A History of Korea (62 page)

The “Uphold Orthodoxy and Reject Heterodoxy” movement

The teleological tug of the nineteenth century tends to direct the observer’s gaze toward the forces calling for “opening” among the Korean reactions to imperialism, but the more substantial and influential responses came from the opposing view that adamantly condemned the West. Advocates of this perspective formed a concerted movement beginning in the 1860s called
wij
ng ch’
ksa
, or “uphold orthodoxy and reject heterodoxy.” This term starkly delineated the moral differences, and reiterated the urgency of acting on those differences, between the Confucian and Western civilizations. The practice of labeling opposing ideas as heterodoxy had a long history in the wrangling over Confucian propriety in the Chos
n dynasty, but this time, as with the Manchus in the seventeenth century, the notion of heterodoxy carried an ethnicized contempt. In contrast to the Manchus who conquered Korea and China but sought to maintain Confucian civilization, however, the “barbarians from the oceans” challenged Confucianism’s supremacy. Though later eclipsed by the forces of imperialism and internal reform, this fervent rejection of any contact with the West exerted a tremendous influence on the subsequent trajectory of conservative responses to the outside world and of nationalism itself. Indeed this nineteenth-century movement’s successors included not only the Righteous Armies that fought the Japanese takeover in the opening years of the next century, but ultimately also the isolationist “self-reliance” ideology of
Juche
that came to define North Korea.

Though most readily associated in historical lore with the Prince Regent, or
Taew
n’gun
, who carried out the Catholic persecution and feverishly beat back the American and French incursions in 1866, the intellectual leader of the “reject heterodoxy” movement was Yi Hangno. Yi was actually one of the most accomplished Confucian philosophers of his time, but it was through his explication of the rationale for rejecting all intercourse with
the West that his influence became paramount. Based on the premise of Confucian civilization’s unalterability, Yi found the news of China’s own fall at the hands of the British deeply disturbing, and he claimed that these developments portended grave dangers for Korea as well. Even the slightest accommodation with these corrupting external overtures, he noted, would place the Chos
n state, populace, and civilization on a slippery slope toward disaster. Before Yi died in 1868, he served as mentor to the next generation of “uphold orthodoxy and reject heterodoxy” advocates, including those, such as Ch’oe Ikhy
n, who led the Righteous Army campaigns half a century later. For Yi, the events of 1866 only reinforced his original warnings, and although he eventually fell out of favor with the court, his advice of absolute resistance resonated with the Prince Regent, who made this stance the state policy.