Enlightenment and Government in Traditional Korea Part 2

Guiding the Wind to the Edge of the World

Soojin Hyun

Lecturer in History, Sungkyunkwan University

 

Minchul Kim

Associate Professor of History, Sungkyunkwan University

Research Fellow, Voltaire Foundation

 

Villages, Women, and Children in the Face of the Wind of Gyohwa

Let us return to the story from the Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds of introduced in the previous essay. The Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds was a book compiled by the Joseon court to educate the people in Confucian ethics. It employed illustrations and vernacular Korean to convey historical exempla associated with Confucian moral precepts. Yet the modes of understanding Confucian ethics in this period had undergone a significant transformation. The Joseon dynasty adopted Neo-Confucianism—a school of thought systematized by Zhu Xi (朱熹; K.Juhui) in the Southern Song dynasty, which had been introduced to late Goryeo in the mid-thirteenth century through contact with the Yuan Mongol Empire—as its governing ideology. Unlike the Han and Tang Confucianism that emphasized methods of governance, Neo-Confucianism distinguished between Yi (理; principle) and Ki (氣; vital force) as the constituents of human nature, and developed theories of mind and nature (心性論; K.simseongnon) to explain this distinction. What was crucial in Neo-Confucianism was the conviction that every human being was innately endowed with moral virtue. Although individuals were thought to lose their virtue due to temperament or environment, they could overcome this through learning and self-cultivation. Within this logic, Neo-Confucianism established the ideological foundation for the idea that even commoners were capable of actively studying and cultivating Confucian ethics. Compared to earlier times, when the people were merely regarded as the passive objects of ‘instruction’, a qualitative shift had now occurred.

Change became most evident at the peripheries. In spatial terms, the wind of the moral transformation (敎化; K.gyohwa) spread beyond the capital and into the villages. The diffusion of the local community pact (鄕約; K.hyangyak) is one clear example. Originating from Zhu Xi’s Lu’s local community pact (呂氏鄕約; K.Yeossi hangyak, C.Lushixiangyue), the local community pact set forth communal rules for village society based on Confucian ethics. Its core precepts were: encouraging one another to perform virtuous deeds (德業相勸; K.deogeopsanggwon), restraining one another to prevent wrongdoing (過失相規; K.gwasilsanggyu), maintaining propriety in social interactions (禮俗相交; K.yesoksanggyo), and aiding one another in times of hardship (患難相恤; K.hwannansanghyul). From the mid-sixteenth century onward, Joseon intellectuals sought to disseminate Neo-Confucian ethics in village society and thereby morally transform the people. The renowned Neo-Confucian thinker Yi Hwang (이황/李滉, 1501–1570) created the local community pact of Ye-an province (禮安鄕約; K.Ye-an hyangyak) in 1556, while his contemporary rival Yi Yi (이이/李珥, 1536–1584) composed the local community pact of Seowon province (西原鄕約; K.Seowon hyangyak) in 1571. Such pacts were disseminated throughout the provinces with the primary purpose of morally transforming the people.

Moral transformation through ethics alone was not sufficient to deal with the realities of politics. Local administrators dispatched by the central court had to employ not only moral instruction but also punishments in exercising rule over the people. Yet in popular governance, it was always believed that the Moral Transformation should take priority. This idea is well illustrated in the Admonitions for the People (警民編; K.Gyeongminpyeon), a book compiled, published, and disseminated in 1519 by Kim Jeongguk (김정국/金正國, 1485–1541).

