The Violent Structure of Confucian Morality: The 'Gentleman–Petty Man' Division as a Spiritual Caste System in East Asian Society

This paper examines the moral hierarchy embedded in Confucian thought—specifically, the binary distinction between the 'gentleman' (junzi) and the 'petty man' (xiaoren)—as a mechanism of symbolic and disciplinary violence. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, Byung-Chul Han’s analysis of 'psychopolitical control,' and Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the banality of evil, the paper argues that Confucian morality, when institutionalized, becomes an apparatus of governance that regulates behavior and consciousness through moral legitimacy. In contemporary East Asian societies, this moral framework has evolved into subtle forms of social control, legitimizing inequality under the guise of virtue. The study concludes by proposing a 'de-moralized governance' model that rebalances individual freedom with ethical diversity.