A Meditation on History: The Paradox of U.S. Influence in South Korea as both a Cultural Embrace and Historical Resentment

Abstract

This paper examines the evolving South Korean perceptions of the Korean War and the United States, exploring how public memory and cultural practices reveal the impermanence of historical meaning. Drawing on historiography, memory studies, and philosophical reflections on history’s fluidity, it investigates two case studies: the General Douglas MacArthur statue protests and the naturalisation of baseball in Korean culture. Through these examples, the paper interrogates how competing narratives – academic critique, political pragmatism, and everyday experience – coexist and conflict, illustrating how history is not a static record but an ongoing field of negotiation. It ultimately asks how the enduring yet uneasy cultural affinities toward the U.S. expose the multiplicity and impermanence at the heart of historical legacy. Specifically, the paper asks: How do evolving public perceptions and academic critiques of the Korean War coexist – often uneasily – with enduring cultural affinities toward the United States? Additionally, what does this dissonance reveal about the impermanence and multiplicity of historical meaning?