I am curious like a cat. From what I understand half of Korea believes in Confucianism. I understand it originated from China, but is it a religion? Or just a belief system? Is there really a difference?

I will be reading more on this, but I really know little about it. Any Koreans or other knowledgeable folks want to explain?

If you are curious about reading up on it go here.

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Funny you should mention this, check out my thread in the lounge.

I know its different but funny!!

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They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

I think, technically, it is just a belief system; kind of like law to keep the order of things...but, now that you ask, I don't see any difference from this and a religion...except the worshipping part. No one prays to Confucious, do they?

From what I understand their is a great respect for elders. I wish America was more like that!

Mike

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All Koreans are confucianists, but few of them study it as a special subject. It is the bedrock of Korean and East Asian societies.

Elements of Confucianism have been influencial in Korean society before recorded history with ancestor worship being a part of it. They began bringing it into the society more formally very early on as well as each of the Three Kingdoms of ancient Korea adopted the structure of the Chinese government with 6 bureaus and other forms of administration like modern South Korea having a National Assembly based loosely on America's Congress. But, most of the early and middle use of formal Confucianism in Korea was limited to the basics of having such a government structure and knowing enough about the Confucian classics and how they were used in China to make sure Korean diplomats and such travelling to China for trade and other issues would know the protocol and what the Chinese were talking about. Knolwedge of the thought system was limited to the government class and there only slow over centuries did a special class of Korean develop centered on knowing and applying Confucian principles learned through years of study.

That changed dramatically when the Chosun dynasty was formed in 1392. As Korea had evolved as a one kingdom peninsula and its contacts with Chinese civilization developed, a class of scholar-bureacrats grew and gained power. Eventually, in the 14th century, more and more reform minded Confucianists wanted to make fundamental changes in the society, and when they helped set up a new kingdom, they became the biggest power block in the society.

There were a serious of purges of these officials in the 16th century as the royal family and powerful families that had enjoyed power in the previous dynasty tried to turn back the clock, but the Confucian oriented government official class won out, and they completely reshaped much of the society.

It was in the Chosun that the effort to turn all of Korean society into a confucianistic state was carried out.

One of the most interesting features to me is how the state created a nationwide educational system (for the elite families in each village) throughout the country even down in Cheju Island. It did not always function well and was not like contemporary high school, but it was a school system I think created much earlier than you find in Western Europe or the US.

Confucianism is a religion, I believe. It has formal codes. It has rituals. It has places of worship. It also believes in spirits. It doesn't really have a concept of God or gods like Buddhism, but people have argued over whether its concept of Heaven and perfection and powerful natural forces do not constitute what we come to expect from religions.

Basically, it is a long thought out system that seeks to understand the structure of the universe --- especially human society --- and teach the individual to mold their heart and mind and body to that structure. Everthing has its place, and knowing its place, it can fit well within it, and the more people and things that fit into their place, the more harmonious and peaceful and prosperous the universe will be.

It also teaches that Everyman has the capacity to learn the wisdom of the sage (but if you really get into that, it isn't exactly what they believe -- some more conservative confucianistic thinkers believe that like we believe "everyman is created equal" but not all men are equal --- meaning, in Korean society, even though Confucianism had in part the belief all me can learn the wisdom of the sage, Korean society had an "outcast" section of the population just a little similar to India --- for example, butchers were members of the outcast group and could not live in the same village with others but had to have a special place set up outside the village with the other undesirables. It was not expected that children born in these outcast communities could become great Confucianistic thinkers and occupy powerful positions in the government).

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, so I'll stop here. The last thing I'll mention is that eventually, Confucianism became so common in the society, it became stagnant. It turned into mostly a way to get government positions and social prestige.

Trade and military service were deemed lowly in Confucianism, so Korea's native economy never took off much. The only real avenue to success for most of the Chosun dynasty was through work in the government bureaucracy. To get in the government, and to rise in the ranks, you had to pass the Confucian national tests.

Eventually, in the local areas, just studying for the tests made you an important person in the community.

There is a good bit about Confucianism in Korean society available in English.
I'll list some of the titles below. They are academic studies, so they might be boring to many people.

I'll just name a couple ---- the best source for information about books on everything related to Korea is the page kept by the University of Hawaii -- it is put together by a Korea Studies professor in Japan.

http://www.hawaii.edu/korea/bibliography/biblio.htm

Here is the link directly to the bibliography on Confucianism

http://www.hawaii.edu/korea/bibliogr...nfucianism.htm

Here is a link to a study I did on the school system and it touches on the religious aspects a little.

http://www.dprkstudies.org/documents/asia016.html

Lee Ki Baik's New History of Korea is a translation of a Korean university history text book and the best source (or most commonly used source) for a general history of Korea from pre-history and archeology to 1960.

I thought this book had good chapters on how Confucianism was used for politics in Korean society in the new dynasty to curb the power of the king and connected families .... Social History of the Early Choson Dynasty

The Literati Purges: Political Conflict in Early Yi Korea
The Origins of the Choson Dynasty

Confucian Rituals in Korea ---- twice a year, in the spring and fall, the local Confucian schools that are still standing in places here and there throughout Korea have a ceremony. I've never been able to attend one, however.

