This week’s post was written by Tomasz Sleziak. Sleziak is a scholar in Korean studies (particularly Korean but also global Confucianism) and Post-Humanism, conducting research on Confucian socio-legal and metaphysical discourse throughout Korean history, as well as its placement within the global discourse on Post-Humanism, Trans-Humanism and Non-Humanism. He completed his PhD in Korean Studies at London’s SOAS after having achieved his Master’s Degree at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland jointly with research in Seoul at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Sleziak’s previous work in the Digital Orientalist can be viewed here. This article’s cover image was provided by the author.
The recent domination of the various channels of digital communication by VIPs and major corporations has certainly engaged popular attention. The fact that nearly all content online is subject to ideological bias or “gatekeeping” is being acutely understood as a threat to a comprehensive, multilateral discourse throughout the popular media. It is by no means an exclusively modern phenomenon, though. Every culture and every state had periods of its history when the privileged laid claim over what is considered “truth,” and denigrated alternative perspectives. In pre-modern and early-modern Korea, societal fragmentation and the increasingly problematic dichotomies between the center and the periphery contributed to an image of a country divided along the lines of language and public discourse. In this short article, I will discuss the dynamics between power and communication, elites and non-elites, and simplicity and complexity. The relevance of these notions cannot be overstated in the modern era, as we are all exposed to the reality of a world where freedom of speech, even if nominally guaranteed by law, is often subject to social woes, political ill will, and access to relevant technologies themselves.
Korea’s mountainous terrain has, since the country’s earliest history, contributed towards both its own geographic isolation in East Asia and the separation of its internal communities by steep peaks and deep valleys. As Korea gradually approached administrative unification from the 7th century onwards (United Silla), communication between villages and larger town centers became of paramount importance. At that time, people were predominantly, on the grassroots level, united by the concerns of their livelihood and by the fear of the unknown, leading them gradually develop from shamanist/animist life rationale towards distinctly Buddhist and Confucian perspectives. These two latter metaphysical or meta-ethical outlooks notably had linguistic frameworks on their side—namely, those of Indian and Chinese origin. Confucianism in particular had strong and distinct connections with Chinese writing systems. Despite the Chinese language sharing next to no similarities with spoken Korean—or perhaps due to this very factor—Classical Chinese became the leading method of conveying official policies to the populace, and of subjugating lower social strata under the yoke of the mighty, which in the United Silla period and the following Goryeo dynasty were represented by genealogical aristocracy, powerful landholders, government ministers and abbots of Buddhist monasteries. These individuals had a distinct hold on culture, and their agendas frequently extended beyond Korea’s borders. Indeed, Chinese characters represented not only the language of the immediate power and of the sacred reality, but also indicated the importance of international relations, and especially so for the land-tillers, who with time became burdened not only by national taxation systems, but also by the requirement to supply valuable regional agricultural produce for the purpose of tributes to foreign countries, primarily imperial China and Japan. In the beginning and mid-Goryeo period (approximately 1000-1250), specific social strata started to mark their presence within Korean society, and they were the ones who precipitated the growth of the central administrative apparatus into the countryside, and, by extension of this process, new dynamics in socio-linguistics and mass communication.
Throughout the Goryeo and Joseon eras, communiques between the populace and the government organs were conducted primarily through two channels: via petitions, and via lower-level local clerks (ajeon, K. 아전, C. 衙前; alternatively named hyangni, K. 향리, C. 鄕吏). The former typically emphasized exaction of individual or group grievances, while the latter embodied the two-way process of service and edification between the lower social strata and the elites. These modes were notably accessible and direct (despite multiple socio-administrative caveats), and one may liken them to the modern European Union’s institutions, their directives and courts of justice, especially as far as the requirement to “firstly exhaust local solutions before reaching towards the higher level” is concerned. In this sense, the administrative and legal structure of Joseon may seem fair—the source of societal woes, and indeed of many of the petitions, lied in custom and stratification. The ruling yangban (literally “both sides” [of the military/civil administration spectrum]; K. 양반, C. 兩班) stratum were the most explicitly visible power-holders within the state, but their authority on high culture did preclude them from making direct efforts in regards to embassies, trade, translation business etc., all of which were seen as part of the domain of clerks or the middle-class jungin (literally “middle-men”; K. 중인, C. 中人). Moreover, it was the yangban who primarily rejected the native Korean writing system (later known as Hangeul) as well as Idu/Hyangchal/Gugyeol mixed scripts[1] and annotation systems in favor of “pure” classical Chinese. Consequently, if we are to examine the dynamics of national and international systems of communication, the middle, low and “secondary” should typically take precedence. Indeed, while the royal authority had behind it an explicit goal of “edifying” the masses (i.e. shaping them into honest and ethical adherents to Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism), the implicit undercurrent behind this cultural venture was creation of an easily manageable and obedient taxation base, and in this regard the rural, low-level administrative apparatus, the various “technicians” and specialist employees of the Six Ministries took precedence over the yangban moralists.
