Examined in this article is the criticism Dasan Jeong Yak-yong had upon the general population’s challenge of the social order during the latter half period of the Joseon dynasty.
From early on, the Joseon government aspired to establish self-supervising moral community defined by Neo-Confucianism, throughout the country. The policy of “suppressing the strong and assisting the weak(抑强副弱)” was also part of that effort. It required the local “Sajok” literati to take on a moral responsibility, in order to prevent them from abusing their power. The spirit of this policy is also reflected in the “Wi’pib-ryul,” which was a penal rule for criminal acts of “blatantly oppressing the weak.” This rule intended to force the offender, who happened to oppress a weak person even to the extent of his or her death, to pay the price for that crime, and therefore protect the weak while punishing the strong. Coming into the latter half period of the Joseon dynasty, this “suppressing the strong and assisting the weak” policy, utilizing regulations including the aforementioned “Wi’pib-ryul,” was considerably reinforced.
Then in the meantime, the general policy of “oppressing the strong” unintentionally made some room for rather unforeseen new practices, in which the weak people would challenge the authority of the people in higher social statuses. These increasing challenges started to spin out of control, and were labelled as an act of ‘challenging [an authority] beyond one’s place(犯分).’
Dasan Jeong Yak-yong critically argued that the policy to punish the strong ones’ immoral actions was being ‘abused’ by the people who were at the end of the social food chain, and that those people were trying to take advantage of the policy in a rather violent fashion. He also argued that the immoral actions and violence of those lower people, which could cause severe disruptions to the social order and stability, should be punished as well. At the time, there were people who would resort to committing suicide even at the most slightest insult or discomfort. According to him, acknowledging and therefore approving such abuses would definitely invite social disorder.
Dasan Jeong Yak-yong tried to suppress these improper challenges of the public, by emphasizing the fact that it was not at all an easy task to earn a moral ground to become a political part of self-supervising moral communities, and that the task was not for everyone. But it was not like that he would only criticize the immorality of the people below. In fact, he did want to stress the fact that the most effective if not only solution to the social problem of the people’s “challenging beyond one’s place,” was the restoration of the morality of the Sajok literati.