Ham Seok-heon divided the history into three large chunks of eras: a preemitive era when mankind was still not much distinguishable from the other living creatures; an era mainly led by a few heroes and most of others simply followed those few exceptionals, which he defined to exist from BC 2,3000 until about early 1950s; and an era that the ordinaries lead systems in which their political, economical, social, cultural, etc. faiths foster.
Even considering his speculation referred the history was outlined by very large pieces of time period within such a limited space, while reading the chapter, it was rather hard to erase a though that his approach was too bold to contain what he supposedly aimed to deliver to his readers.
First, his assumption described the ordinaries in the "hero era" as passive beings simply following a few saviors without having own thoughts seems greatly underestimating hereditary instinct the mankind has had since its creation. Here, it may be necessary to clear out the definition of "grass-roots needs/democracy." It's pretty much about realizing the needs of the most of ordinary people within systems in which they live. It is about absolute command of their survival (Ham puts it as 생명, the obliged share of life thrust upon us). Often, their needs were conveniently disregarded simply because they clashed with the needs of those in power thereby to leave majority of ordinaries unsatisfied. Presuming this natural instinct of mankind was less significant then than now seems not so persuasive. Okay, there were heroes then, but so do we now. If being exceptional was everything to lead the history, why on earth leaders then spent so much of their time and energy to preach to people and listen their needs in return? Why Jesus wondered around local markets and strived to awaken those ignorant? Why Moses still squeezed his last drops of sweat to lead his people into a promised land, not giving up on the peope even with many occassions clearly indicating their pathetic ignorance and maybe even unworthiness in nature. Well, I don't believe all these heroes constantly chased mirages out of unrealistic ideal daydreams. I believe they were wise enough to be aware of the fact that people were the only and absolute source for what they wanted to achieve. They understood, without moving the heart of people, there won't be anything they could do. In this regards, significance of having grass-roots power has been essential always throughout the history of mankind and only those who successfully acquired it were allowed to be true leaders. It has been like that in the modern history and I don't believe it was different thousands of years ago.
