Korean history is a curious microcosm. For one reason or another, the medieval history of the peninsula is more similar to a Modern European state than a Classical Asiatic despot. By the eighth century, Korea has a constitution-bound monarch, an empowered parliament, and a sophisticated knightly order for the peasantry to move up in social hierarchy. By the 16th century, it has some of the highest literacy rates and technological advancements in the world. Then, suddenly, it all got stuck. It became rigid, stale, and seemingly lacked a will to live. Within two hundred years it was split open like a dying boar and devoured by colonial powers, and it’s never really recovered since.
How? I feel the growing need in this time is a burning down. Make room for the movers and shakers from outside the Orthodoxy. As with that monk, as with those men of motion in South America, Meso America, the Pacific Islands, they only got to fix things when the alternative was untenable.
For all the faults of Korea, Japan, America and Europe our cultures are yet still comfortable enough to stay the torch.
For now. Maybe this election will see a Sulla figure make the bandaid fix an emperor type will rip off.
Thanks for a bit more insight into Korean history. It's weird how extensive, poetic, and well documented it is and yet hardly spoken about. It's much like Eastern mythology as a whole, where the West simply doesn't get great compendiums of the stories like we have about our own pantheons and fairy tales. I don't want to hear about son wukong again, I want to hear about who the hell Cheok Jungyeong was. I want the explanation as to why it is the Hermit Kingdom. I want to understand the aesthetic difference between a Korean 'knight' and a samurai.
How? I feel the growing need in this time is a burning down. Make room for the movers and shakers from outside the Orthodoxy. As with that monk, as with those men of motion in South America, Meso America, the Pacific Islands, they only got to fix things when the alternative was untenable.
For all the faults of Korea, Japan, America and Europe our cultures are yet still comfortable enough to stay the torch.
For now. Maybe this election will see a Sulla figure make the bandaid fix an emperor type will rip off.
Thanks for a bit more insight into Korean history. It's weird how extensive, poetic, and well documented it is and yet hardly spoken about. It's much like Eastern mythology as a whole, where the West simply doesn't get great compendiums of the stories like we have about our own pantheons and fairy tales. I don't want to hear about son wukong again, I want to hear about who the hell Cheok Jungyeong was. I want the explanation as to why it is the Hermit Kingdom. I want to understand the aesthetic difference between a Korean 'knight' and a samurai.
Fascinating, as always. Oh, and glad to see the Restoration Bureau is stirring, too.