Today, let’s talk about the phenomenon of educational “involution,” but not in China—rather, in South Korea. Recently, a Korean drama called “Good Competition” has gained quite a bit of attention online. It mainly portrays the brutal competition among high school students in South Korea. For example, some people take illegal stimulants to improve efficiency, while others undergo menopause surgery to avoid any physical issues affecting their exams. The protagonist even goes so far as to receive blood transfusions while studying to improve her chances for the college entrance exam.
While the drama may exaggerate certain aspects, it’s not entirely fictional. South Korean sociologist Woo Chan-ho wrote a book called “We Approve of Differentiated Treatment: The Monster-like Younger Generation.” Listen to that term: “becoming a monster.” Just how much pressure must one face to be described like this?
For example, some people lose their ability to empathize with others’ suffering. The intense societal competition in South Korea leads many young people to remain indifferent to others’ pain. Even when a lecturer commits suicide, students may not react at all.
Additionally, there’s a growing obsession with self-improvement, believing in the philosophy “only winning allows you to survive.” At every stage of life, even when nothing is gained, one must keep pushing. To get into a good university, students study late into the night, relying on coffee during the day to stay awake for classes, and their hands become calloused from hours of writing. A saying among students goes: “Sleep four hours, and you can get into university; sleep five hours, and you can’t.”
On platforms like Xiaohongshu and Bilibili, there’s a trend called “韩女跟学法” (Follow the Learning Method of Korean Women), meaning to follow Korean influencers who relentlessly study. Some people wake up at 3 AM to study and continue until daylight, starting their normal work afterward. Others pull all-nighters before exams, studying straight into the exam hall. There are also people who study 12 hours non-stop every day starting at 7 AM for public service exams.
Woo Chan-ho describes the situation as Korean youth resembling the antelopes in nature that collectively self-destruct. They push forward, fearing that the antelope in front has eaten all the grass, and this drive continues until they reach a cliff, where they all fall to their deaths together.
In his book, Woo Chan-ho states that while his research is technically sociology, it doesn’t provide an easy solution. So, he calls on young people in South Korea to form a consensus on a differentiated society, urging people to create strategies of differentiation rather than having everyone crowd on a single narrow bridge.
But here’s the question: why is that narrow bridge so crowded? The root cause of South Korea’s educational “involution” lies in the entire country’s education system.
In the 20th century, South Korea implemented relatively equitable, standardized education, with the resources of middle and high schools and universities being fairly evenly distributed. In some years, high school graduates could go to university without much competition. Starting in 1999, however, South Korea passed the Korea Talent Education Revitalization Act, which began promoting elite education, essentially narrowing down and selecting top talents for universities. Since then, South Korean universities, high schools, and even middle schools have developed clear hierarchical layers.
The top-tier universities in South Korea are known as the SKY universities: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. All high school students aim to get into one of these three universities, but only 2% of high school students nationwide manage to get in. Furthermore, this opportunity is not evenly distributed. The high schools in South Korea are divided into four tiers, and to have a better chance of entering SKY, students must first attend the top-tier high schools.
South Korea’s economic structure also plays a role. Even if young people push themselves to the limit, they must still make it into this 2% club. The top ten conglomerates in South Korea account for 80% of the national annual production value. Giants like Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and SK contribute to 50% of the country’s GDP. Only these large corporations offer high-paying jobs, while smaller companies pay around 60% of what the big conglomerates do. For young people in South Korea, the best routes are either entering a large conglomerate or working in public service. Currently, a large proportion of South Korea’s political and business elites come from SKY universities.
However, both of these routes are highly competitive. While large conglomerates contribute half of the GDP, they only provide 10% of the employment opportunities. Public service exams are also notoriously difficult, with a reported acceptance rate of just 2.4%, even lower than that of Harvard.
As a result, from high school to university to employment, the entire South Korean society tacitly maintains this system, intensifying the “involution.”
This “involution” also leads to another direct consequence: the decline of the humanities. In South Korea, the humanities encompass fields like literature, social sciences, and law. However, when we talk about humanities here, I specifically refer to the humanities disciplines like language and literature, history, and philosophy.
In terms of employment, more than 60% of the new hires in South Korea’s major conglomerates are from the sciences, while the humanities have fewer job opportunities. The employment rate for humanities graduates is much lower than that of science graduates, and many humanities majors can only work in jobs unrelated to their field of study.
At the same time, because the large conglomerates and the education system are deeply connected, universities adjust their course structures based on employment rates. The development of science and engineering disciplines has been favored, and business management majors are also popular, but the humanities are in decline.
