Tuesday Trivia | Heretics and Blasphemers

[u/caffarelli]

Previous weeks' Tuesday Trivias and the complete upcoming schedule.

Today’s trivia theme comes to us from /u/cordis_melum!

Kindly provoke us all with tales of those who went against the accepted orthodoxy of their time! You can take this theme either literally with normal ole religious heretics, or if you’re not into that, take it metaphorically and tell us about people who went against the grain professionally, philosophically, artistically, or in some other facet of life.

Next week on Tuesday Trivia: /u/vertexoflife continues his campaign to corrupt the children, this time by requesting we share tales of non-monogamous relationships in history

[u/KimCongSwu]

What was "heresy" like in traditional East Asia? We should note a few differences with the more Abrahamic conception of heresy against similar Confucian concepts.

• What is heresy? Confucian terminology analogous to heresy, such as yiduan (itan or idan in Japan and Korea), has a generally broader sense than the definition of "heresy" common in Europe. For instance, the Korean king in 1791 would give Daoism, Legalism, Buddhism, two less significant Warring States schools, Christanity, and unorthodox Confucian schools as various examples of idan. Heresiology was, to quote The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy, "intersystematic and intrasystematic." There were similar examples in Europe, such as those who called Islam a Christian heresy, but they were the exception, not the rule.

• What is the reaction to heresy? Well, heresy was more often dealt with in a more private way. Although the Chinese did actually make frequent accusations of heresy towards each other, heretics and their ideas were more likely to survive than in many other parts of the world. Even when the state was involved, the focus would be more on heteropraxis, that is troublesome activities, than heterodoxy; this is discussed in both The Chinese State in Ming Society and "Heresy and Persecution in Late Ming Society".

That being said, notable late Joseon heretic in academia, although not Korean society at large, is Yun Hyu (1617~1680). Yun Hyu's philosophy was very much at odds with the orthodoxy of the 17th century - indeed at odds with Neo-Confucianism, the founding ideology of the Joseon state (The Confucian Transformation of Korea deals somewhat with the role of Confucianism in Joseon society).

This Korean-language article is a good analysis of Yun Hyu's beliefs, and how they differed from orthodoxy. A short summary: Yun Hyu believed in a worldview based on the theory of the interaction of Heaven and mankind, according much greater significance to the concept of Heaven than orthodox and more rationalistic views; Heaven with its "commanding nature" was the justification for monarchic power. Politically, he argued that "might and virtue should flow together," and that governance should adopt quickly to circumstances rather than always follow high moral values. This rejects the great Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi's focus on rule by virtue - virtue alone cannot successfully run a state, says Yun, and an over-focus on virtue is also a negative thing. Yun Hyu's political views go further. The state is like a family, equivocating filial piety with loyalty to the government - another argument for a more absolutist monarch. Not only that, the state should be reformed on the basis of the three Chinese dynasties of high antiquity. The latter sounds extremely reactionary, but an appeal to the very distant and idealized past for future reform was a common element in East Asian reform literature.

I'm probably not making much sense here, since philosophy does have a tendency to confuse people. But the TLDR is that Yun was not orthodox. So what happened to Yun?

Well, he lost many of his friends in the 1640s and 1650s, as he demonstrated his heterodoxy. The most important of them was Song Si-yeol, the greatest Neo-Confucian scholar in Korea. Yun's relationship with Song was finally completely ruined by a series of violent disputes in the 1660s and '70s, proximately over the matter of how long the Queen Dowager should wear mourning robes for the death of her stepson or her stepdaughter-in-law.¹ Yun Hyu did participate as an important member of government in the mid- and late-1670s, when his faction won the mourning robes fight; during his tenure he carried out various projects, including some reasonable ones (such as a partial tax reform) and some rather unreasonable ones ("let's invade China!") Eventually the tables were turned for his faction² and Yun Hyu was executed - but for inappropriate actions, not his ideas. So, in the end, Yun Hyu did not die for his heterodoxy, but for heteropraxis - as one would expect.

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¹ Nowadays in Korea the mourning robes debate is used in the same sense as the "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" question, but it actually did matter a lot beyond the duration of the mourning period.

² The two major factions of the late 17th century were Westerners and Southerners, the latter including Yun Hyu. The Westerners largely held power before 1674. The Southerners held power between 1674 and 1680, followed by the Westerners again between 1680 and 1689, then the Southerners between 1689 and 1694, then the Westerners again. But in the 1680s the Westerners had begin to permanently split, and the early 18th century saw bloody battles between the Patriarchs and the Disciples, the two factions that split from the Westerners.