The value of Confucianism

Thinking of my first visit to Seoul, I remember a particular interaction. My friend, his eldest son and I left their apartment building. We took the elevator down and arrived on the first floor. As we exited, an older woman, who appeared to be a household worker, was entering the elevator.

My friend made the special effort to have his son bow to her and to greet her with the phrase, “Good morning, ajumeoni.” The bowing took some assistance, but not much. His son was quite young, and I think this was his first time seeing the ajumma. It struck me as very polite but natural or customary, and I inquired as to who she was. This was one of my first lessons about ajumma in Korea.

This was a simple example of building familial bonds of mutual respect by a professor and his son for a woman unrelated to them and not employed by them, but someone, if not from the street, then a stranger, but in a role familiar to the parent. The ajumma was not a peer or from a high-born family by all appearances. My friend wanted his son to learn the behaviors of respect, avoidance of scapegoating and regard for mutual development, or at least an elemental and initial basis for them. Think of how many times this type of behavior does — or does not — occur in Korean society, even to this day.

There are counterpart initial conversations and learning for children with their parents, their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, their teachers and with older men. These behaviors run the gamut from casual interactions to those surrounding the contexts of work, home life, shopping and interaction with public and private persons in various roles. They include the relations of students to one another in and before college and high school. They are constitutive of Korean Confucian culture in its contemporary representations and forms.

Scholars of Confucianism, women and contemporary society today present a mixed picture. There remain diehard proponents of the view that Confucianism and women’s interests are incompatible. Aside from these feminists, there are proponents of the liberalist ideology who also see traditional values as antithetical. Their claims need to be considered as a path for understanding the challenge or opportunities Confucianists must meet. Among them, the absence of rights, a doctrine of freedom or a conception of the person in Confucian tradition are major concerns.

I think, though, it’s important for us — in particular Westerners — not to impose or insist that categories of identity and political representation familiar to us tread themselves onto how other societies exist. They may grow in different forms and in different admixtures in Korea and elsewhere. That is just as it should be, since we do not inhabit a one-world, one-state and one-society planet.

Nonetheless, there is a growing body of literature that says Confucianism and the needs of women are compatible or are not necessarily incompatible. Feminist critiques, liberalist critiques and others may be met according to how Confucianism is understood and practiced. The relative minimalism of Confucian value prioritizations in its tradition makes this more possible, as indeed the Confucian ethos has modified over the centuries in many forms and contexts.

Emerging is the understanding that if women have rights as well as men, the deferential respects owed to male authorities under Confucianism also belong to women, or they must be adapted to meet their roles in society. Likewise, whether in education, work beyond the home or public office, women may assume these roles and develop associations and interest groups to advocate for their rights. What in the past situated Confucian relationships, meaning the priority of fathers, husbands and sons is now universalized to fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and sons and daughters in certain contexts. A father no longer legislates to a daughter, a husband to a wife or a grown son to his mother. The living arrangements of most Koreans have not situated these constraints for so many for some time now, but the values and ethics remained in the culture.

Now, Korean social relations see the empowerment of women, including divorce, work, representation, and education, so that their respects also are due in context. This does not replace men but rather creates an analogue or expands the concept of what is a person in Confucianism to include both genders.

Ultimately, the Korean people will determine whether Confucianism respects Korean women, including the ajumma, just as they do for Korean men. I also think it important to realize the identity and social relations today are complex and multi-layered. The Confucian dimension or variable in social relations is a better way of phrasing things in this sense.

Bernard Rowan is a professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a former fellow of the Korea Foundation and a former visiting professor at Hanyang University, Graduate School of Public Administration. You can reach him at browan10@yahoo.com