This study surveys the discrimination of literary officers and military officers in the light of inferiority complex that Goryeo people used to have. Since King Seongjong, the ruling system was arranged on the basis of Confucius Political Ideology, enforcing the civil administration system. Thus, the literary officers led the political situation, establishing the powerful literary families. Each literary family formed a particular consciousness different from other ruling groups and displayed it in the human and social relations. It was mainly expressed with pride and arrogance, and the direct victim of such discrimination was mainly soldiers. Hurt by rudeness of literary officers, soldiers came to have victim mentality or inferiority complex.
Without the literary ability, soldiers used to be excluded from the literary-ruling society. Literary and military officers got socially separated more and more and the psychological barrier became higher and higher. When the discrimination between literary and military officers became incurable, the inferiority complex of soldiers went to extremes. In this situation, when the literary officers showed contemptible behaviors to soldiers directly in Eujongdae, their inferiority complex along with frustration and rage could not be controlled. Finally, it caused a political upheaval by soldiers, who inflicted severe and harsh revenge to literary officers.
After the political upheaval, the soldiers came to have a superior position to literary officers. But, never changed the climate that the literacy was valued higher than militarism. People continued to think that, while literary persons knew the right way through the literal exercise and tried to practice it, the soldiers ignored the way and thus could not do self-restraint. Therefore, the inferiority complex of soldiers toward literary officers could not be overcome.
Meanwhile, in this process, literary officers came to have self-reflection and reduced their contemptible attitude toward soldiers. During the ruling by soldiers, they came to know the power and existence of soldiers and recognize it. And, thanks to the development of Confucianism and the introduction of Chu Hhi's idea, new moral rule and scholarly model were suggested. The tue scholar was thought to be the person who knew the rightness through the study and practiced the loyalty and filial piety. So, if even a soldier studied the way and practiced the loyalty and filial piety, he could be reckoned as a scholar. As the soldiers could become scholars through their endeavor, it provided the basis to relieve the discrimination against soldiers and to overcome the inferiority complex of soldiers.