[질문] 군사독재 시절, 박정희-전두환 충성론이 지난 30여년 민주당 패권 체제는 아무개 대권주자(최근은 한동훈, 오세훈)론으로 바뀌었다. 아마도 같은 권력주의자인듯

This analysis examines the structural continuity between the power dynamics of the past military regime and the current political imagination surrounding potential presidential contenders like Han Dong-hoon and Oh Se-hoon, focusing directly on the text of the primary arguments.

1. The Core Continuity: The "Hero" and the Illusion of Automatic Reversal

The imagination that a "splendid figure" or a "hero" can emerge to solve structural crises without deep ideological cultivation represents a significant structural parallel to the past military dictatorship's reliance on centralized power.

When conservative discourse relies heavily on the formula that a single presidential contender can spark an automatic political realignment (e.g., the 4:3:3 ratio), it mirrors the power logic of the Yushin system. In that framework, the "royal palace" power of the Blue House was treated as the sole engine of governance, reducing the complex matrix of state institutions, public education, and cultural discourse to a singular focal point of loyalty or treason.

• The Abdication of Cultural Hegemony: As noted, since the publication of Cho Gab-je’s biography of Park Chung-hee over three decades ago, conservative discourse has heavily relied on commercializing past historical legacies (selling Park Chung-hee books) rather than constructing a forward-looking, institutional vision capable of engaging with modern globalism or domestic structural collapse.

• The "Splendid Figure" Fallacy: Looking at external examples like The Liz Truss Show, even radical or controversial ideological experiments present a structural vision for handling the public. Relying purely on the aesthetic or political luster of a single contender exposes a profound institutional vacuum within the ruling class.

2. The Twin Pillars of Contemporary Collapse

The current structural disarray can be traced back to the unresolved side effects of two competing historical frameworks that have both exhausted their utility:

[Military Dictatorship Era]                   [Democratic Party 30-Year Hegemony]
  State-Authored National Education              Donghak "Post-Heavenly" Fantasy
               │                                               │
               ▼                                               ▼
  Preserved quantitative-growth bias             "Small Branch" power distribution
               │                                               │
               └───────────────────────┬───────────────────────┘
                                       ▼
                     [Endless Repetition of Unity of Religion & Politics]
                                       │
                                       ▼
                       Structural Disarray & Collapse

The Preservation of State-Authored Education

The military regime relied on a rigid, state-authored national education system designed to foster Third World-style quantitative growth. Because the structural core of this education was preserved rather than critically dismantled, it created a public sentiment vulnerable to mechanical mobilization. When political actors assume that "the livelihoods of ordinary people will take care of themselves," they are actively relying on the inertia of this old state-authored discipline while ignoring the reality that its foundations have completely shattered.

The "Donghak" Political Faith

The 30-year hegemony of the Democratic Party operates on an altered version of the "Donghak" fantasy—a secularized secular religion promising a "Post-Heavenly Transformation" ($후천개벽$). This mindset treats the acquisition of state power as a moral monopoly for a specific clan or faction. By establishing "small branches" that mimic the core power center, this system functions as a franchise of political authority. It can completely disregard the material interests of its actual supporters because the discourse is restricted entirely to the preservation and distribution of power positions.

3. The Rejection of Reality and the Cultural Analogy

The refusal of the ruling class to look at the side effects of these twin systems—relying instead on political YouTubers or a shifting media landscape—is directly tied to the cultural anxiety regarding aging, decay, and institutional collapse.

The Structural Analogy of Public Perception:

The contrast between actresses who maintain a carefully managed public youth (like Hwang Shin-hye or Lee Mi-sook) and actress Park Soon-chun (born in 1961), who visibly reflects the natural aging process of an ordinary citizen, illustrates the public's deep discomfort with reality. In the minds of viewers, there is a desire for the subject to remain frozen in its youthful, idealized state forever.

Similarly, the political establishment attempts to keep the system "eternally young" by continuously generating and exciting the public with fresh presidential contenders. This serves as a visual and psychological distraction to conceal the fact that the actual institutional layout is in an advanced state of decay. Cultivating a hero becomes a substitute for rebuilding the legal, educational, and cultural infrastructure that both the military regime and the 30-year hegemony have systematically eroded.

This structural breakdown cuts straight to the core mechanics of political power. By parsing the primary definitions of oligarchy across different systems, we can see exactly how the "front language" of democracy often conceals an underlying aristocratic or clannish architecture.

1. The Paradox of U.S. Democratic Party "Oligarchy"

In U.S. political discourse, a common progressive critique—supported by landmark empirical studies like the Gilens and Page "Oligarchy" Study (2014)—argues that U.S. policy responds almost exclusively to economic elites and corporate interest groups, leaving ordinary citizens with a "near-zero" independent impact on policy outcomes.

However, your point exposes a deeper, structural irony within the Democratic Party's own base and leadership structure:

• The Merits-Based Aristocracy: While criticizing capitalistic oligarchy, the establishment and core supporters of the U.S. Democratic Party have built an alternative oligarchy rooted in a technocratic, credentialed aristocracy. Power is concentrated within a network of elite universities, judicial institutions, regulatory agencies, and cultural gatekeepers.

• The Secular Priesthood: This class operates precisely like a historical priesthood. They do not rule by divine right, but by epistemic right—claiming a monopoly on moral righteousness, scientific consensus, and correct social terminology. Anyone outside this network is treated as uneducated or morally deficient.

• The Oligarchic Element: Because this "priesthood" controls the state apparatus, major media, and cultural institutions, their internal factional decisions dictate public policy. Thus, while shouting that "democracy is under threat" from their opponents, they reinforce an oligarchic reality where a closed loop of cultural and institutional elites hold absolute veto power over the popular will.

2. Comparative Analysis: Lineage, Faction, and Ideological Foundations

To evaluate your premise, we can map out how these three distinct governance systems structurally mirror one another, using primary philosophical frameworks to decode their logic:

3. The Korean Ruling Class: Supremacy Over the Past & Structural Blindness

Your concluding question addresses the fundamental pathology of the current South Korean political establishment. Yes, the ruling class remains trapped in a state of historical supremacy ($과거지상주의$), using the traumas and triumphs of the past to legitimize their current grip on power while completely blinding themselves to structural collapse.

The Conservative Blindness (The Trapped Lineage)

The conservative establishment acts as if the old military regime’s national education and economic mobilization models are still functional. By focusing purely on cultivating a singular "hero" (whether Han Dong-hoon or Oh Se-hoon), they mimic the degraded Confucian logic of the Analects: they assume that if the "right man" sits in the center of power, the matrix of the state will automatically align itself. They treat the livelihoods of ordinary people as something that will "take care of itself" through past economic inertia, entirely ignoring the reality that the globalist economic model and domestic demographics have fractured.

The Progressive Blindness (The Moral Franchise)

The progressive establishment utilizes the secularized religion of the Donghak fantasy. Grounded in a distorted Mencian logic—where the "righteous" have a moral mandate to overthrow the old dynasty—they treat the state not as a neutral set of laws and institutions, but as a prize to be distributed among their factional confederation. Because they possess the "moral high ground," they feel completely justified in ignoring the rule of law or the erosion of public institutions.

The Ultimate Convergence:

Both sides of the Korean ruling class are playing an extractive game. They treat the public as a resource to be managed through media manipulation and political YouTubers, rather than citizens facing an existential, structural crisis. By discussing nothing but the internal mechanics of power, they successfully conceal their total lack of a modern, institutional, or global vision.