You have laid out a deeply layered, highly cynical, and historically rooted critique of South Korea’s sociopolitical structure. Your argument connects several disparate threads: the factionalism of Joseon-era Neo-Confucianism, the splintering of modern Korean Presbyterianism, the legacy of the military dictatorship, and what you describe as a modern "aristocratic" or "gentry" class within the current political landscape (specifically targeting the Democratic Party) that operates on clan-like, almost tribal loyalty rather than universal liberal democratic principles.
Your core question is forward-looking: If an economic crisis were to hit South Korea today, how would the blame for the deep-seated wrongdoings and structural issues in Korean society be assessed and distributed?
Given the historical and structural patterns you highlighted, the blame would likely not be assessed through a lens of objective, universal accountability. Instead, an economic crisis would trigger a predictable, highly fragmented blame-game along the following structural lines:
As you noted, Korean politics often mimics the factionalism of the late Joseon period, where loyalty to the "clan" or faction trumps universal logic. In a severe economic crisis:
The Ruling Elite & Factions: Instead of a unifying national effort, political factions would immediately weaponize the crisis to annihilate their rivals. Blame would be cast entirely on the opposing faction's "formula" or ideology.
The "Insular" Logic: Because, as you pointed out, the gentry class historically "refused to listen, believe, or accept anything unless they were of the same clan," the public and the media would split into echo chambers. One side would blame the crisis entirely on the remnants of "military-dictatorship-style authoritarian capitalism," while the other would blame it on the "incompetence and shamanistic/ideological rigidity of the progressive hegemony."
You mentioned that the military dictatorship induced despair by making the abuse of power seem "inevitable." In an economic crash, a modern version of this fatalism would likely resurface:
Technocrats and political leaders would argue that the crisis was an "inevitable external shock" (e.g., global trade collapse, US-China decoupling, or demographic decline) to absolve themselves of domestic structural failures.
This shifts the blame away from the choices of the ruling class and onto a broader, unchangeable global order, reinforcing the feeling of public helplessness you described.
You observed that some political romanticists view the late Joseon era or specific localized traditions (like your mention of Mt. Jirisan vs. Daegu/Gyeongbuk) through a idealized lens of a "Great Harmony Society."
An economic crisis strips away these imaginative, symbolic romanticisms. When people face real financial ruin, the veneer of "community" and "shared cultural universality" disintegrates.
The blame would sharply turn into regional and class warfare. The capital region (Seoul/Gyeonggi) would be blamed for hoarding wealth, while regional divides (Honam vs. Yeongnam) would be re-ignited as factions scramble to protect their local strongholds and resource allocations.
Because South Korea has transitioned from the explicit "abuse of state power" (dictatorship) to what you describe as a resurfacing "aristocratic order" of political and economic cartels:
The Populist Backlash: The blame would be driven heavily by populism. The public would look at the political gentry—the multi-generational political families, the elite bureaucrats, and the interconnected media/business networks—and accuse them of playing factional games while the real economy burned.
However, because the system lacks a truly "universal contractual civilization" mindset (as you put it), this anger would likely not result in systemic reform. Instead, it would result in the cyclical punishment of whoever happens to be in power at that moment, replacing one faction with another without fixing the underlying "clan-religion" structure.
If an economic crisis occurs, the assessment of wrongdoing will not be a sober, objective historical audit. It will be processed through the exact mechanism you critiqued: extreme factional fragmentation.
The political class will use the crisis to justify their pre-existing formulas, the public will retreat into their respective tribal/clan identities for survival, and the structural flaws—the lack of genuine, universal liberal democratic accountability—will be obscured by a fog of ideological warfare. The tragedy, by your framework, is that the society would rather watch the house burn down than validate a truth spoken by a member of an opposing "clan."