[KS] Yu Kilchun
Afostercarter at aol.com
Afostercarter at aol.com
Mon May 8 10:19:41 EDT 2006
Dear Frank,
This is fascinating, but also rather allusive.
Could you kindly say more? - not least, on how
Weberians can be Darwinists. I should have
thought those were quite distinct traditions.
cheers
Aidan
AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University
Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
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In a message dated 07/05/2006 21:51:54 GMT Standard Time, frank at koreaweb.ws
writes:
> Subj:Re: [KS] Yu Kilchun
> Date:07/05/2006 21:51:54 GMT Standard Time
> From:frank at koreaweb.ws
> Reply-to:koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> To:koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> Sent from the Internet
>
>
>
> With its idealistic notions of social progress and failure this is,
> same as his texts on the history of other European nations and his
> writing in general, written under the influence of contemporary
> British and American historians. Works by non- if not
> anti-neo-Darwinist historians such as Leopold von Ranke and many
> other important historians -- works that at the time still informed a
> majority of continental Europeans, have not found their way to Yu. Or
> maybe it really just was a pick-and-choose situation, a conscious
> choice, a matter of what appealed to a reformist leader from an
> economically and politically stagnating country on the verge of being
> annexed by its neighbor. Yet again, while this is certainly the
> leading historiographical take on this issue, we should note that
> this understanding grew right out of the American neo-Weberian (and
> still neo-Darwinist) historigraphic tradition. We might well ask why
> such views were at the time not really that popular in other nations
> with similar plights ... say for example Poland. Anyone still
> following me -);
>
> Okay then: During the entire 19th century Poland was, just like
> Korea, fighting over its independence -- here with the Russians, the
> Austrians, and the Germans. Just like Korea a country with a great
> and old culture, in political and economic terms it lost out step by
> step to its neighbors. Polish provinces fell under Russian
> administration and German farmers settled in Silesia and took over
> Polish lands. As a result, by 1900 over a million Poles had
> emmigrated to the United States. Several diplomatic as well as
> military attempts to regain independence had failed.
> But other than for Korean reform and independence movement scholars
> neo-Darwinism did not so easily become the great runner in Poland.
> Maybe because Poland is overwhelmingly Catholic? It certainly seems
> so, as neo-Darwinian theory is incompatible with Christian faith
> (clearly stated so in harmony by both, the Catholic Church and
> neo-Darwinist thinkers).
>
> We now have a convincing explanation for Poland. But how about other
> continental European nations? Why was neo-Darwinism here of some
> appeal during the late 19th century but never really took the lead in
> teh pool of new ideologies? Why so in Great Britain and in the United
> States? In short, my main doubt as regards to Korea and neo-Darwinism
> concerns the *inevitability* in which histories have recorded Korea's
> embracing of such pseudo-scientific ideology.
>
>
> Best,
> Frank
> --
> --------------------------------------
> Frank Hoffmann
> http://koreaweb.ws
>
>
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