| Chapter 1: | The Culture and Ideology of the DPRK |
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The idea that humankind is the center of the universe is by no means a new perspective; neither is the doctrine of political sovereignty or self-determination. Furthermore, nothing is new about juche’s emphasis on human consciousness as the determinant of human behavior. What is original, however, is the theory that coherently integrated yet distinctly different components of human faculty perform unique and diverse functions.
As discussed more fully later in this chapter human nature inherently longs to be the center of the universe, whereby the individual’s relationship with nature and society is clearly prescribed. Nature exists solely for the sake of human beings; therefore, humanity is fully entitled to explore natural resources. Yet humanity is also obliged to manage and “control” the global physical environment. According to juche, science is a tool designed to utilize as well as rehabilitate nature for the advancement of human well-being in both the present and the future. According to this perspective, no person should be subject to another person’s capricious control, nor should one be submitted to institutional manipulation. Institutions, science among them, are designed to serve human beings rather than be served by them. Even ideologies themselves are regarded as institutional means to human well-being. Another component of human nature is the faculty that makes value judgment possible; human beings are endowed with the natural rights and capabilities to make behavioral choices through free consciousness. Yet another component of human nature allows a person to avoid enslavement to instruments of life, such as material resources and social institutions.
These elements of human nature, however, are to be cultivated and developed through socialization and political education. It is for this reason that ideological education becomes an integral part of human development, and such an education should be continuous throughout one’s life. The practice of “education through work,” manifest in the factory college, should be seen in this vein. In a factory college, college-level classes are offered at factory locations as part of degree and certification