Walking toward the self and saving the nation

Walking toward the self is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. It is easy to lose virtue and hard to preserve it.

Choi Jin-seok

The author is a Principal of the Saemal Saemomjit School.

At around the 11th century B.C., in an age when people believed that the will of heaven determined all outcomes, the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC) overthrew the Shang Dynasty (1600–1046 BC). Both the fallen Shang and the rising Zhou needed to explain their collapse or founding as heaven’s intent. From this transition emerged a new idea: Heaven abandons places where virtue has disappeared and moves toward those where virtue is preserved. The Shang fell because they had lost virtue and heaven left them. The Zhou rose because they upheld virtue and heaven came to them. With the emergence of virtue as a governing concept during the Shang–Zhou transition, human beings were elevated enough to influence heaven, if only in a limited way. Virtue was understood as the pure human essence that could resonate with the divine and as the force that allows a person to remain true to oneself. When virtue disappears, the self collapses and so does the state. When virtue is present, individuals achieve excellence and nations flourish.

The School of Athens By Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino. Apostolic Palace, Vatican Museums, Vatican City. [WIKIPEDIA]

Athens, once prosperous under democracy, eventually entered a period of decline. In times of decline, the order of language breaks down and notions of right and wrong lose objective standards, becoming subject to interpretation according to individual interests. This condition is known as ochlocracy, or mob rule. The term is often translated as rule by a foolish crowd but its deeper meaning is rule by those who have lost their sense of self. Such people fail to preserve virtue, the force that makes them who they are. Instead, they adopt fixed beliefs, money, honor, power or factional loyalty as their standards of life, neglecting the condition of their own souls. What Koreans call virtue, Athenians called arete.

Plato argued that the state arises from the character of its members and that the direction of that character pulls everything else along with it. The Greek term he used, ethe, is the plural of ethos, meaning moral disposition or character. The direction of character depends on whether it is guided by arete. A disposition formed under the guidance of virtue brings order and growth not only to individuals but also to the state. A disposition formed without such guidance produces the opposite result. In short, the fate of a state is determined by the character of its citizens and the core of that character lies in whether virtue is present. From this perspective, restoring individual virtue is the only way to save a nation in decline. To set a country right, one must begin by safeguarding inner moral character. This is why Socrates urged people to know themselves. Plato warned that if people fail to return to themselves and instead allow those with base dispositions to rule, the state will head toward destruction. The words of Gu Yanwu, who lamented the collapse of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) by saying that the rise and fall of a nation rests with ordinary people, are easily understood in this context. A nation’s fate is decided by the virtues of each individual citizen.

Virtue is the force that makes a person oneself rather than someone else. Through this force, human beings harbor ambition to go beyond who they currently are. This ambition, often called a dream, drives innovation and progress. A dream is not a functional attitude aimed at occupying a predetermined position. It is a creative and existential challenge to solve problems. When virtue is lost and dreams fade, people begin to mistake occupations for dreams. Someone who dreams of becoming a prosecutor, for example, may feel as though life’s task is complete once that position is attained. At that moment, existential growth comes to a halt. Career advancement may continue but the soul no longer leaps. The inner voice becomes inaudible and only superficial markers such as money, status, power or faction come into view. More troubling is that words such as virtue, soul, inner life or the voice one speaks to oneself begin to sound trivial.

Living as the master of oneself has far-reaching consequences. Hermann Hesse wrote that each person’s life is a path toward oneself. Yet walking toward the self is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. It is easy to lose virtue and hard to preserve it. Perhaps the first step is to ask a few questions regularly, turning one’s face toward the path that leads inward. Who am I? What do I truly want? What kind of person do I wish to become? How do I want to live my life? What mission do I hope to fulfill before I die? Asking such questions may be the first step not only toward the self but also toward saving a nation.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.