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Tokishi7 t1_itfhhzf wrote

Korean history is basically how can we screw over the nation further and further. Hell, the first king of Joseon basically sealed the deal on Korea’s future as a small “island” country just so he could be king and then was shorty replaced. Korea has one of the most unstable histories I’ve ever read about. Just constant back stabbing. A great analysis tho and great read.

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spinnybingle OP t1_itfj2az wrote

Well

  1. I agree that Joseon history can be read as a sort of downward spiral - it gets worse in the 19th century
  2. It was not necessarily as dark in the three kingdoms, Unified Silla and Goryeo period. I think it was the Mongol invasion in the 13th century that crucially influenced the fate of Korea and neighboring Japan. Goryeo (Korea) fiercely fought Mongols, relocating the whole population of the capital to an island, but got eventually devastated. Japan stayed intact. I often think that this is comparable to the fate of Persia and some part of the Islamic world in the Mongol invasion.
  3. After 100 years of Mongol dominance, Korean aristocrats became completely conservative and fundamentalist (in Confucianism). A similar trend also happened in Ming China but it was more extreme in Korea. It was not that the first king of Joseon sealed the deal on Korea's future, it was the collective of the aristocrats who completely turned fundamentalist Confucianist. Many Joseon kings were personally stifled, and resisted the orthodoxy, especially in the early period. But the orthodoxy would become even more dominant
  • A similar trend of ultra-conservative orthodoxy also happened in Vietnam though, so I don't think it's just the case of Korea. Spain is another example that "sealed the deal" on their country's future when it was caught in the religious craze and kicked out all the Protestants and Jews
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DiploJ t1_iti93gv wrote

Confucianism as practiced in Joseon was a tool of political control and financial enrichment of the nobility (yangban). As with most cultures, religion, for good or bad, has always been used for control and power consolidation.

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Tokishi7 t1_itfn0c4 wrote

I’m mostly just talking about how korean history is just how can we screw over the nation to put our family into power only for another family to do the same a few years later. Despite Joseph’s length, I would go to say that pre Joseon was much more successful. Koreans really don’t like it when you point out one of the reasons that japan walked in so easily in the late 1800s as well.

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Algaean t1_itfnowo wrote

If it makes you feel better, Hungarian history is one long "how can i cut off my nose to spite your face" episode.

Seriously, the national sport of national government is how to shoot the nation in the foot.

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Tokishi7 t1_itfnzv1 wrote

It’s just disappointing in Korea’s case and rather ironic with the nationalism here. Living here feels like we haven’t come much further since

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DiploJ t1_iti9kft wrote

Ancient Korea had so much potential, but internal political jousts and extreme lusts for power was their bane, especially in the Joseon era. Instability was why they couldn't be any greater.

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daemonshrike t1_itjome1 wrote

What kind of potential do you mean?

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DiploJ t1_itjpew1 wrote

They had what it takes to become a military and political powerhouse but didn't apply themselves. They were vassals of others for so long.

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Tokishi7 t1_itiuxf4 wrote

Can’t say we’ve come much further living here…It’s rather cut throat these days as well unfortunately

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dually t1_itj8uqr wrote

Nationalism is the enlightened idea that nation-states are preferable to feudal heirarchies and dynastic empires.

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ku2000 t1_ithgkxn wrote

So... Lots to unpack here. A nation that lasted for 500 years does not have an unstable history. Have you seen China and Japan for those 500 years??? Constant backstabbing is human nature. One of the things that Korea got right was documentation. There is a reason you know every detail of political dynamics. It's more of a survivorship bias where a stable country with more documentation seems like there is more chaos.

Not saying it was a good country, but the stability was there. It wasn't a rich country by any means and the aristocrats were shitty. In the end the stuck up Royals fucked up the country by inviting the Japanese to deal with the Peasant uprising. Still boils my blood thinking about that from time to time. Even tho that was 130 years ago.

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spinnybingle OP t1_itiogja wrote

While I largely agree with you,

>In the end the stuck up Royals fucked up the country by inviting the Japanese to deal with the Peasant uprising

There's a lot to unpack here too... I wrote a very long piece about this period which I'll post later. Actually the one who was the most anti-Japanese was Queen Myeongseong (commonly called "Empress Myeongseong" but I think that's a bit inflated title), who was the most influential politician in Joseon court back then. Her role and personality in that period is vastly underevaluated by later Korean historians, perhaps because of Confucianism-influenced gender bias.

She was consistently anti-Japan perhaps because she knew that Japan would be the biggest geopolitical threat to Korea. That's why she first allied with Qing China, and as soon as Qing lost the Sino-Japanese war, she immediately moved to ally with Russians. That was the point Japan decided to murder her (unnecessarily violently).

  • Both Qing and Japan intervened the peasant uprising, and the queen was pro-Qing and some aristocratic faction was pro-Japan. This was the major cause of the Sino-Japanese war in which Japan defeated China. Right after this the queen tried to ally with Russians, the Japanese murdered her and had the Russian diplomats literally see her mutilated body as a warning. I think the symbolic and political significance (and the level of violence) of this event is not as much discussed as it needs.

King Gojong, who was her supportive husband (and the one who benefited the most from her political shrewdness), had been personally quite friendly with the emerging pro-Japan faction among the aristocracy. However, after having to let his wife violently murdered by the Japanese, he got deeply depressed, and after a few months he suddenly moved his residence into the Russian embassy, and kicked out all the major members of the pro-Japan faction.

So the Korean royalty pretty much resisted Japan's influence. There were quite many pro-Japan aristocrats but they lost influence after the queen's murder. It was when Russia was defeated by Japan (1905) that Korea couldn't resist the Imperial Japan's power anymore. Right after Japan won the Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese army encircled the Korean palace, and Japanese prime minister (or its equivalent - Ito Hirobumi) walked into the Korean palace and made the Joseon court sign a protectorate treaty (Eulsa treaty). King refused to sign it himself, but some of the court high officials did. That was the de facto end of Korea as an independent political entity.

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gooverofme1 t1_itj4n9g wrote

Seems like normal amount of "back stabbing". I guess you have not opened many other history books then

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Tokishi7 t1_itj7aon wrote

Could be normal, but the severity of it has left the peninsula crippled throughout its history to modern times.

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