Suppression of Speech and Learning
He also closed Seonggyeongwan, the royal university, and converted it to his pleasure grounds, for which young girls and horses were gathered from the whole Korean Peninsula. He demolished a large residential area and evicted many residents to build hunting grounds. He also forced people into involuntary labor to build another pleasure ground. Many commoners mocked and insulted the king with posters written in hangul. This provoked the anger of Yeonsangun, and he banned the use of hangul.
When ministers protested his actions, he abolished the Office of Censors (whose function was to criticize inappropriate actions or policies of the king) and Hongmoongwan (library and research center that advised the king with Confucian teachings). He ordered his ministers to wear a sign that read: "A mouth is a door that brings in disaster; a tongue is a sword that cuts off a head. A body will be in peace as long as its mouth is closed and its tongue is deep within." (口是禍之門 舌是斬身刀 閉口深藏舌 安身處處牢). When the chief eunuch Kim Cheo-sun, who served three kings, entreated Yeonsangun to change his ways, the latter killed him by shooting arrows and personally cutting off his limbs, and punished his relatives down to the 7th degree. When Yeonsangun asked the royal secretaries whether such punishment was appropriate, they didn't dare to say otherwise. He also exiled a minister of rites for spilling a drink that he had poured.
Many people were afraid of his despotic rule and their voices were quelled, in stark contrast to the liberal era of his father.
Read more about this topic: Yeonsangun Of Joseon
Famous quotes containing the words suppression of, suppression, speech and/or learning:
“Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but for a due recognition of that in us which sanctifies reason.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)
“Fashion required the suppression of all naturalness—’to walk upright, with unbending joints; to shake hands after the pump- handle formula; to look inexpressibly indifferent towards everybody and everything; and speak only in a mincing voice was to be a decorous member of society.’”
—For the State of Rhode Island, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Speech and prose are not the same thing. They have different wave-lengths, for speech moves at the speed of light, where prose moves at the speed of the alphabet, and must be consecutive and grammatical and word-perfect. Prose cannot gesticulate. Speech can sometimes do nothing more.”
—James Kenneth Stephens (1882–1950)
“The first man to discover Chinook salmon in the Columbia, caught 264 in a day and carried them across the river by walking on the backs of other fish. His greatest feat, however, was learning the Chinook jargon in 15 minutes from listening to salmon talk.”
—State of Oregon, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)