A History of Korea (53 page)

Such themes were perhaps most systematically integrated into a prescriptive for national renovation by the work and writings of Pak Chiw
n’s close friend Pak Chega, whose renown extended to poetry, painting, and calligraphy. Pak Chega’s appointment in 1779 to a high position in the Royal Library by King Ch
ngjo, newly enthroned three years earlier, allowed him to further elaborate on the points made in the
Discourse on Northern Learning
and to influence the formulation of government policy. By the time the final revised version of the
Discourse
appeared in print more than two decades after its unveiling, it contained the most systematic expression of the northern learning program, garnished with the wisdom gained from Pak Chega’s experience in government service.

Among the most striking ideas appearing in this work and in Pak Chega’s policy proposals was the explicit endorsement of the pursuit of private wealth. According to Pak, the core problem facing late Chos
n Korea was widespread poverty, both in relation to China as well as in absolute terms. This condition stemmed in part from the ruling ethos of austerity that discouraged the consumption of high-quality goods, which in turn destroyed any incentive to produce, improve, and circulate material items. One solution,
then, was to encourage the aristocratic
yangban
to engage freely in commerce, trade, and manufacturing—all areas of activity that, in the Chos
n era, had been scorned as unbecoming of the nobility. This would, Pak stated, discourage idleness and serve as a model for “pursuing profit,” which in turn would enrich everyone.

Korea also was beset by decay in the infrastructures of commerce and manufacturing, according to Pak. Along these lines, he seemed almost obsessed with the simple wagon, which was the first of dozens of novelties—ranging from sericulture and paper currency to buildings and boats—that he describes having seen and studied while in China. He noted that ancient Koreans effectively used wagons, and even in contemporary times one could find a few of them in scattered areas. So why were wagons not in greater use as a central mode of transportation and transport? Nothing so encapsulated his homeland’s backwardness, Pak appears to have been saying: widespread use of wagons internally, in conjunction with open trade externally, would boost the circulation of goods, promote the diversification and improvement of locally produced specialty items, and benefit the economic conditions of the country as a whole.

Indeed the northern learning school’s “utility for the greater good” motive constituted very much a materialist proposition: only after the basic economic conditions are met can other concerns be addressed. In laying out the interconnectedness of the material with other realms of existence, scholars like Pak Chiw
n in fact aped the great Confucian chain of being, as expressed famously by Confucius in
The Great Learning
, a core book of the Confucian canon. But instead of locating self-cultivation at the most fundamental level, the northern learning advocates designated material well-being. This in effect overturned the long-held spiritual and ritualistic basis of Chos
n Neo-Confucianism, and it was even done with the rhetorical tool of appealing to the classics. In his introduction to the
Discourse on Northern Learning
, for example, Pak Chega quotes the ancient sages, including Confucius himself, to emphasize the economic foundation of ritual and morality— that the people’s welfare must be secured before focusing on enlightening them in spiritual propriety. In this sense the northern
learning school presented one of the most compelling intellectual challenges to Neo-Confucianism as the Chos
n orthodoxy.

THE SPROUTS OF MODERNITY?

Historians have suggested that the northern learning school, as part of the “practical learning” trend, demonstrated the stirrings of Korea’s own drive toward modern ideas and institutions. The calls for a centrality of the people’s welfare in statecraft and the leveling of the hereditary social hierarchy ostensibly represent modern ideals. And the prioritization of material welfare as well as the promotion of industry and trade to increase national strength suggest not only a vibrant mercantilism but indeed the shift toward capitalism. Economic historians, furthermore, have dug up evidence that the late Chos
n witnessed increases in productivity stemming from greater commercial activity and, in the agricultural sector, the adoption of new techniques and technologies. Northern learning scholars, as noted above, certainly did embrace technological advances and the development of industries and infrastructures, as well as the encouragement of consumption, commerce, foreign trade, and manufacturing. But the expression of such ideals and, as it turned out, the lack of sustained implementation of them, reflected more the fact that Chos
n Korea, despite some advances in productivity, was nowhere close to achieving the critical mass necessary to overturn the basic production modes. In fact, that Pak and others so lamented the
absence
of changes long having been adopted in China testifies to the starker reality of late eighteenth-century Korea. The vociferous opposition to the northern learning school, some of which stemmed from a distaste for its literary conventions, did not counter that Korea’s economic conditions were inaccurately portrayed, but rather that they were acceptable given the risk of exposure to corrupting influences.