Widang Jeong In-bo’s Empathy of the Sincere Mind and Governing a Nation and Saving the People

Abstract

This article reexamines Jeong In-bo’s lifelong studies and achievements from the perspective of understanding him as a statesman. Keenly empathizing the pain of the people who lost their nation, he recognizes that it was the task of the times to reclaim national sovereignty and relieve the people from suffering. He finds the cause of the collapse of Joseon inside Joseon, and diagnoses that all problems originated from ‘thinking of promoting one’s own interests (自私念)’. What he suggested to resolve these problems is ‘to awaken the sincere mind’. He believes that separation can be turned into oneness, conflict into love, and slaughter into revitalization only when ‘thinking of promotion of one’s own interest’ is overcome by awakening the sincere mind of all Joseon people. While studying Yangming studies, Jeong In-bo realized that the sincere mind has the ability to empathize, and verified this realization by his own experience. Through this experience, he submitted ‘empathy of the sincere mind’ as a statecraft principle that can save the world. All of his activities including educational, academic, media and political activities, aim at ‘governing a nation and saving the people’ according to the statecraft principle of ‘empathy of the sincere mind’. Jeong In-bo paved the way for advancing Korean Studies by awakening the importance of Korean Studies to his colleagues and students who worked at Yonhee College. Furthermore, with a deep understanding of Joseon’s reality after liberation, he adopted ‘strengthening and raising the national spirit’, which was the spirit of the times, as his educational ideology, and suggested a way for the nation to move forward by seeking detailed practical plans. He also brought the thoughts and works of Silhak scholars in the late Joseon dynasty into light; from his view, these scholars related to the nation and its people through the sincere mind and academically explored the way to save the nation and its people. He inspired the sense of subjectivity of the people by exploring Joseon’s spirit of 5,000 years in his research on Joseon history, enhancing the sense of identity of our nation. He struggled to solve the problems of the times by spreading his academic achievements through the media and carrying out an enlightenment movement to awaken the sincere mind of the people. Even in his short political term in Syngman Rhee’s government, he tried to correct the bureaucracy. All these academic works and activities of Jeong In-bo were motivated by the determination to save the world.