There were two key areas of interest to the state of Joseon: the county level, and the border regions (the Pyeongan, Hwanghae and Hamgyeong provinces). In the first case, the magistrate-ruled bread-baskets of the state were the domains of both the yangban clans and the oft-precarious lands worked off by farming communities. The delegates from the capital were in most cases unacquainted with the local reality, and depended on the know-how of the hyangni. Laws and royal proclamations were read or otherwise delivered in Hangeul; fittingly for their intermediary roles, the hyangni could manipulate both the noble outsiders and the mostly illiterate land-tillers through their aptitude in the semi-phonetic use of Chinese characters in the Idu system. Thus, they were the primary “gatekeepers” of information in Korean counties, not unlike moderators on platforms such as Twitter or Reddit. The social situation of the hyangni was complex, but here it suffices to say that their practical importance did not accord them any honors nor stable salaries. In border regions, in turn, translators belonging primarily to the jungin stratum, its affiliates or the merchant (sangin; K. 상인, C. 商人) class held sway over the actual nobles (the number and prestige of which were comparatively low in the north) in contacts with the Imperial China. The highlighted cases of power over information which did not equal actual social status bear strong resemblance to the modern “grassroots” bases behind politicians and administrators—not necessarily representing the actual upper echelons of power, but being indispensable to them, and in certain situations presenting distinct “uncertainties” or even outward risks.
Joseon Korea developed a remarkably intricate postage system. Specifically, it was a network of stations typically interspersed by intervals of 12km or so. The aforementioned clerks were often assigned to these stations to process official documentation, which in turn could be disseminated more easily through the use of the movable metal press, thought to be uniquely invented by the Buddhist establishment during the Goryeo era. Moreover, both for civil and military purposes, smoke-and-fire beacon signal institutions called Bongsu (K. 봉수, C. 烽燧) were installed throughout Korea, with the core of this system situated at the Mt. Namsan, currently in Seoul. In modern era, with the increasingly significant threat to freedom of electronic communication from the corporate oversight, terrorists and state-backed actors, both the administrative institutions and individuals worldwide mull return to preservation of key data in paper form, or otherwise planning for emergencies by the means of low-tech solutions. Naturally, one may raise objections that basing current information technologies upon the realities of pre-modern or early-modern states may not be exactly intuitive, but a potential counter-argument is that, regardless of the apparent civilizational progress and the level of sophistication, lowering of systematic entropy may guard socio-political structures from external disturbances. Moreover, such contingency plans may be particularly valuable when the accessibility of high-tech media is concerned. For these reasons, Morse code is still in use throughout the world, by militaries and civilians alike. The disappearance of specific formats from circulation, such as the so-called “floppy disks”[2] or the means of accessing them (as seen in the trend of most laptops lacking CD drives today, compared to 10 years ago or so) certainly suggest the value of non-digital, or otherwise “basic” means of communication. In early-modern Korea, signaling technologies not only had to cover for the fact that “the word does not carry far enough on the battlefield”, but also, once again, for the reality of the majority of Koreans at the time being illiterate, the Classical Chinese script being complex and rather inflexible (especially because its evolution ended in Tang/Song eras of China’s history), and the indigenous Hangeul losing multiple letters with the passage of time.
