Novel Modality of Power

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Recommended: Koreans' Colonial Experience under Japanese Rule and Their Pursuit of Modernization

The industrialization and modernization the Japanese brought to Koreans has continued to be a subject of great controversy between Japan and the two Koreas. According to the Japanese, their main objective was modernizing the Korean society; on the other hand, the two Korean countries claim that Japan derailed their modernization process and exploited them. The vivid memories of Japanese apologists justifying their colonization of Korea and the support the contemporary Westerners gave Japan are still fresh in the minds of the people of North and South Korean. Lee asserts that due to these two divergent positions, the concepts of modernization and industrialization have become tools for describing specific societal phenomena as subjects of symbolic struggles.
Lee further avows that the modernization theory has been considerably discredited within the past two decades and its true meaning has further been relativized. In this regard, if modernity shall not be condemned for all the disastrous consequences it brought through its unrestrained influence, then a better reflection should be employed in examining its achievement and discursive conception. In Lee’s perspective, instead of regarding modernity as an emancipatory project, it should be viewed from an angle of authority and influence, which are focused on “the novel modality of power and domination.” The Koreans were also subjected to the oppressive Japanese rule in their search for modernity. The essay explains extensively, the meaning of the phrase “the novel modality of power” as used by Lee.
Lee’s perspective on the novel modality of power and domination stems from the undemocratic and repressive nature of the Japanese rule. From the superficial perspective, this rule w...

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...ans abandon Nationalism?” Korea Journal 39.2 (1999): 283-341. Print.
Han, Do-Hyun. “Shamanism, Superstition, and the Colonial Government.” The Review of Korean Studies 3.1 (2000): 34-54. Print.
Lee, Chulwoo. “Modernity, Legality and Power in Korea Under Japanese Rule.” Colonial Modernity in Korea. Eds. Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson. New York, NY: Harvard UP, 1999. Print.
Robinson, Michael E. Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History. Manoa, HW: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. Print.
Sunae, Pak. “Hostage to My Past.” The Stories of the Korean Comfort Women. Ed. Keith Howard. New York, NY: Cassell, 1995. Print.
Yong-sop, Kim. “The Landlord system and the Agricultural Economy during the Japanese Occupation Period.” Landlords, Peasants and Intellectuals in Modern Korea. Eds. Kie-Chung Pang and Michael Shins. Seoul: Cornell East Asia Series, 2005. Print.

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