창작과 비평

The Quarterly Changbi 213, Fall 2026

Why Korean Thought Now?

I once heard a senior Korean professor recount how he was quite taken aback when a foreign scholar asked whether Korea has a tradition of thought. It was, no doubt, a question steeped in ethnocentric assumptions, and from a respondent’s standpoint, it would be hard not to feel insulted. After all, is there any nation without a tradition of thought? Yet even if one wished to answer the question, it is hardly as simple as pointing to a particular discourse or figure, and letting that stand in for a longer explanation. Also, before considering how Korean thought might be transmitted abroad, we should first ask ourselves how well we actually “know” Korean thought. Unless we intend merely to insist that whatever is ours is precious, we must also be prepared to answer the logical follow-up question: ‘Why is Korean thought important now?’

As is well known, modern material civilization, rooted in technological development and the global spread of capitalism, is a transplant from the West. Consequently, modern and contemporary Korean culture and social reality have always been arenas of both hybridization and contestation, making it difficult to speak of modern Korean thought without reference to Western thought. Yet, contrary to a common misunderstanding, Korean thought also does not mean a set of ideas unique to Korea. Rather, it refers to the totality of thinking that has taken shape and become systematized in Korea in response to urgent problems and situations that Korean society has faced in the past or is facing now.

In fact, from where the initial inspiration for such ideas came is a secondary consideration. Indeed, hybridization is itself a fundamental characteristic of what we call culture or thought. What matters, then, is understanding what problem situations have called forth these ideas, and how systematically those ideas have been able to illuminate and help overcome the essence of the problems before us. In this sense, the distinctiveness of a tradition of thought arises from the indigeneity of its problem setting.

Here we confront a predicament long faced by Korean intellectual discourse. As is evident in university practice, mainstream humanities and social science discourse in Korea has long relied on Western theoretical frameworks to explain our own reality. The problem with this is that instead of grounding thought in lived experience and training our thinking through the reality beneath our feet, we have grown accustomed to importing conceptual apparatuses forged within the particular historical experiences of Western societies--and applying them wholesale to our own. The issue produced by “outsourcing” our understanding of reality and our practical tasks is not merely intellectual or ideological regression, nor simply a dependence on imported theory; the true crisis lies in the fact that, by alienating ourselves from the real problem situations confronting Korean society today, we have forgotten the very “position of the subject”, i.e., where we stand and what we see.

The Changbi Korean Thought Series, comprising 30 volumes, from Jeong Do jeon to Kim Dae jung, is now nearing completion. Having participated in the project for several years as part of the editorial team, as well as being editor of two volumes, I came to realize something anew: one of the core qualities running throughout the history of Korean thought is a powerful sense of autonomous self determination. This was especially pronounced during the colonial period, before liberation and division. The shared urgency of the problem situations of that time, cutting across class hierarchies and ideological divides, formed its foundation.

Even amid severe political and material constraints at home and abroad in that era, major thinkers and activists consistently devoted themselves to an integration based on a middle path and premised on overcoming colonial rule. As is well known, rather than leaning radically toward either nationalism or socialism, most thinkers worked hard to relativize those ideologies. Factional conflict was at times unavoidable, but a higher order, meta cognitive mode of thought and sensibility, one capable of placing each current in broader perspective, continued to exert significant force. This is why the writings of the period overflow with a strikingly expansive, world historical sensibility and perspective--even today. The March 1st Movement, now rightly understood as a revolution, was the culmination of that sensibility, the force that coursed through the entire colonial era and, in some sense, still flows beneath the surface today.

Thought arises from both the ground and the body. Thus, recovering the indigeneity of problem setting, that is, the discipline of posing questions from our own problem situations, is essential. What’s more, this discipline is needed now more urgently than ever. The international order long upheld by neoliberal ideology is visibly shaking. The grammar of globalization, taken for granted for decades after the Cold War, such as capital and goods crossing borders and cooperation based on rules, is no longer self evident. Meanwhile, technological revolutions led by artificial intelligence test the boundaries of labor, knowledge, and even human existence, unsettling our entire system of thought and perception.

If we agree that colonialism, war, and the division system on the Korean Peninsula were both the process and the concentrated result of the world’s contradictions entangling themselves, then there is ample possibility that new world historical signposts may be unearthed from our own experiences and thought--experiences that have passed through the very center of those contradictions.

Now that we have entered a long transitional period of civilizational change, the questions we should ask will depend on the magnitude of the aspirations we dare to hold. Poet Kim Su yeong once wrote the paradoxical line: “The new frontier of poetry is the place where poetry is not needed.” If I may borrow that sentiment, one might say that a nation without thought would be a kind of utopia; but, as we know, utopia means a land that does not exist.

