Our Nation's Path Analysis

Our Nation’s Path, by Park Chung Hee, and Let Us Embody the Revolutionary Spirit, by Kim Il Sung, describe plans to achieve economic development during the 1960s and 1970s. In order to achieve rapid industrialization, each leader described their own reasoning for motivating their population. The people are the building blocks of an economy, so the minds of the people must be altered to alter the economy. One rhetorical strategy that both speeches employ is appealing to the emotions of the population. Both leaders give the context to the current status of their respective half of Korea and explains why the current status can be further enhanced. Furthermore, both authors also appeal to ethics as each describe each other as enemies, yet unification

Kim Il Sung proposes his ideology of working-classizing people, or moving the peasants and intellectuals into the working class. Doing so will allow the people to accelerate progress on economic development. This is achieved because a larger working class means more labor for industries in North Korea, and thus more production. Furthermore, the result is the diminishing of other classes so the political system would be more democratic, again appealing to emotion of having a true democracy. Park states a similar system of changing people, but rather than a class change it is a mentality change. In order to form a real democracy, the people needed to change their attitude about other people. Park often mentions privilege in Our Nation’s Path, which has caused people to look down upon others. (Park As a result, people are isolated so a democracy that represents the people can not be achieved by people thinking about their own personal benefits. Thus, rather than changing the class of the people like in North Korea, the beliefs of the population must be changed in order to form a democracy and improve as a nation. Only after people unite can economic change be possible.

So, Kim and Park use the strategy of motivating the people in order to get people to change in a way

Both authors use appealing to ethics to criticize the opposing Korea’s ideology. The North Korean government promotes the idea of reunification as they consider South Korea to be a puppet of the United States. Kim Il Sung claims the artificial division by the United States does not allow for peace as the United States provokes the North Korean government with its presence in South Korea. As a result, there is a need to integrate South Korea. But, to accomplish this task, North Korea needs the support of the people. This means working harder to allow the North Korean government to achieve this task. As a result, working harder means more labor and increased productivity, which stimulates their economy. Likewise, Park expresses the need to reunite the North Korean people since there is the constant threat of Communism. Park considers North Korea to be an underdeveloped country with no morals as a result of the Communists. Park considers the Communists to be the fake patriots and the cause of the poor state of South Korea (Park ). So, to prepare for reunification, the South Korean government requires resources which means the people need to unite and work for the greater good of both Koreas. All in all, both governments appeal to ethics as it is “just” for the two Koreas to be reunited, but to do so the populations need to work for that task which leads to economic development through