Abstract

Jonjae Wi Baek‑gyu categorized the late 18th century Joseon society as a society in ‘aggressive pursuit of profits’, and tried to present a way to heal such society not with institutional means but with the concept of restoration of the people’s sense of morality. He wanted to reconstruct the attempts of Zhuxi, who attempted to create an self‑supervising moral community in local regions by restoring the civic sensitivity at every level of the social structure, from the emperor to all commoners. First, Jonjae intended that people should not be discriminated by their class, and that they should be allowed to enter the Seoweon schools by their morality so that they could be granted with the opportunity to become governmental officials in the future. Also, in order to encourage Hyang’ri local clergymen to rather pursue public interest than private needs, he provided them with the opportunity to advance their career to a substantial 5‑Pum seat if their capability and character warranted it. By absorbing the Hyang'im figures, who were responsible for all the crucial functions of the local community, into the local administrative governing system, he practically recruited many honest and capable people for the Hyang’im seat. Jonjae especially endeavored to collect the public opinion of the local community. He selected the Hunjang masters and professors at the Seoweon and Hyang’gyo schools by suggestions of the public opinion, and left the management of those schools to the local community’s autonomous decisions. He also let the public opinion dictate and determine the course of local operations which included the institution of Sachang, Hwan’gok and local marketplaces. His genuine trust in the local community’s public opinion was what made him so different from Tasan Jeong Yak‑yong, whose hesitation to enlighten the lower class was out of his distrust of the general public which did not have a solid economic base for survival.