What infuriates me about the notion that Korea is still a developing country is the fact that there isn’t in actuality a lack of the resources necessary for the reforms that would help pull the nation up into the “developed” world socially. When I went to India, suddenly I realized what a world of difference there is between the “developing world” and Korea. Korea is certainly not a developing country, economically. It’s just that the majority of those resources are in the hands of a small minority, and nobody’s willing to tear it from their hands. (Same problem exists in America, which is among the richest nations in the world but has a third-world healthcare system. My homeland, Canada, is more and more headed in that direction.)

I guess what infuriates me is the sense I have that Korea has the resources necessary to effect those reforms; but the political will and the necessary education are lacking, and this is a self-perpetuating problem that nobody seems to be addressing now. If moderization was distorted, I don’t know that it would be because of Japan. Blaming Japan is probably emotionally helpful to Koreans, but Koreans here and now have the resources needed. It’s the social organization to effect reform here and now that is lacking. It’s up to Koreans how their society will proceed, but all of the frustrations I see in my friends tends to make them want to leave the country, rather than fix the problems. This is perhaps the most saddening thing to me.

On hierarchy: perhaps you have a point. I actually don’t think it’s necessarily purely an issue of Confucian society. In fact, I don’t really consider modern Korean society a really Confucian society. It tells itself it is, just as America tells itself it’s a Judeo-Christian society. In both cases, corporatism, commercialism, and consumerism seem to have supplanted a lot of the ethics of the original fundaments. We’re left with an overflow of moralizing in the West and strict, rigid hierarchic power in the East. But in both societies, it seems like when you look a little closer, everything is about money, money, money.

I guess I agree with you that the aspect of Confucianism probably only factors into this to some extent; my concern is the degree to which the social conventions attributed to Confucianism may play an inhibiting factor in practical scientific deliberation.

May. It’s not as if science as practiced in the West is pure and free from distortions, especially distortions brought about by the need for speed, the race to get results, and funding. But it seems like someone, someone, should have thought about the repercussions that actually faking results would have. It’s frankly so outright stupid that I just can’t imagine why anyone would do it, and because of that, I suppose I, like others, find myself grasping at explanations not just for why Hwang lied, but why others knowlingly went along with it. That is the part that baffles me most.

Still, I realize now that I don’t know much about the history of scientific fraud, and that’s the kind of background I’d need to really speak about this sensibly. But my pile of books is high enough right now, meaning I’m not up to buying any books on the subject for the time being, so I shall have to just look into fraud later.

Quick comment on the hierarchy idea: while I agree with you to an extent, I don’t think this sort of thing is limited to Confucian society. Avoiding responsibility for one’s actions is a favorite pastime of the human race, and people from all cultures, not just Confucian cultures, will do things they might not have done on their own because someone higher up ordered them to do so, thus freeing them from responsibility. And it goes beyond just responsibility: as a grunt, you are basically at the mercy of your higher ups. Even those who may feel a sense of personal responsibility may fail to act on it for fear of repercussions (losing their job, blacklisting, etc.). And there’s always the possibility that the grunts suffer from the same lack of a moral compass as their higher ups, which would mean that it has nothing to do with the hierarchy. In most real-world cases, though, it’s probably a combination of all these factors.

OK, not so quick, but there you have it.

He pointed to the exponential line and said, “This is our country’s economic growth.”

And then pointed to the arithmetic line and said, “This is our country’s social growth,” adding that the country’s social growth wasn’t keeping up with the economy. That the gap between the two was a problem and one he personally worried about.

I had an inkling of what he was talking about when he said that nearly 15 years ago. And now I am crystal clear on it. Thanks for your post, Gord–it’s given me clarity on the situation at hand, and also connected some past “dangling” knowledge to a concrete event.

UPDATE 3: Gord over at eclexys has a lot of intelligent things to say (as always) about Hwang and stem cell research. UPDATE 2: Don’t pin this scandal on Confucianism, says the Useless Tree. UPDATE 1: The Hwang Woo-suk Cult