Some Aspects of Park Chang No Kyo: A Korean Revitalization Movement

An attempt to analyze a localized, specific phenomenon often suffers from a lack of perspective. This malaise is not confined to present-day Korea where chronic economic instability is coupled to a high degree of social unrest. Some nations, especially those which had relatively advanced traditional social structures and value systems, find that cataclysmic changes have taken place in their societies in the wake of developments and independence after World War II. Nascent industrialism, urbanization, alteration in family patterns, in short, a to be expected reformulation of ethos and worldview is in process throughout much of the world and especially in Asia. In such a situation, for example, the traditional values of the "old" Asian society are constantly, and often in seemingly contradictory ways, being modified by the "new" values coming primarily from the complex, industriously more advanced western societies. Until the newly introduced values do in fact become a functional part of the fabric-in this case Korean society--one may anticipate not only evidences of turbulence, friction, anomie, and socio-political disorders, but also an often surprising degree of cultural revitalization. This process may be well viewed as one in which hitherto untapped human resources unproductive in the face of drastic social change may be channeled into both productive and personally rewarding avenues of activity. In the descriptive paragraphs which follow, in which one of the most widespread socio-religious movements of post-1945 Korea will be discussed, despite what to the Western scholar may often seem to be unusual and even amusing manifestations, one should keep in mind that the overriding premise of this discussion is that such movements have shown a unique and significant capacity for arousing sincere public enthusiasm and consequent civil action in a period when both traditional values are discredited and new values have not yet been functionally assimilated. While postwar Korea has not given rise to as variegated a spectrum of "New Religions" (shinko shiz ky5) as postwar Japan,