A theoretical paper arguing that whether warmth (injeong, 인정) or fairness (gongjeong, 공정) is the right rule depends on whether you see yourself as an individual or as a member of a group.
A Social-Psychological Understanding of Injeong (Human Warmth) among Koreans
한국인의 인정에 관한 사회심리학적 이해
QUESTION
Is injeong a premodern relic to be discarded, and when fairness and injeong conflict, must fairness alone be the universal moral rule?
FINDINGS
Injeong is a tendency to treat another’s trouble as one’s own and to step in actively without weighing right and wrong; the authors describe it as concern for the well-being of others within the space of “we” (uri, 우리).
곤경처럼 시비를 초월하여 적극적으로 개입하는…as if it were one’s own trouble, transcending right and wrong, actively stepping in…p3인정은 타인의 어려움을 자신의 어려움처럼 생Injeong [can be defined as] treating another’s difficulty as one’s own…p3인정은 '우리' 라는 공간안에 있는 타인의 안녕에 대한 관심이다Injeong is concern for the well-being of others within the space called “we.”p15When people see themselves as individuals, injeong becomes the fitting moral rule; when they see themselves as members of a category or group, fairness does.
개인의 자아정체가 개인적 정체로 동일시될 때에는 •인 장을 보편적 도덕률로 삼는 것이며When one’s self-identity is identified with personal identity, injeong is taken as the universal moral rule…p13사회적 정체로 동일시될 때에는 '공장을 보편적 도덕률로 삼는 것이다…when identified with social identity, fairness is taken as the universal moral rule.p13Problems in Korean society such as a weak public spirit, favoritism based on kinship and hometown ties, and weak respect for law are read as coming from applying injeong — suited to personal relationships — to every situation.
'인정•을 모든 상황에 보편적인 도덕를 로서 적용함으로써 비져진 부조리라고 불 수 있 다…can be seen as irregularities produced by applying ‘injeong’ to all situations as a universal moral rule.p14한국사회에서 문제가 되고 있는 공공심의…the lack of public spirit that is a problem in Korean society…p13부족 혈연이나 지연에 따른 정실주의. 또는 법의식의 부족과 같은 것은…favoritism based on kinship or regional ties, or a weak sense of law…p14Injeong and fairness are not mutually exclusive but complementary; society is better sustained when the two are in balance.
상호 배 타적 관계에 있는 도덕률은 아니다. 상호 보완적 관계에 있는 도덕률들이라고 보아야 한다They are not moral rules in a mutually exclusive relationship. They should be seen as moral rules in a complementary relationship.p16인장과 공정의 두 덕목이 조화를 이를 때, 어- 하나의 덕목으로 획일화될 때 보다 사회가 보다 바람직한 방향으로 존속할 것이다…when the two virtues of injeong and fairness are in harmony, society will endure in a more desirable direction than when reduced to a single virtue.p16IN DAILY LIFE
Telling close people to “get along like members of one household,” or scolding bad manners with “Don’t you have parents or siblings?”
“한 집안 식구처 럼 지내라” 라고 표현한다든지. 예의를 나타내는 말로 “너는 부모형제도 없느냐”라고 한다는 것은…expressing it as “get along like one family,” or, as a phrase about manners, saying “Don’t you have parents and siblings?”…p4A traffic officer sees a friend’s elderly parent break a traffic rule and must decide whether to write a ticket or look the other way.
“교통경찰이 친구의 노부모가 교통위반을 하는것올 목격하였다'와 같은 것이었다“A traffic officer witnessed a friend’s elderly parent committing a traffic violation” — scenarios like this.p12이 위반을 적발하여 딱지를 떼는 행위(공정의 책무)와 이를 묵인하여 딱지를 떼지않는 행위(인정의 책무)…issuing a ticket for the violation (the duty of fairness) versus overlooking it and not issuing a ticket (the duty of injeong)…p12In depth
This paper, more closely — every sentence carries an original quote and page number.
Background
Injeong has long been named as a Korean trait; even foreigners who lived in Korea in the late Joseon era often described Koreans as “full of injeong” and “generous-hearted.”
인정이 많다나 '인심이 후하다' 였음이 차재호…“full of injeong” and “generous-hearted,” as shown in Cha Jae-ho’s…p3러 연구들에서 한국인의 특성으로 꼽는 것중에 하…one of the traits of Koreans named in many studies…p3외국인의 눈에도 똑같이 비쳐졌다. 구한말에 한국…appeared the same way to foreigners. [Records by foreigners who lived] in Korea in the late Joseon period…p3에서 일정기간을 살았던 외국인들이 한국인에 대…foreigners who lived for some time [in Korea, writing] about Koreans…p3As Korea industrialized, some came to see injeong as a premodern relic breeding cronyism, favoritism, and factionalism; the authors set out to ask how that view should be taken today.