The Admonitions for the People literally meant ‘to admonish the people’. It served as a manual instructing local administrators on how to respond when local residents committed crimes or engaged in social deviance. The text argued that through educating and enlightening the populace, local officials should bring about changes in popular customs. At its core, the Admonitions for the People took as its guiding principle the Analects of Confucius’ discussion of moral transformation (gyohwa) and punishment. Confucius had taught that if the people were led by government policy and controlled by punishment, they would merely seek to avoid punishment without knowing shame. Conversely, if they were led by virtue and governed through ritual propriety (禮; K.ye), they would learn to feel shame and advance towards the good. The Admonitions for the People fully embraced this view that moral transformation should take precedence over punishment. It thus insisted that before local residents committed crimes or acts of social deviance, they should first be educated to recognize such behaviours and avoid them. The book was written when Kim Jeongguk was serving as a local administrator in Hwanghae Province, which means that the contemporary perception of the importance of governance through moral transformation had tangible influence well into the provinces outside the capital.

The wind of moral transformation did not blow only upon men. In principle it was to extend as far as possible to women and children, indeed to all members of society. For although virtue could be obscured by temperament or environment, it was believed to be inherently present in every human being. To realize this ideal in practice, instructional texts for women were compiled and disseminated. In the early Joseon period Korea imported from China the Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳; K.Yeollyeojeon, C.Lienuzhuan), which depicted the Confucian ideal of womanhood. From the fifteenth century onwards Joseon itself produced a variety of women’s instructional books (女訓書; K.yeohunseo) to teach proper conduct and feminine virtues. Their content emphasized Confucian ideals such as filial devotion to parents, the duties between husband and wife, harmonious and gentle character, and integrity and frugality. Such texts were primarily intended for royal and aristocratic women, and many of those published in Joseon were written not in Literary Sinitic but in Hangeul.

There was also great concern for the education of children. From the mid-sixteenth to the seventeenth century onwards, numerous elementary institutions for children were established in local communities. Enacted in June 1546, the Regulations for Schools Outside the Capital (京外學校節目; K.Gyeong-oe-hak-gyo jeol-mok) laid out in detail the aims of children’s education, the intended student body, and the curriculum. For Joseon’s rulers it was self-evident that schools were the very source of popular customs and of moral transformation (gyohwa). The Ministry of Rites (K.Yejo, which oversaw ritual, music, ancestral rites, banquets, diplomacy, schools, and the civil service examinations) submitted the following memorial:

‘The task of educating the common people (小民; K.somin) must be arranged immediately. In the regulations (節目; K.jeolmok) that were explained repeatedly to the provincial schools last April, the intent to instruct the common people was already included. We therefore request that the provincial governors (監司; K.gamsa), the chief administrators of each province, be ordered to promote this.’ The directives of the Ministry of Rites were as follows: ‘As for those suitable to teach children, regardless of whether they are of families of scholar-officials (士族; K.sajok) or of illegitimate descendant (庶孼; K.seo-eol), appoint more teachers in addition to the current six. Gather the boys from the scholar class as well as from the common people (凡民; K.beonmin), from age eight or nine up to fifteen or sixteen. Begin by teaching the Elementary Learning (小學; K.Sohak, C.Xiaoxue). Once the boys are proficient in reading and parsing sentences and have grasped some literary understanding, then proceed to teach them, in order, the Great Learning (大學; K.Daehak, C.Daxue), the Analects (論語; K.Noneo, C.Lunyu), the Mencius (孟子; K.Maengja, C.Mengzi), and the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸; K.Jungyong, C.Zhongyong), so that they may advance to the state schools.’

Veritable Records of King Myeongjong (明宗實錄; K.Myeongjong sillok), day Sinchuk (辛丑), June, 1st year of King Myeongjong (1546).

 

The significant point here is that, already in the mid-sixteenth century, at the national level it was mandated that local elementary schools should teach basic Confucian classics such as the Elementary Learning to children regardless of whether they were from families of scholar-officials or of commoners. The opportunities for education were to be extended not only to the yangban (兩班, the stratum of literati-officials) but also to the sons of ordinary cultivators whenever they appeared capable. This policy stemmed, as we have thus far discussed, from an intellectual orientation that the work of moral transformation had to reach the common people as well. The institutions that carried out this education were primarily the private elementary school (書堂; K.seodang), operated by Confucian scholars residing in the villages. The term seodang, which originally meant ‘hall of reading’, appears to have derived from the practice of local literati educating neighbourhood children in their own private libraries.

