Korean Philosophy - North Korean Post-1945 Philosophy

North Korean Post-1945 Philosophy

In the republican period, post-1945, Marxism-Leninism in the north was built on the Confucian yangban scholar-warriors of earlier times, if perhaps taken to absolutist extremes.

The main influence in North Korea has been since 1996, the notion of "The Red Banner Spirit". This system of belief encourages the North Korean people to build a "kangsong taeguk", a fortress state, based on self-reliance and absolute loyalty to the leader (suryong). This philosophy was created by the "three generals of Mt. Paektu," referring to former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, his father Kim Il-sung and his natural mother Kim Jong-suk. Again little is known of philosophical publications on this subject; but it appears to have replaced Marxism with a home-grown nationalistic ideology.

Read more about this topic:  Korean Philosophy

Famous quotes containing the words north and/or philosophy:

    A brush had left a crooked stroke
    Of what was either cloud or smoke
    From north to south across the blue;
    A piercing little star was through.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)