earticle

영어

Human beings, irrespective of west or east, are confronted with the most important and fundamental problem from the standpoint of history. Ever since having arrived on the earth, human beings have tested their own civilization from the least region to the more extended area, and finally in two main streams that are the East and the West. They have fixed their respective optimum civilization to survive in their each place challenging to and taking up a challenge from other civilizations and then groping for their own form of life and thought. Whenever the scope of life was expanded, conquest or conciliation, they had to think over what the most advantageous terms to be alive is in front of the entirely new and strange things. The civilization accumulated in that way has extended gradually and thus established the different comparable civilization in the East and the West. Those who survive, a state or a nation, in each civilization come to arrive at the final barrier-gate. Nowadays the partition wall between the two, the East and the West, is breaking down positively or negatively and compulsorily or voluntarily. AT last Human beings come to be placed in a point of time to grope for another and the final civilization except for the extraterrestrial. Thus the globalization must be a pressing subject of all mankind. It makes us feel keenly the inevitability of globalization that the infinite mutual communication based upon the high Information Technology(IT) which the Internet is representative of. However the question is what globalization this globalization is. If human beings cannot this problem it seems that we can’t take a rosy view of the future just like that Oedipus put his fate to a risk in order to solve Sphinx’s question. That is to say although the globalization is inevitable it is not yet definitely established whether this globalization is barbarous and violent or positive and desirable. Especially in Asia the globalization turn into a grave issue because it has been extended its influence negatively as well as passively from 20th century on. It is truly said that the present globalization is expanded the influence with the West as the central axis. Owing to that undesirable globalization the West taking the leading role the anti-globalization movement is accelerating. Now we the Asians stand at a branch road of importance. As a matter of fact the east, particularly the Asians has not maintained their tradition but they sometimes couldn’t help having introduced Western civilization in their meeting with the different culture, the Western thing ever since 20th century. Furthermore they have even considered Western civilization as the more reasonable and advanced one. But even Western people criticize their own thought and attitude recently. According to this reflective and critical current of the times people even commit a fault beautifying and idealizing Eastern value as an alternative instead of Western thing. I am of the opinion that it is not the time when we follow blindly or criticize adversely but the time that we have to think over that each civilization. We have to find out what we really need for the desirable value by investigating the method of thought that the civilization is based upon, that is the philosopher’s duty. Now so as to do the investigation, it requires consideration on Western modern thought. Western contemporary thought is based upon not only the atomic and mechanical scientific thought but also the individualistic thought that make the civil liberty of the democratic society possible. However because the highly developed scientific technology and the extreme freedom of individual have deteriorated to the fetishism and the selfishness, Western modern thought has been criticized. Nowadays since a local or state selfishness occasionally conflicts with whole human community, some ancient philosophers make an attempt to find a solution in the ancient thought of relation and wholism in terms of the desirable globalization. But sometimes there has been a negative case which a totalitarianism has suppressed and restricted freedom of individual in ancient society, such as in Korea. Thus I would like to investigate the original meaning of individualism in Western modern thought and then find out how to harmonize Western ideas with Eastern ideas. As a result I will try to find the method of the harmony between individualism and community in for the coming global society, the new ‘brave new world’.