The level of instruction in those private elementary schools (seodang) varied widely: some focused on simple literacy or writing practice, while others taught elementary understandings of Neo-Confucianism and the study of ritual. In any case, the main textbooks were the Confucian classics, and the chief content was Confucian ethics. Particular emphasis was placed on the ‘five bonds’ (五倫; K.oryun)—the basic ethics governing human relations: affection between father and son (父子有親; K.buja yuchin), righteousness between ruler and subject (君臣有義; K.gunsin yuui), differentiation between husband and wife (夫婦有別; K.bubu yubyeol), order between elder and younger (長幼有序; K.jang-yu yuseo), and trust between friends (朋友有信; bung-u yusin)—together with the behavioural norms that followed therefrom. Surviving into the twentieth century, the private elementary schools operated through close cooperation between local magistrates and rural elites, thereby playing a role at the very front lines of governance in morally transforming the people in accordance with Confucian ethics.

 

 

‘Barbarian Learning’ and Catholicism Encounter the Confucian Idea of Moral Transformation

In 1636, with the outbreak of the Qing invasion of Joseon—known as the Second Manchu Invasion of Korea (丙子胡亂; K.Byeongja Horan)—the orientation of moral transformation began to shift. The ruling elite of Joseon revered the civilization of the Ming dynasty, founded by the Hanjok (漢族; Han Chinese), and regarded Neo-Confucianism as its emblematic expression. For them it was inconceivable to acknowledge the Qing dynasty, established by the Yeo Jin-jok (女眞族; Jurchens), whom they regarded as ‘barbarians’. Yet Joseon, having enjoyed long decades of peace, had no choice but to surrender when confronted by Qing forces who marched south with an army of tens of thousands of soldiers. As Joseon’s literati engaged in exchanges with Qing thereafter, they gradually came to realize that a variety of forms of knowledge and material culture existed beyond the Neo-Confucian learning they had long upheld. Through its encounters with the West, the Qing empire was constructing new systems of thought. By the late eighteenth century, a current emerged—centred on those scholars who had travelled to Beijing—that advocated for the selective reception of Qing innovations. This movement came to be known as Northern Learning (北學; K.Bukak).

Northern Learning distinguished itself from Neo-Confucianism—whose discourse centred on metaphysical moral principles—by emphasizing the concrete domains of daily life and the economy, including clothing, food, and housing. A representative figure of the Northern Learning movement was Hong Daeyong (홍대용/洪大容, 1731–1783), who remarked that ‘even seongni (性理), the so-called principles of human nature, are nothing special; they are dispersed across the myriad necessities of everyday life (日用)’. Another leading proponent, Bak Jiwon (박지원/朴趾源, 1737–1805), travelled to Beijing and marvelled at the bustling scale and splendour of Qing’s imperial metropolis. According to The Yeolha (Jehol) Diary (熱河日記; K. Yeolha ilgi), Bak’s travel account written after serving as an envoy to Beijing, few people in Joseon managed even two meals a day, and it was difficult for most to obtain even a single cotton garment a year. By contrast, he observed, the residents of Beijing stored ample grain in their homes, and that those passing along the streets were uniformly dressed in clothing and shoes made of silk. On such experiences he argued that the distinction in learning lay simply in whether or not one’s studies were put to practical use. Joseon, he believed, needed to move beyond abstract discourse on principles and turn its attention to the economy and practical utility. However, for the majority of Joseon literati devoted to Neo-Confucianism, Northern Learning still remained nothing more than ‘barbarian learning’, and they regarded it as a challenge to the intellectual framework they had fostered and preserved for centuries.