인정은 전근대적 유물로서 버려야 하는 것인가?Is injeong a premodern relic that should be discarded?p6사실 한국사회가 산업화되면서 '인정'을 전근대적인 유물로서 우리사희의 발전을 가로막는 장애물로 보는 시각도 나타났다In fact, as Korean society industrialized, a view emerged that saw injeong as a premodern relic obstructing the development of our society.p6한국인의 인정지향적 가치가 연고주의, 정실주의 나아가 파벌주의를 낳아…Koreans’ injeong-oriented values gave rise to connection-based favoritism, cronyism, and even factionalism…p6본고에서는 인정에 관한 이와 같은 시각을 현시점에서 우리가 어떻게 이해하고 받아들여야 하겠는가를This paper [examines] how we should understand and accept this view of injeong at the present time…p6Method
A theoretical paper that collects no new data but builds its argument from earlier studies, setting injeong side by side with fairness to bring out what is distinctive about injeong.
공정과 인정을 대비시김으로서 인정 이 갖고 있는 고유한 특성을 부각시켜 보았다By contrasting fairness and injeong, we highlighted the distinctive characteristics of injeong.p6기제가 어떻게 다른가를 밝히려 하였다. 그리하여 이들 각각의 기제가 갖고 있는 순기능과 역기능을…sought to show how their mechanisms differ, and thus [to reveal] the positive and negative functions of each mechanism…p6대학생들을 두 집단으로 나누어 한 집단에게는 실험적으로 집단 의식을 불러일으켜…divided university students into two groups and experimentally aroused group consciousness in one…p12Detailed findings
American children said duties of justice should come before duties of mercy, and American adults saw helping others as a matter of personal choice.
미국인들은 정의에 대한 색 무를 자비에 대한 책무보다 우선하는 것으로 받아들이며Americans accept duties of justice as taking priority over duties of mercy…p5실제로 미국의 아동들에게 정의에 대한 책무와 자비에 대한 책무 중 어떤 것이 지배적인 도덕률이 되어야 하는가를 물었을 때 전자를 택하는In fact, when American children were asked which of the duty of justice and the duty of mercy should be the dominant moral rule, they chose the former…p5또한 미국의 성인들은 남에게 도움을 주는 행위를 공식적인 책임을 물을 수 없는 성질의 것으로서 개인적인 의사와 관련되어 있는 것으로 간주하였다Also, American adults regarded helping others as something for which no formal responsibility can be demanded, a matter of personal will.p5Yet cross-cultural studies found most Indians chose friendship when it clashed with justice and called that a moral act — treating help as personal choice belongs to some cultures centered on the U.S.
이 장면에서 대부 분의 인도인들은 우정을 선택하였다In this situation, most Indians chose friendship.p7의 우정과 정의가 갈등하는 장면에서 미국인과 인도인이…in scenes where friendship and justice conflict, [how] Americans and Indians…p7인도인들은 정의보다는 우정을 선백한 자신들의 행동을 도덕적 행동으로 기술하였다Indians described their own choice of friendship over justice as moral behavior.p7선행에 대한 책무를 개인적 선택의 문제로 간주하는 것은 미국을 중심으로 하는 일부 문화원에서만 그러한 것이며Treating the duty of beneficence as a matter of personal choice holds only in some cultures centered on the United States…p7Within Korea, too, an earlier study is cited showing city dwellers chose the duty of fairness while rural residents chose the duty of injeong.
도시에 사는 사람들은 공정에 대한 책무를 선 백하는 반면에 농촌에 사는 사람들은 인정에 대한 책무를 선택하는 것으로 나타났다…people living in cities chose the duty of fairness, while people living in rural areas chose the duty of injeong.p8In a U.S.–Japan–Korea comparison, the gap between how in-group and out-group members were rated was largest in Korea, showing Koreans divide insiders and outsiders most sharply.
한국인들이 내의집단의 차별을 가장 심하게 하고 있음이 드러 났다…it was revealed that Koreans discriminate between in-group and out-group most severely.p10내외집단간의 평가에서의 사이도 가장 크게 나타난 것이 한국 다음이 일본, 마지막으로 미국으로 나타나…the gap in evaluations between in-group and out-group was largest in Korea, followed by Japan, and lastly the United States…p10Once people become “we,” give-and-take accounting no longer applies — just as no one thinks of giving or receiving when putting rice into their own mouth.
자기가 자 기의 입안에 밥을 넣으면서 준다거나 받는다는 생 각을 하지 않는 것과 같다It is like not thinking of giving or receiving when one puts rice into one’s own mouth.p10하나의 통합적 단위로 탈바꿈한다면 그들 사이에 교환의 논리는 이미 성립되지 않는다…if they transform into one integrated unit, the logic of exchange no longer holds between them.p10In an experiment where university students were made to feel group identity, that group preferred the duty of fairness over injeong more than an untreated control group.
