Think No Evil: Korean Values In The Age Of Globalization

Synopsis

In this investigation of the contemporary notion of evil, the author asks what we can learn about the concept and ourselves, by examining a society where it is unknown - where language contains no equivalent work to evil . Does such a society look upon human nature more benignly? Do its members view the world through rose-coloured glasses? Korea offers the author his starting point. In conversations with hundreds of Koreans from diverse religions and walks of life - students, politicians, teachers, Buddhist monks, Confucian scholars, Catholic priests, housewives, psychiatrists, farmers - C. Fred Alford found remarkable agreement about the non-existence of evil. Koreans regard evil not as a moral category but as an intellectual one, the result of erroneous Western thinking. For them, evil results from the creation of dualisms, oppositions between people and ideas. Alford's interviews often led to discussions about imported ways of thinking and the impact of globalization upon society at large. In particular, he was struck by how Koreans responses to globalization matched Westerners' views about evil. In much of the world, he argues, globalization is the ultimate dualism - attractive for the enlightenment and freedom it brings, terrifying for the great social and personal upheaval it can cause.