민주주의라는 삶의 양식과 그 인간적 이상 : 한국 민주주의의 민주화라는 과제와 관련하여

Abstract

Most studies having explored problems of korean democracy and their solutions have shown tendencies to regard democracy in its first place as a special form of government or the political institution in a narrow sense. This article is an attempt to provide an holistic approach which understand democracy not only as a form of government but also as a form of life, so that we can understand crisis and disorder of korean democracy in a more fundamental level and cope with the task of ‘democratization of democracy’ Korea's more aptly. In this approach, democracy is seen, not merely in political and economical dimensions, but as linked with problems of personal identity or character, even of forms of communication between people and of cultural-moral value horizon which lead people’s life. Democracy is understood in the first place under the light of ‘the human ideal’, according to which its all members have the guarantee for the equality of their dignity through the implementation of their human capabilities without exception. So we can conclude from this perspective that the crisis of Korean democracy is the result of the failure to realize this ideal in the korean society, and that the project to overcome that crisis must not just direct to getting a more perfect form of government or establishing a more better system of the representative democracy. The crisis of korean democracy can be overcome only through the ‘humanization’ of the whole form of life. After exploring that there is the pervert effect of the moral horizon of the confucian modernity Korea’s in the background of the crisis of democracy, this article examines what democracy as a form of life means in this context and argues that the democratization of Korean democracy can be accomplished only through the humanization of ordinary life and culture of civil society.