[KS] Yu Kilchun

Vladimir Tikhonov vladimir.tikhonov at ikos.uio.no
Mon May 8 04:06:16 EDT 2006


To begin with, Korea's early Social Darwinism should not be taken as 
Korea's intellectual property only. While some leading Social Darwinist 
thinkers, like Yu Kilchun, Yun Ch'iho and SO Chaep'il, did learn this 
stuff from the likes of Edward Morse (1838-1925) directly in the USA 
(and all three combined it with various kinds of Protestant faith, as it 
was fashionable in some part of contemporary American protestant 
community), the majority in the 1900s and later - prominently, Sin 
Ch'aeho and Pak Unsik - relied upon Liang Qichao and a limited number of 
Japanese books available to them. Then, the Social Darwinism of the 
1910s - represented by Yi kwangsu and HyOn Sangyun, for example - is 
almost entirely reliant upon the Japanese sources, Japanese translation 
of some European authors included. So, the question has to be formulated 
in a bit other way, I guess - while the quest for secrets of "wealth and 
power" led Katoo Hiroyuki, Tokutomi Soohoo, Liang Qichao, and their 
Korean followers - that is, a large, almost dominant group of East 
Asia's early modern intellectuals - to embrace the belief that the life 
is a zero sum game, and to eat up the others in order not to be eaten up 
yourself is a right thing to do? And why some peripheral European 
societies with equally acute sense of national crisis - Poland, for 
example, - where remarkably less zealous for a Social Darwinist baptism? 
One explanation may certainly be a religious aspect to Polish 
nationalism, and the fact that Social Darwinism was much more popular 
among American or German Protestants than Eastern European Catholics, 
for very complicated reasosn, both social and doctrinal. So, an 
important portion of Korea's early Protestant thinkers, like Syngman 
Rhee in his young years, could have it in both ways, both Social 
Darwinist and Protestant. Then, Polish aristocracy, which led the 
nationalist movement, seemed to have a sort of traditional sanction for 
its privileges, while East Asia's "new intellectuals" - the likes of 
Katoo, Liang, or Sin Ch'aeho - where typically from impoversihed and 
peripheral gentry lineages, and did need to establish their right to 
"lead the nation to progress", their right to ideological hegemony. And 
the Social Darwinist idea that "knowledge is power" (anUn kOsi himida - 
we have it as a idiomatic saying in Korea now) certainly impowered those 
who had a sort of temporary monopoly on the "new" knowledge. Other thing 
is that (Neo)-Darwinist explanations of the workings of the world and 
society looked almost as holistic and all-encompassing as Neo-Confucian 
ones, but that is another story...

Vladimir Tikhonov (Pak Noja)


On 07.05.2006 19:13, Frank Hoffmann wrote:
> With its idealistic notions of social progress and failure this is, same 
> as his texts on the history of other European nations and his writing in 
> general, written under the influence of contemporary British and 
> American historians. Works by non- if not anti-neo-Darwinist historians 
> such as Leopold von Ranke and many other important historians -- works 
> that at the time still informed a majority of continental Europeans, 
> have not found their way to Yu. Or maybe it really just was a 
> pick-and-choose situation, a conscious choice, a matter of what appealed 
> to a reformist leader from an economically and politically stagnating 
> country on the verge of being annexed by its neighbor. Yet again, while 
> this is certainly the leading historiographical take on this issue, we 
> should note that this understanding grew right out of the American 
> neo-Weberian (and still neo-Darwinist) historigraphic tradition. We 
> might well ask why such views were at the time not really that popular 
> in other nations with similar plights ... say for example Poland. Anyone 
> still following me -); 
> Okay then: During the entire 19th century Poland was, just like Korea, 
> fighting over its independence -- here with the Russians, the Austrians, 
> and the Germans. Just like Korea a country with a great and old culture, 
> in political and economic terms it lost out step by step to its 
> neighbors. Polish provinces fell under Russian administration and German 
> farmers settled in Silesia and took over Polish lands. As a result, by 
> 1900 over a million Poles had emmigrated to the United States. Several 
> diplomatic as well as military attempts to regain independence had failed.
> But other than for Korean reform and independence movement scholars 
> neo-Darwinism did not so easily become the great runner in Poland. Maybe 
> because Poland is overwhelmingly Catholic? It certainly seems so, as 
> neo-Darwinian theory is incompatible with Christian faith (clearly 
> stated so in harmony by both, the Catholic Church and neo-Darwinist 
> thinkers).
> 
> We now have a convincing explanation for Poland. But how about other 
> continental European nations? Why was neo-Darwinism here of some appeal 
> during the late 19th century but never really took the lead in teh pool 
> of new ideologies? Why so in Great Britain and in the United States? In 
> short, my main doubt as regards to Korea and neo-Darwinism concerns the 
> *inevitability* in which histories have recorded Korea's embracing of 
> such pseudo-scientific ideology.
> 
> 
> Best,
> Frank


-- 
Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages,
Faculty of Humanities,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1010, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854828; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page: http://folk.uio.no/vladimit/
 
http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.html
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