[A Sip of Books] Why Korea Uniquely Exhibits Strong 'Collectivism' Tendencies

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This work sheds light on the discourse of ‘diversity’ for the survival and prosperity of individuals and communities from the perspectives of evolutionary biology, sociology, demography, media studies, religious studies, and criminal psychology. According to the authors, racism became full-fledged during the late 15th century Age of Discovery. When Europeans first encountered the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, they othered them, turning differences into discrimination, which then devolved into injustice and irrationality. The authors present diversity as an antidote that cures the toxin of discrimination and explore the meaning of diversity’s existence in the present era. “Diversity has become a new strategy driving innovation and growth in global corporations, acts as a driving force for scientific and technological innovation, and is recognized as an indicator of mature democracy.”

Consider the 1925 painting Octoroon Girl by American artist Archibald Motley. As the title suggests, it is a portrait of a girl with one-eighth Black ancestry. However, based on appearance alone, the girl does not look Black. Such individuals could use white-only facilities and engage in so-called ‘passing.’ Of course, if it was revealed that they had one-eighth Black blood, they were classified as Black under the ‘one-drop rule.’

Secondly, the question arises: ‘Who exactly is a Jew?’ Let us examine the case of a Jewish woman named Hessy Levinson Teft. As a child, she won first place in a ‘Beautiful Aryan Baby Contest.’ A photographer who took her baby photo submitted it to the contest, and the photo appeared on the cover of the 1935 Nazi propaganda magazine Sonne ins Haus (Sunshine in the House). However, Hessy Levinson Teft was not Aryan but Jewish. This incident occurred because the Aryans, whom German dictator Hitler and the Nazis so proudly celebrated, were physically indistinguishable from Jews. In other words, it was difficult to differentiate Aryans from Ashkenazi Jews based on physical appearance alone.

Why have East Asian countries, especially the Republic of Korea, formed societies with such strong collectivist tendencies? It is difficult to find research limited to Korea alone, but there are considerable studies on various cultures worldwide. According to these, groups that cultivate wheat tend to be less uniform than those that cultivate rice. This difference stems from the characteristics of wheat and rice farming. Wheat farming requires little effort beyond sowing seeds, whereas rice farming demands collective labor roughly two to three times greater, including maintaining irrigation facilities. Rice farming is an agricultural practice that absolutely requires ‘collaboration.’ Therefore, collectivist tendencies naturally develop and take root through the rice farming process.

Looking at East Asia, especially the Yangtze River basin in China, this logic becomes clearer. A research team conducted a detailed analysis of people living in the northern Yangtze region, where wheat farming predominates, and those in the southern Yangtze region, where rice farming is the main livelihood. The results showed that people in the southern Yangtze region exhibited much stronger collectivist tendencies than those in the northern region.

However, in the case of Korean society, it is difficult to fully explain these tendencies solely by the general causes related to wheat and rice farming mentioned above. This is because Korea’s unique characteristics, which differentiate it from other East Asian countries such as China and Japan that also primarily cultivate rice, must be sufficiently explained. What is this unique characteristic possessed only by Koreans? The author seeks to find it in Koreans’ intense ‘desire to learn.’

India the Jones | Written by Yeom Woon-ok et al. | Sarang and Namu Sai | 296 pages | 19,500 KRW