Confucianism has become a political punching bag in South Korea

“CONFUCIAN LAND” is a cultural exhibition in the South Korean city of Andong. It first asks visitors to reflect on the horrors of contemporary society, including war, consumerism and sexual licence. It then invites them to travel through a “tunnel of time” to 16th-century Korea, when Confucianism was the official philosophy of the royal court. The Korea of yore is portrayed as a harmonious Utopia, save for the occasional battle against Japanese invaders. Virtuous conduct, imply the displays charting the daily life of a Confucian scholar in a humble village, underpinned perfect social cohesion.

Some observers, including both Koreans and foreigners, are inclined to attribute all the successes of contemporary South Korea to the lingering influence of Confucianism. Rapid economic development, the academic prowess of Korean students, even the largely successful curbing of covid-19—it is all thanks to the ancient Chinese system of thought imported to Korea two thousand years ago. Others go to the opposite extreme, blaming Confucianism for all manner of latter-day blights, including authoritarianism, sexism, stifling workplace hierarchies and entrenched corruption in industrial conglomerates.

To attribute all that is good or bad to Confucianism more than a century after it ceased to be Korea’s official state ideology is, at...