INTRODUCTION 15was undertaken in the half-century prior to the beginning ofYu's two-decade
long study in 1650 (chap. 3).
The description of the institutions of the early Choson dynasty is essential
because the essence of Yu Hyongwon's critique, based on his own Confucian
perspective on institutional questions, was that the institutions adopted at the
beginning of the dynasty were not fully informed by the proper Confucian spirit.
Part of his reasoning for this was that those institutions were not created accord-
ing to the proposals made by the most thoroughgoing Confucian reformers of
the transition period (particularly land reform). The incomplete Confucianiza-
tion of early Choson institutions was caused either by unavoidable circumstance
or by the different, nonideological perspective of the dynastic founder, Yi
Songgye, who was a military commander and politician rather than a philoso-
pher or moralist.
His second reason was that the late Koryo Confucian ideologues were either
mistaken in their confidence in certain institutions that they thought constituted
essential clements of a Confucian state (like the examination system, which had
been criticized by Chu Hsi and a number of other Neo-Confucian worthies), or
they ncglected to rectify things that they mistakenly thought were legitimate and
acceptable (like inherited slavery).
The Period of DegenerationChapter 2 will be devoted to a discussion of the forms of degeneration and change
in early Choson institutions that brought both the Choson dynasty and the Korean
nation to the verge of destruction in the I 590s. These forms can be conveniently
divided into conventional categories. In politics, the Confucian emphasis on lim-
ited monarchy, equal opportunity for all men of moral rectitude to move into
the ranks of officialdom, and probity in administrative behavior was undermined
by regal aspirations to tyranny, the raw political ambition of officials, favoritism,
factional coalition in defense of personal interest, and backbiting calumny against
political rivals. [n society, reciprocity based on an exchange of loyalty and
noblesse oblige and the bestowal of honor and prestige in accordance with moral
capacity was overwhelmed by the narrower and more traditional bonds of blood
and kinship that were carried over from the hoary traditions of the Silla and Koryo
dynasties. An ever-narrowing group of yangban semiaristocrats closed off all
access to their ranks by the use of inherited wealth and privilege and sharp-eyed
selection of marriage partners, and an ever-increasing body of slaves were pre-
vented by the stigma of birth from receiving the dignity due to ordinary human
beings. This was possibly the most egregious anomaly in Confucian society, an
hereditary aristocracy of blood and kin in the midst of a slave society (approx-
imately 30 percent of the population) that beggared the promise of the Confu-
cian message that only the most worthy men would lead, and only the least worthy
would hold up the rear and bear the burden of support.