials in power) and a lot of intellectual figures were altogether facing a situation which showed severe fluctuation in the status of traditional values, and social crises triggered by political and economic disturbances. So they had to seek out for a new ideology, and a rule of life, that would stabilize the social structure and at the same time unite the nation. In the process, a specific concept was consistently suggested and argued by the intellectuals, and that concept was no other than the one of `Morality(道義)`. Such concept was mostly mentioned by the governmental authorities and also intellectuals who were close to power. They were trying to contain social crises, and in that regard they were responding in a fairly conservative way. Yet, as discussions continued, such conservative approaches also led to an opportunity, an establishment of a space where clashes and conflicts continued in intellectual terms. Among the intellectuals who were discussing the concept of `Morality(道義)`, some of them displayed a trend in which they argued the importance of inheriting traditional values and the merit of supporting the so-called `National spirit(民族精神)`, which actually had no bases in historical terms. This trend clearly exhibited an ideological quality of its own, as it aspired for an extreme level of anti-Communist and conservative stance, supporting the stabilization of the system in response to certain social crises. Yet, at the same time, such trend also displayed certain efforts trying to secure a basis for national unity, by suggesting the need of active evaluation of history and culture of the nation and the people. Also, there was another trend which tried, in an effort to overcome the under-developed nature of the Korean society, to break through the social disorders of the time by spreading the so-called `ethics for modern citizens`. Based upon the concept of `Western modernity`, devised in ideological terms with positive nuances, a group of intellectuals supported values such as modern-based political freedom and the merit of moral autonomy. But their so-called `modern rationalism` perceived the public`s lives as nothing but a mere hotbed that gave birth to the under-developed reality of the Korean people in the first place. And they also viewed the people`s lives as a space solely dictated by irrationality and superstition. Therefore they failed to acknowledge `the people` as entities that could be communicated with themselves, through their(the intellectuals`) supposed rationality.