Four years ago, as a high school student, I had a chance to visit POSTECH. I clearly recall one monolithic structure standing firm in the middle of the campus. It was a gray pedestal, lacking a statue to support. Someone said that it was prepared for the first Korean scientist to win a Nobel Prize in science. I hoped it would not be long until a statue was erected. However, nominees for the 2012 Nobel Prize were announced last October, and it looks like the pedestal will remain empty for a while.

Korea is not a small country in science. Currently, the Korean scientific community produces an approximate of 40,000 SCI papers a year, ranking 11th in the world. One might ask why there aren’t any Nobel Prize laureates in science in Korea yet. Oddly enough, I believe that the “Gangnam Style” fever provides us with valuable insight.

Psy’s “Gangnam Style” swept the world, placing second on the U.S. Billboard charts for seven consecutive weeks. There were varying interpretations of the success, but I believe it’s safe to say that the “Gangnam Style” fever was due to Psy’s extreme charisma rather than the quality of K-pop as a whole. The success of “Gangnam Style” is amazing, but it lacks the musical inspiration for what could be considered a cultural “paradigm.” So really, Psy’s success is irrelevant to K-pop’s struggle to become a mainstream trend.

Different in nature but similar in context, one cannot overlook the similarity between Korea’s constant failure in producing a Nobel prize laureate in science, and the failure of K-pop in producing a cultural hallmark. Science may seem distant from music but its sociological nature are remarkably parallel. In his work “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” Thomas S. Khun shows how understanding the structure of the scientific society is essential in making a ground-breaking achievement. This concept is applied in the music society as well.

In Confucianism, there is a concept called the “Confucian orthodoxy,” developed by Han Yu. The original text reads: “The sage kings transmitted ‘it’ to Confucius, and Confucius transmitted ‘it’ to Mencius.”

The “it” in this paragraph is the “Confucian orthodoxy,” interpreted as the inheritance of one’s spirit. Han Yu’s concept teaches us that one can be considered one of the giants, only if one inherits the spirit of the previous giants. I believe this concept is the solution for the future of both Korea’s science and music.

Korean scientific society, while large in size, has lacked the “giants.” In countries with many Nobel Prize laureates, there were countless entrepreneurs to guide the community. Scientist such as Louis Pasteur revolutionized the microbiology community. His research institute went on to produce 10 Nobel Prize laureates. Great Britain became one of the most advanced countries in science with the establishment of the “Royal Society.” Even Japan, a country late in the game of modern sciences, successfully accumulated its scientific society by establishing institutions in the 1800s. Since Hideki Yukawa, the first Japanese to win a Nobel Prize in physics, Japan has produced 19 Nobel laureates, seven of them being physicists.

The reason why Korean society has lacked the “giants” is probably due to lack of vision in many scientific labs. This is because of small funding given by the Korean government. Small funding leaves little space for ingenuity.

Similar can be said of the music industry. The musical industry has always been driven by those who understood the core of music. For example, jazz and country music inspired Hank Williams. His music inspired rock ‘n’ roll legends, such as Bill Haley. Rock ‘n’ roll went on to inspire British groups, which led to the “British invasion” of the 1960s.

In the K-pop market, songs written by writers are often distributed to artists with a specific media-generated image that best matches the song. This contrasts with the conventional musicians who build their own images through their own music. Korean musicians are “Barbie dolls” who lack the musical spirit.

Coming back to Han Yu’s text, it continues to read as such: “After death of Mencius, no one was there to inherit ‘it.’ Xunzi, Yang Xiong chose ‘it’ but were not accurate.”

The text implies that after the death of Mencius, those who tried to expand the idea without full understanding failed miserably. This led to a long gap in the Confucian ideology. Interestingly, after Han Yu’s death, many scholars considered Han Yu to be the successor of the spirit of Confucius orthodoxy. This idea was accepted by Zhu Xi, whose work is named “neo-Confucianism,” which in fact was the founding ideology of the Joseon Dynasty.

It is ironic to see how a country founded on orthodoxy came to depart so far from the key of orthodoxy: “inheritance.” The Korean scientific and musical societies eagerly await a figure to mark its place in history. This can only be achieved with a well-rounded understanding of the global society and history of science and music.

As a student in science, there would be no greater news for me than to see a statue go up on that pedestal in POSTECH. As a Korean, there would be no prouder news for me than to witness K-pop becoming a worldwide phenomenon. I hope for those in each field to find wisdom in the “Confucian orthodoxy” and revisit the disoriented structure of each society to achieve these dreams soon.

By Yoo Seong-keun

Yoo Seong-keun is a student of the Department of Biological Sciences of the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. ― Ed.