[Reading the World Through Han Feizi] Horror Stories Passed Off as Heartwarming Tales

The Bleak Korean Spectacle We See Every Year

There is a scene we are forced to watch every year during the CSAT. It is the sight of police officers transporting late-arriving students on motorcycles and in cars because they failed to reach the test site on time. This year, as always, such scenes appeared one after another, and the officers who helped students arrive just in time were even praised in heartwarming news stories. Every year I find it absurd. Is state power there to transport students to their exam sites? Is it acceptable to waste policing capacity like that? And I also cannot understand why government offices delay their working hours and even airplanes must take special care during takeoff and landing. At a time when students, soon to be adults, should be equipped with a sense of responsibility before entering society, are we not instead staging this nationally embarrassing spectacle every single year?

In fact, every year on the day of the CSAT, there are also many students who do not take the exam. They have done nothing wrong, yet I wonder whether all this nationwide fuss and exceptional treatment only instills in them a sense of inferiority and failure. On the day of the CSAT, who should adults’ consideration and encouragement really be directed toward? It seems to me we should be thinking about students who do not take the CSAT, about vocational high school students. In any case, every year that day leaves me deeply bitter, making me wonder whether our society is not trying to raise adults at all.

Korean society is not trying to raise adults. But whether one becomes an adult or not is, in fact, a question of whether one becomes an individual. Then what is an individual? What kind of being is an individual? An individual is a subject who pursues desires. But not without restraint. Because one values one’s own sphere, one also knows how to respect the sphere of others, and thus is a being who keeps within boundaries. And such a person knows that proper distance between people matters more than sticky emotional bonds. Above all, the individual is a subject who makes choices and takes responsibility. One becomes an adult only by becoming an individual, and conversely, a person who has become an adult can be said to have become an individual. That individual is the premise and foundation of the rule of law. A society that cannot raise adults is a society that cannot cultivate individuals. In the end, our society can be said to lack the foundations of the rule of law. Not for nothing did Han Feizi say the following:

“Honor and disgrace depend on oneself, not on others.”

— Han Feizi, “Daeti” chapter

Han Feizi says that honor and disgrace depend on the individual self. Whether one succeeds or fails, whether one lives well or poorly, does not depend on others. It depends on me. Whether one is punished or rewarded does not depend on others, nor does it depend on the state. It also depends on oneself.

What is the rule of law? More precisely, what is the most basic premise of constitutionalism and the rule of law? As stated earlier, it is the individual, individualism. The rule of law can function only when there is an individual who makes judgments and choices and then bears responsibility for them. That is why Han Feizi spoke of the individual as he did above.

In the case of Shang Yang, he tried to create individuals artificially in Qin through a household division policy. This was because he believed the rule of law could not exist if people hid behind the group, behind the family, behind the clan. Through a compulsory household division policy, Shang Yang sought to break down units of governance into the smallest units. Not stopping there, the ruler directly managed and dispatched legal specialists and judicial officials—public officials professionally versed in law—to educate the people in legal matters.

The legal specialists and legal officials created by Shang Yang were given the following duties. When a new law was enacted, they had to publicize it and educate the people about it. And whenever the people came with questions or inquiries about the law, they had to respond sincerely. Qin under Shang Yang created and dispatched such public officials for legal education and consultation, and it made the laws easy to understand. It also helped and accommodated people as much as possible so they could understand them clearly.

Then all I have to do is obey the law. I simply have to fulfill the obligations stipulated in the law. Before the law, everyone is equal, and every individual is reduced to an equal existence before the law and becomes a subject who knows the law. Even if one’s status is humble or one’s background insignificant, one can break through by one’s own effort and ability. There is no case in which advancement is restricted because of one’s parents; there is no case in which one is denied opportunity or punished unfairly because one comes from a certain region or a certain ethnic background. That is what the rule of law envisioned by Han Feizi and Shang Yang was trying to achieve. They sought to turn people into individuals and then establish those individuals as equal beings before the law, free from discrimination. Shang Yang in particular emphasized “oneness” (壹): one teaching (壹敎)!, one punishment (壹刑)!!, one reward (壹償)!!! He tried to apply instruction equally, punishment equally, and reward equally—to all the people, or more precisely, to all individuals.

Only the Individual Is Hope

The law looks only at the individual. For there to be true rule of law, it must be directed only toward the individual. Both Han Feizi and Shang Yang understood that the basis of the rule of law is the individual, individualism. It is not simply a matter of imposing equal duties and rights, applying the rule of law equally, providing legal protection, and demanding legal responsibility. They sought thoroughly to establish each person before the law as a single individual and human being. They did not seek merely to establish equality in some abstract sense; they believed that each individual must stand equally before the law. Is that not the true rule of law? The Legalists aimed for precisely that. Not simple egalitarianism, not mere equality before the law in the abstract, but the effort to place the people before the law as equal individuals, equal separate beings.

“If those with merit are certain to be rewarded, the rewarded will not say it is due to the ruler’s virtue. It is because it came from their own effort. If those who commit crimes are certain to be punished, the punished will not resent the ruler. It is because it came from their crimes. The people know that punishment and reward both originate in themselves, and therefore they strive for merit in their affairs and do not seek favors from the ruler. The best ruler is one whose people merely know that he exists.”

— Han Feizi, “Nansan” chapter

If one receives a reward, it is not thanks to the ruler. It is only that individual’s merit. It is merely what the individual gained by working hard, striving, and fulfilling obligations and responsibilities. If one receives punishment, that too is no one else’s fault. Not the parents’ fault, not the teacher’s fault, not the ruler’s fault. It is only the responsibility of that individual. In speaking of the rule of law this way, Han Feizi sought to clarify the sphere of individual responsibility. The Legalists did not speak of the modern self produced by Western achievements, but it is true that in their own way they discovered and tried hard to create an individual quite close to the Western individual.

Let us return to the CSAT. Is this not what we ought to teach students? Not “frankness,” but “honesty.” And not that “if it feels good, it is good,” but that “what is not allowed is not allowed.” Not a limited honesty that works only within a closed group, but the posture of an individual who is transparent before everyone. And we should make it clear that what is not allowed is clearly not allowed, and that the boundaries clearly defined by law and rules belong to the individual’s unmistakable sphere of responsibility. In that way, students should be formed into adults, into individuals. Only then, I believe, will Korea’s modernization be properly achieved and the Republic of Korea be properly reborn as a nation governed by the rule of law.

Lastly, I would like to add this: “People come first”? No—individuals come first. “A world where people live”? No—a world where individuals live. “People alone are hope”? No—only the individual is hope. A person who makes choices and judgments for oneself, who bears legal responsibility and consequences as one’s own, who never hides behind a group but faces the world as an individual and knows how to stand before the law—only such an individual is hope.

---

Original title: [한비자로 세상읽기]미담으로 소개되는 괴담들

Author: Geon-sun Lim

Date: 2020-02-25

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=9&idx=22418