This thesis explains Chu Hsi's concept of Elementary Learning as a sociopolitical agenda mainly through the analysis of his understanding of Elementary Learning as idea and text. Chu Hsi's sociopolitical agenda provided a new paradigm for Chinese soci...
This thesis explains Chu Hsi's concept of Elementary Learning as a sociopolitical agenda mainly through the analysis of his understanding of Elementary Learning as idea and text. Chu Hsi's sociopolitical agenda provided a new paradigm for Chinese society undergoing change after the Tang-Song transition period. Chu Hsi's idea as a sociopolitical agenda offered a convincing way of life by which one could pursue self-cultivation and participation in social and political life to Chosŏn literati who were to be part of nation-wide networks and to have influence over social and political agenda of the Dynasty.
I focused on Chosŏn literati who had lived in Fifteenth- Sixteenth Century and the text as it reveals Chu's sociopolitical agenda.
Here I regarded Chosŏn literati who had lived in Fifteenth- Sixteenth as 'the Elementary Learning Practicing Men'. They were to be part of nation-wide networks. The network is a set of relationships between individual, groups. The relationship, for example, master-disciple, friend-friend, or marriage. The network of 'the Elementary Learning Practicing Men' started Kim Jong jik.(金宗直) He taught Elementary Learning to his disciples. His network was a set of relationships between master and disciple. Kim Koeng p'il(金宏弼) who was a disciple of Kim Jong jik took pride in claiming that he devoted himself exclusively to the Elementary Learning until the age of thirty. On the significance of the text in general, In its wide and sustained influence upon the fundamental moral instruction and formation of the Confucian elite of Fifteenth- Sixteenth Century, Chosŏn, probably no other single work has equalled the Learning for elite since it first appeared in 1187 A.D. Kim Koeng p'il's networks were expanded from vertical relationship to horizontal one. That might be master-follower, marriage, friend-friend, and student-student in Sungkyunkwan University. Those made clubs in Sungkyunkwan University. The club organized by scholars expressly for the purpose of studying and practicing the teachings of the Elementary Learning.
The Elementary Learning was one of the basic Neo-Confucian primers to come out of the Sung, an anthology of selections from the Classics and other works from the historical period up into the Sung, published by Chu Hsi in 1187. This text became an important part of the Neo-Confucian core curriculum. Its value lies in the illustrations it provides of Chu Hsi's pedagogical methods and the way it highlights the reforms he thought most important to bring about in family and community life. It touches on many different aspect of human life and society, its value and significance for various fields of study is almost unlimited.
According to the Elementary Learning, Chu Hsi's agenda was a new approach to the relationship between ruler and official. The ruler became a more human figure, who was expected to cultivated to himself through learning in the style of the literati and whose ability to maintain the support of the populace depended on his success in managing the government so that it served the common good. And his agenda was a social program on the basis of which one might limit the intervention of the state in local affairs, and share authority among more autonomous local units, relying on popular education and ritual observance as an alternative to punitive law. Underlying this program was the idea of personal self-transformation and communal cooperation as the basis of the polity, the fusion of public and private interests. The social program was the community compact which Chu Hsi adapted from Lü Ta-chün(呂大鈞) in Elementary Learning chapter 6, as the basic constitution of a self-governing community. The ideal of voluntary cooperation which inspired this system is expressed in term yüeh(約), a compact or contract entered into by members of a community for their mutual benefit.
'The Elementary Learning Practicing Men' applied to Chu Hsi's agenda at their time. First, they abolished Naesusa(內需司), which managed King's private property. They argued for a sharp divide between public and private interests. Second, they said that the ruler need to distinguish between noblemen and mean person. The ruler is a human being like every other human, with the same moral and intellectual potential and the same susceptibility to corruption. Therefore the ruler grounds for claiming moral authority in addition to his political role, by providing the world with a model of learning for oneself. Third, they enforced Hyeonryang system(賢良科), which was a method to recommend ethics conducting men, that is, the man should practice filial piety (by showing respect to his parent and mourning the deaths of his relatives according to his degree of kinship to them) and generally conduct all his relations with others according to well-defined ethical standards. Because civil service examination only required some rote knowledge and had to compose a poem and a rhapsody. Fourth, They conducted community compact. This was a fellowship that members formally joined with the purpose of encouraging themselves to moral behavior. Kim An'guk(金安國), third minister without portfolio and governor of Kyŏnsang province(慶尙道), is said to have published an edition of the Lü Family Community Compact in Korean vernacular. After, community compact was conducted nation- wide. But in a method, community compact of Jungjong(中宗)' time was a different from Chu His's community compact.
The Elementary Learning was expanded by academy and seodang(書堂)'s pedagogy in local. And 'The Elementary Learning Practicing Men' published the Elementary Learning in Korean vernacular. After all the idea of the Elementary Learning was spreaded from court' literati to populace.