5. Conclusion

Kim Ji-ha in fact drew forth much reconciliation and coexistence. Kim Ji-ha sought to reconcile tradition and modernity and to bring the left and the right into coexistence. That he drew even a national aesthetics out of a democratization process in which there was only struggle would be the representative reconciliation and coexistence that Kim Ji-ha achieved. As appears in the film 1987, the event held at Seoul City Hall at the time of the June 29 Declaration was not some materialism or materialist aesthetics, but the national aesthetics created under Kim Ji-ha's influence—pungmul-gut, Lee Ae-ju's salpuri dance, Oh Yun's paintings, and Kim Yeong-dong's music. Even when left and right were in extreme opposition, the one who conversed with both sides was Kim Ji-ha, and he stated that this course of his was the pungnyu spirit of the threefold accord of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, beginning in the past with Yeo Un-hyeong and Cho Man-sik, and, still earlier, with Choe Chi-won. Although Jeungsan thought had also been criticized as more accommodating to reality compared with Donghak thought, Kim Ji-ha drew forth reconciliation and coexistence through Donghak and Jeungsan thought—national thought that at the time was close to a taboo in the democratization camp.