[Citizen College] The Righteousness of Democracy: The Perils of Excessive Moralism

On May 4, 2018, the 3rd lecture of “Citizen College: Citizens Between Life and Knowledge” was held by Seongbuk Village Citizenship Education Center and the Korea University Peace and Democracy Institute(PDI). The 3rd speaker was Professor Doo-Jin Kim of PDI.

The topic of the lecture was “the righteousness of democracy: the perils of excessive moralism”. Professor argued that applying excessive moral standards, in terms of democracy, poses a risk of falling into moralism. We often place democracy and justice on the same line with each other, but in fact, democracy is not a just form of justice. Citizens of democracy are not that moral individual. In the democracy, when citizens demand complete justice, politicians are provocative to populism and society is divided. For example, the German Nazism conducted Jewish massacre, as the result of “social justice” to preserve the superiority of the Aryans. Even though individuals are not so justified as to transcend their own interests, in our society, we are in the myth of creating a good society at once by punishing other groups by the moral standards. In conclusion, Professor Kim emphasized that we should not look at society as a dichotomy, and be careful not to fall into excessive moralism. (Summary: Moon-Hyung Lee)