Korea's Experiences with Big Neighbors - 1

 

The principle

 

'Deference to the big[事大]' and 'caring for the small[字小]' were established as principles of world order no later than the Chun-qiu(春秋) period. An article in Chun-qiu zuo-shi-zhuan(春秋左氏傳) reads that "Li(禮) lies in the deference of the small to the big and the caring of the big for the small[禮者 小事大 大字小 之謂]". And it is further elaborated in a passage of Meng-zi(孟子), "It is the benevolence[仁] of the big to care for the small, (...) and the wisdom[智] of the small to defer to the big. (...) The big's caring will please the Heaven[樂天] and the small's deference will satisfy the Heaven[畏天]. He who pleases the Heaven will retain the World, and he who satisfies the Heaven will keep his realm."

 

'Discrimination' is one of the major vices for which Confucianism has been accused in the modern world, where 'equality' is an indisputable virtue. The spirit of discrimination is even more clearly manifest in passages of Li-ji(禮記) that "punitive measures do not go up to noble people[刑不上大夫]" and that "rites do not go down to lay people[禮不下庶人]". It means that the principle of social order worked in different ways at different social levels.

 

Discrimination was applied not only to polities and social classes, but also to individuals, on the basis of their wealth. In a passage of Analects, Zi-gong(子貢) asks the Master, "What do you think about being poor without being servile and being rich without being arrogant?" The Master answers, "Very good. But it would be still better to be pleasant in poverty and to support the rites in wealth." They both were taking for granted that poor men and rich men are supposed to behave in different ways.

 

Confucianism certainly did not have the kind of belief in 'equality' that prevailed in the modern world. This difference derived basically from different world-views. There was a movement in the 18th century Europe toward the reduction of social and political discriminations. The appearance of J Dalton's atomic theory at the beginning of the 19th century was welcomed by this movement with some overenthusiasm, and people began looking at the world as an assembly of atoms; "Just as the material world is composed of equal atoms, a human society is a gathering of equal individuals." This world-view pushed people to aim at something more than the reduction of discriminations. Now they began to believe in the total abolition of all discriminations. And this atomic view was applied to international politics as well; "The world is composed of (atom-like) independent sovereign states."

 

Just as the atomic view downplayed the need for the protection of the weak in the capitalist system and made the society a jungle for the "survival of the fittest", it encouraged powerful countries to take merciless and aggressive policies, to make the world a very dangerous place. If so, in time ways should have been found to change it. How did it go on for such a long time? It was the fast development of technology that allowed the situation to continue. New technologies kept offering more and more efficient means to exploit the nature and the increased material supply kept a good part of the populace satisfied.

 

To be noticed is an aspect of modern humanism that alienated the nature. Modern man saw nature as nothing more than the background for the human being. Late 19th century people believed that the nature is infinite, so she was not to be essentially affected by any human exploitation. It began to dawn on people only in the late 20th century that it might not be so.

 

Homo-sapiens was just a part of the nature before the beginning of civilization. Development of civilization brought changes to the relation between the nature and the human society. Distance seemed to appear and increase between them. But it cannot be a real 'distance' because humans cannot separate themselves completely from the nature. What changes is only the location of humans in the nature, just like that of Sun Wu-kong(孫悟空) on Buddha's palm.

 

There always have been people in all societies who fancied that human societies could be totally separated from the nature. But it was difficult for them to become the mainstream of any important tradition because such a belief would have worked against the sustainability of the tradition. The popularity of this belief in the modern world has been a rare exception and I do not expect it to go on for a long more time.

 

Also to be noticed is the role of the Heaven as quoted above from Meng-zi. To a modern secularist it would have no more sense than a mere rhetoric, but I read in it the recognition of the relation with the nature. The recognition that things should not be determined only by the collusion of directly involved parties. For agendas which affect more parties than those directly involved, like the climatic change convention, the introduction of a transcendant subject looks quite relevant.

 

At this point of time, when the need to reconsider the relationship between the human society and the nature is more and more strongly perceived, the influence of modern secularism should be thoroughly reexamined. Principles of traditional tributary system of East Asia will make a good material for consideration.