 

 

In the same period Joseon experienced another form of intellectual shock. Led by the Geungi Namin (近畿南人) faction—a scholarly and political group based in the Gyeonggi region—Catholicism was introduced to Joseon through Qing. Because it was received through the West, this body of learning came to be called Western Learning (西學; K.Seohak). ‘Western Learning’, however, did not refer solely to the religious doctrines of Catholicism; it encompassed the European sciences represented in the eyes of Joseon intellectuals by Catholic scholarship including astronomy, calendrical calculation, and geography. But this did not mean that the literati who embraced Western Learning rejected Confucianism. Rather, they accorded greater weight to interpretations of the Six Classics (六經; K.Yukgyeong), understood as the foundations of ‘primitive Confucianism’, than to Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian exegesis. Yi Ik (이익/李瀷, 1681–1763), a leading figure of Western Learning, acknowledged the existence of the Catholic ‘Lord of Heaven’ (天主; K.Cheonju) on his reading of these early Confucian texts. In sum, at the point where Confucianism, Northern Learning, and Western Learning intersected, a profound transformation of intellectual life was under way.

Amid the intellectual turmoil of the late eighteenth century, the people (民; K.min), long regarded by the state as objects of government and moral cultivation, came to be considered as ethical subjects in their own right. This shift was evident in the theory of moral transformation articulated by Jeong Yakyong (정약용/丁若鏞, 1762–1836), a prominent thinker who produced more than five hundred works dealing with the social problems of late Joseon and outlining reform proposals across political, social, and economic domains. Jeong Yakyong delved seriously into the Confucian classics, publishing extensive commentaries on the Six Classics, while also inheriting Yi Ik’s scholarly orientation and studying Western Learning in considerable depth. His elder brother Jeong Yakjong (정약종/丁若鍾, 1760–1801)—baptized ‘Augustinus’—served as the first leader of the Joseon Catholic community and authored catechisms in vernacular Korean. A devout Catholic, he was martyred during the state persecution of 1801. Jeong Yakyong survived the purge by denying any personal adherence to Western Learning, but he was implicated in the incident and consequently had to spend eighteen years in exile.

With this multi-layered intellectual background, Jeong Yakyong produced numerous political manuals grounded in Confucian theories of moral transformation during his years in exile. The most renowned among them is Admonitions on Governing the People (牧民心書; K.Mokminsimseo), completed in 1818. According to this work the ultimate purpose of local magistrates dispatched from the central government was to guide the people towards proper moral cultivation. To cultivate the people meant in essence to lead them to grasp the principles of hyoje (孝悌). Hyoje consisted of hyo (孝; filial piety), the disposition of reverence towards one’s parents, and je (悌; fraternal virtues), the affection and harmony expected among brothers.

Jeong Yakyong held that all human beings were born with an ethical inclination towards hyoje and that anyone thereby had the capacity to become a truly moral agent. He believed that the goal of politics was to ensure that the people would voluntarily embody the principles of hyoje and care for their parents, siblings, kin, and neighbours. In practical terms the king and local magistrates could not coerce such virtues upon the people; moral transformation had to arise from the people themselves. However, the rulers could encourage the practice of hyangnye (鄕禮; local rites), the communal rituals of village life designed to support this moral cultivation. Whether Catholicism exerted a direct influence on Jeong Yakyong’s thought in this regard remains uncertain. But from the perspective of gyohwa—the ideological apparatus of Confucian moral governance—the people, once regarded merely as recipients of moral instruction, were now increasingly understood as ethical subjects who could internalize Confucian virtues on their own initiative. This shift aligned closely with the earlier spread of Confucian education to village populations.

