Loyalty versus compromise
Are you ready for a rather philosophical piece today?
On my YouTube channel I received a comment about loyalty versus compromise. It was the kind of comment that when I first read it, I rejected it because I thought it missed the point. But as I thought about it more, I moved through the steps from rejection to consideration, acceptance and conversion.
The comment was in response to a video I made about a poem by Jeong Mong-ju, where I recited his poem at his tomb site. The poem, often called "The Song of Loyalty," is my favorite sijo poem and I recite it in every appropriate situation that I can — and probably in some inappropriate ones as well. It goes:
"Though I die, and die again; though I die one hundred deaths,
After my bones have turned to dust, whether my soul lives on or not,
For my king, this small, ever-loyal heart of mine will never fade away."
I assume you all know the story of how Jeong was asked by Yi Seong-gye to support the Joseon Dynasty that Yi was about to found, but he refused and declared his loyalty to the last Goryeo king — effectively choosing death. He refused to take part in Yi's coup d'etat, and was subsequently killed by him. The story goes that when he left the dinner party where he declared that he would not support the coup, he rode his horse backward so that they would not fire their arrows into his back, but would have to confront him to his face.
Supposedly the stones of the granite bridge he was crossing are stained where he fell and bled to death. I’ve been to Gaeseong and seen the bridge and the white granite stones at the edge of the bridge, indeed, there are blood stains visible to this day — please, don’t anyone talk about the ferrous oxide streaks that are common in white granite!
At that fateful dinner, he not only rejected the offer to support the new government with a poem, but the offer was made in a poem:
"Why should we look at things this way or look at them the other way?
But consider the vines of the arrowroot on Mt. Mansu all entwined!
And we too, could be connected together like that for one hundred years."
I’ve always hated this poem. It seems to be void of principle and comes straight from the bad guys.
My YouTube commentator suggested the two poems represent unswerving loyalty and compromise. He went on to suggest that the compromise poem won, as Yi Seong-gye and his son, Yi Bang-won, set up the dynasty, and Yi Bang-won’s son, King Sejong invented hangeul. The virtue of compromise was clear in that it netted for us the best thing ever done in Korean history — the invention of the alphabet.
You can see why I rejected the idea initially. I didn’t like to think of Hangeul as somehow connected to a compromise, especially since I value loyalty. But thinking about it, compromise has great virtue, as well. It is not just a matter of expedience and “going along to get along” but the essence of democracy. Without it, we have stubborn parties calling each other names and yelling at each other. We see this in both American democracy and Korean democracy today.
And add to this the recent case of EJAE, the K-pop singing and songwriting star of "KPop Demon Hunters." We see great virtue in her prevailing in the face of failure and rejection.
There is great virtue in Jeong’s example of loyalty and EJAE’s tenacity in making her art. But ultimately EJAE not only prevailed, she compromised. She returned to the industry that rejected her and she tried again, this time as a songwriter as well as a singer. She prevailed through both stick-to-itiveness and compromise.
And even Jeong, who could have been considered an enemy of the state and punished to the “fourth generation” — but Jeong’s sons and grandsons held government positions, and Jeong himself was formally “restored” to a posthumous office. His loyalty was recognized, and though he set himself against the new dynasty, even they saw the virtue in what he did.
I have often criticized the "go along to get along" types. It seems so immoral at one level. However, democracy and surviving in society requires compromise.
Although I didn’t like the idea when my commentator sent it to me, he was right.
Mark Peterson (frogoutsidethewell@gmail.com) is a professor emeritus of Korean studies at Brigham Young University in Utah. The views expressed here are his own.