The Nobel Prize announcements this year marked another year with Korea coming away empty-handed, which has caused another round of soul searching. Korea’s neighbors did well this year, with the Japanese winning three prizes and Chinese one. Since 2000, Japanese have won 16 prizes and Chinese five. To date, Japanese have won 24 prizes covering all fields except economics. To date, former president Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 and is the only Korean to have won a Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious, but it does not cover all fields. No Korean has won the Fields Medal, the most prestigious prize for mathematics, but three Japanese and two Chinese have won the prize since it began in 1936. In architecture, the most prestigious prize is the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and to date, six Japanese and one Chinese have won the award, but no Korean. No Korean film has been nominated for or won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film; Japanese films have won four awards.

What is going on here? One obvious explanation is that major prizes are subjective and Korea has simply been unlikely. This is certainly true with controversial prizes such as the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize, but the pattern is repeated in the sciences.

Another explanation is that the prizes favor the West for linguistic and cultural reasons. This implies that the prize awarding committees, which are dominated by Europeans and North Americans, are biased in favor of what they know best. In discussing the Nobel Prize for Literature, supporters often argue that poor translations and the inherent “intranslatability” of Korean literature makes it impossible for it to receive the recognition it deserves.

The problem with these arguments is that the evidence does not support them. The only Korean Nobel Prize winner won the most subjective prize of all, and all literature is difficult to translate, even between closely related languages. In scientific fields, leading Korean researchers are increasingly getting published in English in prestigious academic journals, and Korean researchers have also developed successful careers overseas, particularly in North America.

“The language barrier” and “cultural differences” have not prevented Samsung from becoming the seventh most valuable brand in the world according to the 2015 Interbrand Best Global Brands report. Nor have they prevented Incheon International Airport from being rated as the best airport in the world. 

The Nobel and other prizes are awarded for creativity and originality, not for successful application of existing knowledge to real world problems. The dearth of prizes combined with business prowess suggests a tentative hypothesis that Koreans are better at applying existing knowledge than creating new knowledge. Samsung’s popular Galaxy S phone is an example of how a Korean company applies technology developed elsewhere to create a highly competitive product. 

The problem here, of course, is that “Koreans,” like people everywhere, are a collection of individuals that respond to changing conditions around them. The rapid pace of change in Korea makes this especially clear. This also means that changes in society designed to foster greater creativity will most likely be successful.

Democratization since the late 1980s has greatly weakened the authoritarian ethos that pervaded society, but conformism remains strong, particularly in large organizations. The safe way to survive and prosper in an organization is keep a low profile and follow along. Questions and discussion are not encouraged.

Creativity and originality that lead to discovery grow well in environments that encourage discussion and questioning. Advances in science, in particular, come from questions that then become hypotheses that can be tested or refuted. Conformist environments make it hard for scientific questions and new ideas to grow.

The current “culture of spec,” which emphasizes measurable accomplishments, dominating all large institutions reinforces conformity and inhibits the development of creativity and originality. It has its roots in the militarized culture of the 1960s through 1980s, but it has been refined over the past 20 years as neoliberal ideas and technological abilities to quantify individual achievements have spread across Korean society.

Fortunately, the Park Geun-hye administration has adopted policies under the “creative economy” buzzword to encourage start-ups and entrepreneurship. The policy should be extended to encourage large institutions, particularly schools and universities, to go beyond the conformist “culture of spec.” But the effort must be sustained well beyond President Park’s term because, as Nobel Prize winner Kim Dae-jung’s lifelong struggle for democracy shows, change doesn’t come easily.

By Robert J. Fouser

Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Ann Arbor, Michigan. — Ed.