This paper attempts to explore the relativeness between the acceptance of Neo-Confucianism and the change of the status of "the people" in Korean history. My critical viewpoint is the question as follows: even though the minbon principle of "people as the basis" espoused by Neo-Confucian could be merely the ideology for rule, what result had the difference of existence or non-existence of that principle brought about? And even though that might be unintended consequences, what change had that principle including Neo-Confucianism brought about the noticeable one of their habitual mind on politics to not only Neo-Confucian scholars but also the people?
In order to clarify the change of the relativeness, I chose the historical approach and tried to trace the trajectory of the change in Choson period of Korea. Then, my study yielded the following result: the being-in-place of the principle itself and Confucian intellectuals' efforts to practice the principle could have made a noticeable change into the people's habitual mind on politics and could have affected the people's social and political status over time. Especially, compared with the early period of state-building, a difference could not but appear during the mid-Choson period in which the minbon principle was taking roots among the people and the people experienced large scale wars, disasters, and widespread famines. In the case of the outbreaks of those country-wide calamities, what the political elite did could not meet the people's expectation and the elite seemed unable to live up to their long-cherished principle of minbon, with the result that, despite the Neo-Confucians' original intention, the principle of minbon began to be used against the elite themselves as the philosophical base of the people's opposition against unreasonable rule. As a result, a most important change took place in the people's own concepts, when they began to think of themselves as eligible as participants in the public sphere and their most possibly active participation as an obligation. They began to realize that the political order based on minbon principle should be not for the official but for the people, and for this purpose, the order should be opened and administrated on the principle of public participation. This way they were motivated to study the ways for the people's participation. Despite expected differences in locality and social class, it would be reasonable to think that such an idea was gradually spreading and penetrating through the people's mind over time.
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