장지연의 ‘친일’논란, 어떻게 볼 것인가

Recently there has been some social arguments on Chang Ji-yeon for his so-called ‘conversion’ and they often seem too emotional or not fair enough. Then what would be the more practical point of view on this problem? This paper suggests that we first note the coexistence of conflicting inclinations in his thoughts which are the ‘nationalistic’ and the ‘pro-Japanese’ at the same time, and we need to explore the reason of the fact. The subject for this research are as follows; First, to grasp the world-view of Chang Ji-yeon and its transition by analyzing his way of understanding of social Darwinism. Second, to compare his world-view to that of the predecessor era of his time. The result reveals that Chang Ji-yeon to the end had remained in the realm of traditional Confucian world-view which can be characterized as dualism of ‘power’ and ‘moral’ and from this fact we can infer the true meaning of what we call as his ‘conversion’.