The National Confucian Acadmia in Seoul at a University whose name escapes me is worth visiting and has ceremonies in the year as well. The Confucian national exam is also given at one of the royal palaces (a reenactment) complete with ceremonial performances from long ago in what was a highly ritualistic society. In the spring, the Chongmyo also has a very good reenactment of the king offering sacrifices to his ancestors at this site which is where the ancestral name tablets are kept. It is well worth seeing.

I'll try to track down the dates for these ceremonies for 2006 (they are often scheduled by the lunar calendar) and post about them in the Articles section of the site.

I already put up one about the annual ceremonies up in Paju a the museum and gravesite of one of Korea's two most famous Confucian scholar-officials - Yulgok.

but, it doesn't seem like anybody took it up and went to see it last fall.

Thanks for the great reply! You should submit this as an article.

Mike

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I don't remember which two texts these items came from, because I read them long ago, but they are good for explaining what Confucianism seeks to do and its difference from Buddhism - the two thought systems that formed the heart of Korean culture.

You can understand Confucianism by looking at a table leg. What is a table leg? For Confucianism, a table leg is defined by its function. It sits under a table and supports it. If you remove it and use it as a doorstop, it is no longer a table leg. If you simply remove it and lay it to the side, technically, Confucianism would say, it is no longer a table leg though we might call it that if we saw it. It can only be a table leg when it is fullfilling its specific purpose.

The heart of Confucianism is understanding your function in the universe as you go through life and adapting yourself to that function.

In Confucianism, everything has a specific definition. It has a specific purpose. An ideal. And your job is to attempt to match that ideal. And, for another example, the job of the King and government authorities is to regulate the society so that every thing seeks to fullfill its ideal role, and the more people and things that match their ideal, the more harmonious and good the universe will be.

Confucianism specifically looks at society in terms of the family. It is very specific about this in different texts, and I have forgotten many of the details, but the basics will do. It spends much time talking about the roles of the father-son, husband-wife, brother-brother, and so on branching out into uncle-nephew and so on. You as a person are defined by your relationships and the role specific to those relationships. A son should be loyal to the father and obey. The father should order the house with the ideal in mind for the good of the whole family. And Confucianism expanded the idea of the family roles to describe individual people's place in society, and each kingdom's place in the world. For example, in Korean, you call complete strangers who much older than you "grandfather" or "uncle" or those closer to your age "older brother" or "older sister" --- and following Confucianism, you are supposed to give that complete stranger respect based on his position in your pseudo-family. On the society-wide context, the king is like the father and his subjects, especially his government officials are his sons.

It is interesting, to me at least, that in Korea's history with different Chinese dynasties, Korea often pushed for redefinition of its bilateral relationship with China. Because Korean was the most Confucianistic nation outside of China, having embraced Confucianism and Buddhism and other elements of Chinese civilization (what I like to call pre-modern technology), it wanted to have its relationship with China upgraded from something like father-son to uncle-nephew. This was important to Korea, because it gave it better trade benefits and help from China if it needed it (like in curbing raids from Manchurian tribes), but it also gave Korea leverage to reshape its bilateral relationship with kingdoms in Vietnam, Japan, and elsewhere in Asia who were not given as high a standing in the China-centered world order. Major diplomatic brouhahas, including war, could result, for example, when some new Shogun or strongman in Japan would send an envoy to Korea to demand Korea call the new ruler "emperor" or use diplomatic protocol placing the Japanese kingdom much higher up in the Confucianistic world-order definition than it had had before, but Korea would refuse and demand the Japanese accept their lower defined place in the universe.

Anyway, Confucianism heavily emphasised everything having its ideal place, and to become a sage, your job was to understand and apply the knowledge of what your place was in the universe to your life in your relationships and in your daily actions.

Buddhism, ontheotherhand, was completely different. One lesson used the symbol of the chariot, but I'm going to change it to a car.

What is a car? Are the 4 wheels the car? Is the engine the car? Are the seats the car? Are the passengers the car? Does the movement forward and backward define the car? The answer is always "no".

The idea eventually is that there is no such thing as a car. There is no objective reality. The world is an illusion that traps the soul in this material existence. The job of the individual is to understand this true and escape the cycle of life and death and rebirth.

Before the 15th century, Korea was a Buddhist state. The reformers who set up the Chosun dynasty in 1392 attacked Buddhism and its influence on state policy. It said Buddhism destroyed the family by attacking relationships and life itself. They asked how a people could survive if the ideal for everyone was to go off to some cave or mountain and break up the family and break up society?

The Confucian reformers were not able to kill Buddhism's influence in Korean society, but they did move very far in that direction at different times in the Chosun dynasty through measures like closing down most temples, closing down all sects but 2, limiting the number of monks, prohibiting monks from entering Seoul, and many other regulations.

In contemporary philosophy departments, Confucianism is studies as a philosophy or religion without much consideration of how it functioned in the real world. To me, it is much more interesting to look at how it functioned in the political world of traditional Korea.

A good book that looks at this in the capital is Social History of the Early Choson Dynasty