도산의 무실역행론과 미주 한인의 생활윤리

Abstract

Literature on Dosan (Ahn Chang Ho)’s life and works abounds. There isno dearth of biographies and memoires penned by those who worked with him nor any shortage of scholarly dissertations contributed by later generations of scholars. Most of the existing literature deals with Dosan’s community-organizing work and consciousness-raising activism, particularly with his work on education and his involvement with thepolitical movement for Korea’s national independence and self-determination. Attention has long been givenalso to his important contributions to the Provisional Government of the early Korean republic. There is also ample written research available on Dosan’s own philosophy. But most attempts at approaching Dosan’s philosophy tend to be limited in scope to his views on education and to his social and political views. Yet, it seems the core of Dosan’s philosophy really concerns ethics: specifically, the pursuit of truth and its transformative application to the actions and lives of individuals and nations. Dosan advocated an ethically practiced principle of action-oriented truth-and-knowledge-seeking. Through such a principle, he sought to promote the formation of a sovereign citizenry of sound character who would be taken to task for finding solutions to the many deep-seated problems of historical nature facing the Korean nation and individual Koreans of his time. To this end, Dosan helped found a number of social and industry organizations, among them the well-known Hung Sa Dan and other national independence activity groups. At the center of Dosan’s philosophy is his deep ethical sense, out of which grows his philosophy of truth (the vigorous pursuit of truth). I believe that the existing literature on Dosan largely misses on this important fact. My research seeks to correct his oversight, by illuminating the structure and content of Dosan’s truth-based philosophy and, further, to formulate a vision for ethical living for today’s Koreans in America, Korean Americans, and Korean immigrants to America. The geographical and social environment in which Dosan developed as a young man, as well as the historical backdrop, importantly influenced Dosan’s ideas about truth. Dosan was born and came of age in the north-western region of the Korean peninsula, which during the Chosun Dynasty had been marginalized as the kingdom’s backwater. Owing to these roots, Dosan’s development was quite different in nature from what was common among the children of the aristocratic elite of the southeastern region, for example, which was under the strong control of the neo-Confucian ideology and system of social order, founded upon such ideals asmoral justification and righteousness. As a result of both his commoner social status and his regional identity, Dosan developed in an open and free space of flourishing activity. This developmental background was one of the key causes for Dosan’s converting at an early age to Christianity and embracing the Christian worldview, and for his rejection of the Confucian belief system in favor of embracing modern rationalism. The time period into which Dosan was born was moreover one in which his country’s diminished viability for sovereign self-rule hung precariously on the balance following recent invasions by foreign powers. Deeply reflecting on these historical conditions, Dosan came to the conclusion that the dangers facing his nation resulted from its earlier failure to achieve economic prosperity buttressed by strong national defense. Dosan was convincedthat the only way to overcome the dangers facing his nation was to grow independently in strength. Such growth in strength would be ultimately realizable through each Korean national’s transformation into a New Citizen (Modern Citizen) actualizing the ideas of Dosan’s truth philosophy, thereby helping to establish a New Nation (Modern Nation). It was from these thoughts that Dosan formulated his theory of sound individual character development as a necessary condition for achieving and safeguarding the sovereignty of his New Nation and advocated his philosophy of truth as a standard of ethical living for his New Citizen. The Christian faith that Dosan embraced was American Protestantism, specifically Puritanism. While attending the Miller Academy (aka the Kyong Shin School), of Presbyterian affiliation, Dosan absorbed and internalized such principles asthe just administration of the law, freedom of thought, personal integrity, and industry (the Puritan work ethic), all integrated within the context of the social culture of his native northwestern Korea and the historical circumstances of his time. Later in life, Dosan continued to uphold these ideals in pursuingsocial activism and nationalist movement activities. Dosan’s truth philosophy was the basic spiritual principle underpinning the national improvement and citizen enlightenment movements he led from the time of the founding of the Young Persons’ Learning Society organized during the waning years of the Chosun Dynasty. The idea of vigorous truth-seeking is well elaborated in Dosan’s own words: “let there be no deception or telling of lies, and let honesty be our guide to action, such that we will be able to collectively build a capital of credit.” On one level, this meant the building of a culture of mutual trust and credit-sharing in the realm of social welfare. In addition, it can be interpreted as the capitalistic economic ethos of planting the seed of industrial development in a credit-based economy. It also reflected the principle of hard work and industrious labor. Dosan’s Truth Philosophy thus was structurally compatible with the contemporaneous West’s capitalist ideology. In addition, Dosan’s emphasis on credit and labor placed his philosophical positions in the same vein as Max Weber’s Protestant spirit of capitalism, summed up in such tenets as self-restraint, moderation, and diligence. The logic of Dosan’s ethical philosophy, which shares commonality with the Protestant