한국에서 중화(中華)의식과 기독교적 문명의식의 비교사적 고찰

Abstract

My concern is about what was the distinct characteristic of Korea with regardto the construction of its new civilization in the mid-seventeenth and the earlytwentieth century. I concluded that the thinking system of those who wereanxious to re-build their society according to the teachings of Neo-Confucianismin the seventeenth century was quite similar in nature to that of those who didso according to Western Christian civilization. Both civilizations affirm theprinciples of progression and reformation toward an ideal order, and haveproper discriminatory systems that postulate ‘the negative other’(Yijeok(夷狄)∙Barbarism) and‘moral teachings’(Confucianism∙Christianity) that controlmaterial profits. While beginning to accept western civilization from the latenineteenth century, Koreans regarded Christianity as the essence of Westerncivilization, and some members of the elite wanted to build a Christian country. It was a phenomenon different from that of China and Japan. Perhaps it was dueto the fact that Confucian civilization, Junghwa, had been resolutely consideredto be true and universal since the seventeenth century. The Korean intelligentsia,who had historically internalized the universal, showed a relatively united viewregarding the universal teachings. They formed an ideology for society buildingby overlaying themselves with universal civilization in social crises─in otherwords, by projecting overwhelming universality onto uniqueness. It was aprocess of making themselves a quasi-center, voluntarily adapting themselves tothe superior Other.