Plain spoken word also mattered in Korea’s public spaces. As far as the aforementioned system of petitions is concerned, the final stage of pursuing justice was at the royal palace in Seoul, where a large gong was available, theoretically for all possible querents to ring. As evidenced by research of Kim Jisoo[3] and others, if a given argument was both sufficiently logical and emotive, even women or otherwise underprivileged individuals—including the lowborn serfs/slaves[4] had a chance of their causes being listened to by the topmost echelons of Joseon. In modern era, including the netsphere, arguments carrying a socially relevant emotional baggage are, indeed, more certain to receive public attention than those build purely on facts, for better or for worse. In Joseon as well as in the current world, manipulation of communication was an unfortunate norm. The most common culprits were the provincial administrative structures, fielded not only by the hyangni clerks, but also by nominally middle-rank representatives (Hojang; K. 호장, C. 戶長) of local village communities, all of whom often were in needs of material support themselves. Oftentimes, if they were not provided with sufficient bribes, they could withhold crucial data from legal proceedings or withdraw support altogether, especially given the fact that magistrates themselves were not allowed to serve their functions within the areas of their genealogical origin. These problems were overlain on the fundamental complexity of Korea’s stratification system, which to this day requires adjustment of honorifics and other grammar forms in discourse between individuals of different age and social status.[5] As a digression, it is worthy of note that, for Western translators into Korean language, what defines a casual speech or “neutral” forms of address is not always straightforward, with target translations needing to take into account the key social divisions between the West and Asia; consequently, even one’s standing within an online community (including, but not limited to, message boards), usually independent from the user’s actual age, real-life work position or familial standing, can be defined by digital “tenure,” personal views and attitudes towards higher-in-ranks. This often creates uncodified hierarchies dependent on popular culture and modes of expression acceptable within specific social contexts. Coincidentally, these dynamics resemble political factionalism and letter exchanges between members of old Korea’s yangban nobility, rather than the language and communication-associated problems faced by members of lower social strata.
In both the global and Korean societies, the spoken word has certainly carried power throughout centuries. It embodied a sense of immediacy, regardless of whether its contents conveyed down-to-earth truths or hackneyed lies. In the online world, with rapidly changing themes of discourse that reflect real-life concerns, written communication is subject to domination by the powerful and the influential, by socio-political realities at hand, and by differences between individuals’ perceptions of life goals and necessities. Jobs, duties and professional experience translate directly into specific communication patterns, and even more so whenever one literally lives in and off the digital space. We, the digital humanists should not only take heed of these intricacies as we observe the subjects of our research, but also as we look at ourselves, our field of work and what informs our perspectives. The ways we acquire data on a day-to-day basis often involves various AI frameworks, most of which not only are facilitated by major conglomerates (called the chaebol in Korea; some of the key players include LG or Hyundai, with their structures, perhaps not completely as a coincidence, based upon the familial principles of Neo-Confucianism as applied in Korea), but also learn and construe their language models from pre-existing ethno-linguistic realities, many of which stretch into the distant past. In this sense, the language and communication issues experienced by Koreans of Joseon era could offer valuable lessons to us, especially in regards to materialism, low-level technologies, and the ways how words could be sanctified or otherwise provided with actual weight to prevent their misuse.
[1] Seon-Tae Yoon, “The Creation of Idu,” Korea Journal Vol. 50, No. 2 (Summer 2010), pp. 97-123.
[2] Rocky Swift, “Japan Declares Victory in Effort to End Government Use of Floppy Disks,” Reuters, 3/07/2024, online: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-declares-victory-effort-end-government-use-floppy-disks-2024-07-03/.
[3] Jisoo Kim, “Engaging in Dialogue: Women’s Petitions in Eighteenth Century Chos˘on Korea,” UCLA Thinking Gender Papers (2008), pp. 1-8.
[4] Sun Joo Kim, “Slavery in Chos˘on Korea,” in Damian A. Pargas and Juliane Schiel, eds., The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), pp. 319-338.
[5] So-Hyun Kim, “Cultural Emphasis on Age Reflected in Korean Language,” Korea Herald, 10/09/2023, online: https://www.koreaherald.com/article/3211101.
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