This issue’s special feature is devoted to “Changes in the World Order and Korea’s Path.” Kim Yeon-chul focuses on the shift in the international order from a U.S.-centered system to a multipolar one, arguing that crises have repeatedly emerged whenever autonomy weakened on the Korean Peninsula, a geopolitical middle state. He warns that under the Trump administration’s America First approach, the structure of mutual benefit within the ROK–US alliance has changed, raising the risk that Korea could be pushed into a subordinate position within the U.S.–Japan–Korea trilateral framework. He notes the increased likelihood of Korean entanglement in a Taiwan Strait conflict, as the U.S. Forces Korea to shift its role from deterring North Korea to deterring China, and proposes reforms in foreign and security policy and institutional structures to address these challenges.

Kim Jung-sub argues that the ROK–US alliance also requires active redesigning amid fractures in U.S. hegemony. The United States is currently showing a tendency in the Indo-Pacific region to prioritize economic compromise over military force, and is moving toward transferring primary responsibility for Korean peninsula security to South Korea. Considering the Trump administration’s reduced security commitments and shifting view of alliances, the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) is urgently needed to strengthen the Korean military’s self-reliance and secure strategic autonomy. As a concrete method, Kim Jung-sub proposes a parallel command structure in which the Korean military leads and U.S. forces support, along with mechanisms to alleviate concerns about alliance loosening. OPCON transfer, he argues, is not a matter of capability or conditions, but of will and judgment, and ultimately a matter of restoring delayed military sovereignty.

Lee Heajeong characterizes the recent U.S.–Iran conflict as both the Third Gulf War and Trump’s Iran War. The U.S.–Israel airstrikes on Iran, which began on February 28, were triggered when Trump joined Netanyahu’s long-standing plan for a preventive war against Iran. This conflict extends a long history of hostility rooted in Iran’s rise as a regional power through the “Axis of Resistance” after the 2003 Iraq War and the diplomatic deadlock imposed during Trump’s first term.

After the “12-Day War” in 2025 between Israel, Iran, and the United States, Iran reorganized its strategies regarding leadership dispersal, missile reconstruction, and a Hormuz blockade; yet even in the recent “40-Day War,” the United States failed to achieve its goals, such as regime change or halting nuclear development. A fragile interim agreement quickly collapsed due to differing interpretations of Hormuz transit rights, leaving the war in a stalemate. This has exposed not only the limits of U.S. hegemony but also the historical impossibility of reshaping the Middle East order while bypassing the Palestinian question.

Just as international order is shifting, rapid changes in everyday life are arriving through the AI revolution. Amid growing anxiety that AI’s rapid development could make “production without labor” a reality, this issue’s “Dialogue” explores a new welfare paradigm for Korean society. Participants Yoon Hong Sik, Jang Ji-yeon, Cha Ji-ho, and Choi Sihyun diagnose a dual crisis in which AI replaces even professional occupations, threatening both young people and existing high-income groups. They emphasize the need to address, simultaneously, immediate polarization and long-term job disappearance.

Korea has become a society in which income inequality translates into asset inequality, blocking social mobility, a trend linked to the historical role of real estate as a functional equivalent of public welfare. Discussions have ranged from publicly owning shares of AI based on the public nature of the data and energy AI produces and consumes, to shifting social insurance from an employment-based to an income-based system, to tax reform. Participants also raised the need to socialize care labor and transition welfare from a household-based to a citizen-based model. Especially noteworthy is the argument that growth and distribution must be designed in an integrative way from the outset and that Korea must diversify its growth model.

The world is changing at a faster pace than ever, and conflicts continue to erupt across the globe. Against this backdrop, this issue’s poetry section presents 12 works centered on the theme of peace, by both established and emerging poets. We also proudly feature a novella by Kim Yu-dam and short stories by Kim Sum and Park Solmay. Literary critic Min Ga Kyoung conducted an interview with writer Cheon Myeong Kwan, whose recent novel Accordion has drawn exceptional attention. We also extend our thanks to critics Yang Yun-eui in the literary criticism section and Kim Joon hyun and Kim Dasol in the literary focus section.

In the article section, Park Hee byeong offers a meticulous and provocative exploration of the innovative dimensions of Hong Dae yong’s thought, while a field report by Paik Young Gyung and Ju Hyun Woo provides a finely observed account of the social ecology of the Sinan islands.

We are also pleased to share our annual good news. The 44th Shin Dong yup Prize for Literature has selected winners in poetry, fiction, and criticism, and the 2026 Changbi Awards for Young Writers announces its recipients in poetry and fiction. The finalists for the Manhae Prize in Literature have likewise been chosen. We wish all the honorees good fortune and peace.

Kang Kyung-seok