capitalistic work ethic, I believe is the main reason that Dosan’s philosophy has long been widely embraced by Korean immigrants in America as a set of practical guidelines to immigrant life. Next there is Dosan’s emphasis of action, or idea-implementation into action. This meant equally the building of a “credit capital” and the individual developing of expertise in one or more fields of knowledge or area of practical skill which could translate into a long-term profession or trade. Such an accumulation of expert knowledge and know-how on the part of individuals could then grow into the community’s collective knowledge capital. In addition, each employed person would ideally save 20% of his income in order to build a nest egg of at least 10 Won (a considerable sum in today’s value terms). Such a savings scheme practiced by individuals on a wide scale would naturally engender a collective accumulation of capital for the nation as a whole, and by extension a growth in overall strength as a nation. This theory of human resources development would form the basis of a national education and trade promotion program, as well as a national capitalistic modernization program. Dosan’s action-oriented theory of truth-seeking (true knowledge-seeking) thus was, on the level of the individual, a sensible philosophy of sound practical living, but on the level of Korean society coming out of its centuries-long traditional slumber was nothing less than an important set of alternative ideas and principles counteracting against the orthodox system of moral values to which Korea’s traditional social elite (the Yang Ban) adhered, which stressed the neo-Confucian penchant for pure abstraction and the ethos of hereditary status based social hierarchy. Dosan’s philosophy served to express a frontal negation of Korea’s traditional society and its neo-Confucian social order. Dosan’s social activism based on his truth philosophy thus took on the character of an ideological struggle of a newly emerging, mediating social force, a bourgeois middle class that would intelligently overcome the rigidity of the traditional neo-Confucian social order. On the question of modernization, Dosan championed the interests of the commoner class and the newly forming merchant and industrial classes in his pursuit of an American-inspired capitalistic modernization strongly characterized by common, practical industrial labor. It seems to me that this was the reason Dosan’s philosophy was so readily embraced by early Korean immigrants as a philosophy for practical living. Ultimately, Dosan’s was an action principle, broadly formulated as the vigorous pursuit of truth and knowledge, which prized practical action over theory. Such consequence-seeking pragmatism, which found a cooperative partner in the signature practical and open character of the people and culture of the northwestern region of Korea, formed the basis of Dosan’s worldview. Such concepts as credit and labor, the Christian ideal of equitability, exemplarism, and personal responsibility summed up Dosan’s philosophy and reflected the citizen-social ideology and pragmatism that sprouted from the soil of the commoner culture of northwestern Korea’s merchant and industrial classes. Dosan’s philosophy comprised a theory of citizen enlightenment and nationalism, adapted from American style liberalism and individualism reflected in America’s frontier spirit and its tradition of Puritanism. It became a model in the project of forming the newly independent citizen-individual, with an orientation of pragmatism and social cooperation, to fill the role of New Citizen in his/her participation in the building of a New Nation for Korea. Cultivated human behavior is the manifestation in life of philosophical thought. Social activism and nationalist movements are buttressed, developed, and bequeathed through a system of ideas. Dosan’s social philosophy had at its core the veneration of pragmatism and the vigorous implementation of ideas into action. Dosan’s famous slogan mu shil yok haeng – living truth, energetic action – embodies his philosophy which is at bottom a treatise of ethics. Though Dosan did value the external display of morality, he more urgently prioritized a program of moral discipline for the self. Broadly understood, this approach meant the individual embracing of a thoroughly honorable stance toward the society and nation to which one belongs. Only when such a condition is met, Dosan held, can social activism and nationalist movements not fall into the trap of zeno-phobia but come to embrace the larger world and achieve the ultimate goal of world peace and shared prosperity. From this perspective, the problem of rampant imperialism and expansionism Dosan witnessed in the world in his lifetime can be seen to stem directly from a loss by humanity of the deep ethical consciousness Dosan worked to promote. For Dosan, the problem of re-prioritizing and spreading a deep ethical consciousness was at the heart not only of cultivating the modern, sovereign individual of sound moral character, but also of finding a solution to the widespread problem of imperialism and expansionism of his time. Dosan’s ideas in this vein became the nationalist ethos that brought forth Korea’s national socio-political transformation in early 20th century through a national independence movement. Fast-forwarding to today’s early 21st century world and the myriad problems we currently face, I believe that Dosan’s philosophy can help usaddress such problems as freedom’s excess ending in decadence, for example, or the excesses of capitalism leading to monopolistic and exploitative practices around the world. Dosan’s program of knowledge-seeking and ethical action served, in Dosan’s life and times, as a conceptual solution to the historical problem of Japan’s imperial campaigns on Korea. Today, I believe it remains a vibrant and relevant solution to many of our social issues and ills, being swept over as we are by the giant waves of change and flux we call neo-liberalism.