As a result, there’s a popular self-deprecating phrase among humanities students in South Korea: “문과 불쌍” (Sorry for being a humanities student). A couple of years ago, a fantasy novel in South Korea borrowed this concept, called “Even Humanities Majors Can Save the World.” In that world, humanities students thrive and are seen as saviors of the world. You can see how deep the self-deprecation has gone, to the point of fantasizing about it.
In fact, if you look at recent news, it’s clear that the decline of the humanities is not limited to South Korea—it’s a global issue.
For example, at the end of 2024, there was news that Harvard University would cut over 230 courses, most of which were in the humanities. Harvard students are also shifting towards STEM fields. According to statistics, in 2022, only 7% of Harvard’s freshmen planned to major in humanities, with the rest focusing on STEM fields. The top earners among U.S. university graduates are mostly from STEM disciplines.
Similarly, in China, the number of graduate programs in the humanities is shrinking. As of early this year, more than 30 universities in China had stopped enrolling in over 200 humanities master’s programs, mainly in fields like management, education, law, literature, journalism, accounting, and economics.
Of course, humanities students are not synonymous with the humanities itself. Individuals can have many choices, and interdisciplinary approaches are common. We cannot specifically define the value of a humanities student, but we can explore the relationship between the humanities and sciences.
To quote Fudan University’s president Jin Li, he said, “The importance of the humanities does not depend on the number of students, but on the quality. In times of challenge, the humanities must excel, and in a technology-driven era, the humanities should thrive on depth of thought, not on scale.” In other words, the relationship between the humanities and sciences is not a matter of life and death, or one replacing the other, but rather a mutually supportive relationship.
Therefore, at the end of today’s program, let’s talk about the value of the humanities in an increasingly advanced technological age.
First, the value of the humanities lies in meaning. The sciences manufacture products, while the humanities manufacture meaning.
There’s a classic story about three construction workers working on a building site. When asked what they were doing, the first person said, “I’m laying bricks.” The second person said, “I’m building a large building.” The third person said, “I’m building a beautiful city.”
For the first person, they only see the bricks in front of them. For the second person, they can imagine the building taking shape. But the third person goes beyond their specific task, thinking at a higher level about what they are creating and its significance. Yes, it’s about meaning, and this is where the humanities excel.
From a behavioral economics perspective, we can divide the human brain into two parts: the left brain handles logic, and the right brain handles emotions. The sciences provide the energy for the left brain, while the humanities provide energy for the right brain.
This is why product launch events and advertisements don’t just tell you how advanced the processor is or how amazing the camera is. They need to tell a story, such as an elderly person chatting with a distant relative via tablet, or a child recording a family gathering. These stories are part of the product but aren’t related to design or production—they need to be created by someone with a humanities perspective.
Thus, even in the most extreme hypothetical situation, where all future products are highly technical and the creative teams are made up of scientists, humanities graduates are still needed to package these products into emotional, meaningful stories. This requires today’s humanities graduates to be able to engage with engineers, think about the value behind a product from a humanistic perspective, and present this complex information in a story to consumers.
This is the value of creating meaning.
Next, what is the value of the humanities in practical terms? After all, the foundation of the world is still made up of people, so issues related to human thought, language, communication, and collaboration will always exist. This is precisely where the humanities play a crucial role.
For example, when Professor Wu Jun interviewed students from MIT about the value of a humanities education, their answers focused on two main points. The first was problem-solving skills—skills they learned through extensive reading and analysis, which are useful in academic research, especially when solving complex problems. The second was communication and expression skills. Most humanities courses involve public speaking, and these skills are important in course collaborations, teamwork, and academic conferences.
Furthermore, Professor Ma Jiangbo, a political and economic research expert and the head of Political and Economic Reference, believes the most important value of the humanities lies in cultivating two key abilities: the ability to solve practical problems and the ability to handle interpersonal relationships. Many jobs still require dealing with large amounts of people, tasks, and situations. Knowing how to correctly handle and solve these problems is crucial, and this is a unique advantage of humanities graduates in the job market. In this integrated era, humanities graduates do not necessarily have to become “specialists”; becoming “generalists” is also a good choice.
Finally, regarding humanities education, let’s borrow a comment from media veteran Qin Shuo: “We must break traditional frameworks while preserving the spiritual core; we must respond to real-world needs while transcending utilitarian constraints.”
We’ll leave it here for now on this topic.