사회적 정체를 형성시킨 집단에서는 통제집단에 비하여 인정의 책무보다 공정의 책무In the group in which social identity was formed, compared with the control group, [preference for] the duty of fairness over the duty of injeong…p12대학생들을 두 집단으로 나누어 한 집단에게는 실험적으로 집단 의식을 불러일으켜 사회적 정체를 갖도록 하였으며University students were divided into two groups; in one, group consciousness was experimentally aroused so they took on a social identity…p12다른 집단은 봉제집단으로 아무런 처치를 가하지 않았다…the other group was a control group that received no treatment.p12A drawback of fairness: those who prefer it more tend to convert even human help into material or economic value, and a study links pursuing fairness to greater loneliness and alienation.
공정을 선호하는 사 람일수록 인간적 가치를 물질적 내지는 경제적 가 치로 환원시키는 경향이 크다는 결과가 나타났다The result showed that the more people prefer fairness, the greater their tendency to reduce human value to material or economic value.p15인간관계에서 공정을 추구하는 사람일수록 고독감과 소외감이 크다는 결과를 얻었다…found that the more people pursue fairness in relationships, the greater their loneliness and alienation.p15A drawback of injeong: above all it breeds discrimination between groups, and can be the root of cronyism, favoritism, and factionalism.
인정의 역기능은 무엇보다 도 집단간 차별의식을 낳는다는 것이다The dysfunction of injeong is, above all, that it breeds a sense of discrimination between groups.p16한국사희의 병폐로 지적되어 온 연고주의. 정실주의, 파벌의식 등은 모두 인정이 낳은 부산물이라고도 볼Connection-based favoritism, cronyism, and factionalism, long pointed to as ills of Korean society, can all be seen as by-products of injeong.p16Authors’ interpretation
No moral rule holds unchanged in every situation; believing one of them to be absolute, the authors argue, is a form of self-centeredness.
모든 상황에서 항상 불변하는 보편적 도덕률은 없다고 보아야 한다It must be seen that there is no universal moral rule that is always unchanging in every situation.p13의 덕목을 모든 상황에서 절대 불변하는 보편적 도덕률로 생각하는 것은 '자아 중심성•의 발로라고 볼 수 있다…regarding one virtue as an absolute, unchanging universal moral rule in every situation can be seen as an expression of egocentrism.p13Feeling torn between showing injeong and keeping things fair is a clash inside oneself between one’s personal identity (oneself as an individual) and social identity (oneself as a group member).
개인적 입장에서는 인정을 베풀 어야 하지만 사회적 입장에서는 공정을 기하여야 한다는 자신의 내부에서의 입장간의 갈등인 것이 다It is a conflict between positions within oneself: from a personal standpoint one should show injeong, but from a social standpoint one should be fair.p13자신의 내부에서 개인적 정체와 사회적 정체가 서로 갈등을 하고 있는 것이라고 볼 수 있다…can be seen as personal identity and social identity conflicting within oneself.p13Only by seeing that the two virtues come from different “frames of perception” can people view them as relative and hold both together.
인정과 공정이 모두 자아정체의 산물로서 절대적인 도덕률이 아님을 지각하는 것이다One perceives that injeong and fairness are both products of self-identity and not absolute moral rules.p17인정의 덕목과 공정의 덕목이 서로 다른 '인식의 를'에서부터 기원하고 있다는 사실이다…the fact that the virtues of injeong and fairness originate from different ‘frames of perception.’p16이 두 도덕률을 상대적인 것으로서 볼 수 있게 된다…one becomes able to see these two moral rules as relative.p17인정과 공정이 서로 다른 인식의 를에서 비롯된 것임을 알게 됨으로서 이들을 양립시킬 수가 있게 된다By knowing that injeong and fairness come from different frames of perception, one can make them coexist.p17Limits the authors note
Key terms
Injeong (인정, 人情) A behavioral tendency to treat another’s hardship as one’s own and to try to help them.
인정은 타인의 어려움을 자신의 어려움처럼 생Injeong is [a tendency] to regard another’s hardship as one’s own…p3Personal identity and social identity The first is a sense of self tied to one’s own individual traits; the second is a sense of self tied to the traits of the category or group one belongs to.
후자는 개인이 속한 범주나 집단의 특 성에 동일시한 자아정체이다The latter is a self-identity identified with the characteristics of the category or group to which the individual belongs.p11거기서 전자는 개인적 특성에 동일시한 자아정제인 반면에…the former is self-identity identified with one’s personal characteristics, whereas…p11