 

Fractures in the Confucian Theory of Moral Transformation and the Rise of European Enlightenment in Korea

Yu Giljun (유길준/兪吉濬, 1856–1914), hailing from a distinguished Confucian scholarly lineage and having studied Confucianism from an early age, reached a turning point in 1873 at the age of seventeen. Through a leading member of the Enlightenment Party advocating reform of the traditional order through the reception of Western knowledge, Pak Gyusu (박규수/朴珪壽, 1807–1877), Yu encountered Haegukdoji (海國圖志), a Chinese compendium on the geography and history of the wider world. This encounter made him realize how ‘narrow’ the world of Joseon was and led him to abandon the traditional road to office through the civil service examinations. At that very moment Joseon had capitulated to the arrival of Japanese gunboats and, with the Treaty of Ganghwa Island (Korea-Japan Treaty of 1876), agreed to its first modern opening of ports. It had become clear that the encroaching modern civilization from the West could no longer be resisted with inherited orders and traditional knowledge.

Determined to acquire new forms of knowledge from the West, Yu Giljun resolved to travel abroad. In 1881, at the age of twenty-five he joined a Korean diplomatic mission to Japan and undertook formal study there. He enrolled at Keiō Gijuku (慶應義塾, today’s Keiō University) where he studied under Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤諭吉, 1835–1901), one of Japan’s foremost Enlightenment thinkers. Fukuzawa had provided the intellectual leadership for Japan’s successful modernization movement, the Meiji Restoration, and after his tours in Europe and North America he urged the modernization of old Japanese institutions in works such as Seiyō jijō (西洋事情, 1870) and Bunmeiron no Gairyaku (文明論之概略, 1875), which articulated a ‘theory of civilization and enlightenment’. During his studies Yu encountered Rousseau’s Du contrat social and appears to have attended lectures on Herbert Spencer, Montesquieu, and Tocqueville. In 1883 he accompanied another diplomatic mission—this time to the United States—and pursued further studies under Edward S. Morse (1838–1925) and absorbed the theory of social evolution.

In December 1884, while Yu Giljun was in the United States, his fellow members of the Enlightenment Party in Seoul attempted a premature coup motivated by the desire to seize power to implement their reformist ideas in reality. The attempt collapsed in three days. Now confronted with rapidly shifting domestic and international circumstances, Yu began to seriously reflect on the path that Joseon should take. The outcome of this reflection was Observations on a Journey to the West (西遊見聞; K.Seoyugyeonmun) (1895), a work into which he poured all the learning and experiences he had accumulated abroad. In this text Yu articulated in his own language the European theories of political systems and the doctrine of ‘civilization and enlightenment’, seeking to adapt them to the social conditions of Joseon. The monarchical polity that had long seemed self-evident to the scholar-official elite now stood on the verge of dissolution as the winds of rapid modernization and the complexities of global politics swept across the peninsula. Likewise, Confucian gyohwa—the ideal of governing the people through the moral cultivation exercised by those in authority—could no longer sustain its inherited normative power. Traditional Confucian theories of moral transformation presupposed the unquestioned existence of the ruler–subject relationship; yet once fissures appeared in this political order, the more urgent question became what form of government ought to be constructed in its place.

Yu Giljun thus argued that Joseon needed to move towards a constitutional monarchy by dismantling the absolute one. The new monarchy had to establish a representative assembly composed of popular delegates. In Yu’s view the traditional theory of government—according to which morally cultivated officials, having refined themselves through learning, ruled the people by guiding them through Confucian ethics—was beginning to collapse. At the same time he continued to recognize the value of Confucian ethical principles such as the ‘five bonds’ (K.oryun), treating them as instruments for achieving the ‘enlightenment of conduct’ and affirming their role in maintaining social order. He also reinterpreted jayu (自由; liberty), a core concept of Western political and legal thought, through the Neo-Confucian notion of human nature (性; K.seong). It is precisely at this juncture that traditional Confucian gyohwa and European Enlightenment ideas, introduced as new forms of knowledge, intersected. And the question now was: in which direction should the winds of moral transformation blow? For Korean intellectuals situated at the crossroads of an old order and an emerging one, an open question lay before them, one on which the fate of the nation and society depended.