S. KOREAN graduate students just can't say 'no'
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A mini-version of the culture in Singapore???
ST Jan 7, 2006
S. KOREAN graduate students just can't say 'no'[/b][/size]
Culture of following professors' orders blindly being questioned in wake of stem-cell scandal.
IN THIS hard-driving, Confucian-influenced society, seniority rules.
Challenging bosses is uncommon and failing to bow to superiors invites reproach.
A culture of following orders is most evident in academia, a field that has been roiled by the fraud scandal surrounding the once esteemed stem-cell scientist Hwang Woo Suk.
Blindly obeying lordly professors is seen as the surest way to success. Graduate students compete for coveted tenured faculty positions known here as an ”iron rice bowl” – a Chinese term meaning as a guaranteed lifetime job.
But some are now questioning the system, including a few in academias & a newspaper that editorialized against the university culture.
Mr Kim Sun Jong, a former researcher at Prof HwangÂ’s lab, has told South Korean media that the professor ordered him to fabricate data for a paper on the designer stem cells published in the journal Science in May last year.
The problem, said the Segye Times newspaper in its editorial, is “an outdated, pre-modern lab culture of obeying seniors’ orders. While it was Prof Hwang who should have ensured truth & conscience, it is lamentable the researchers couldn’t restrain such misconduct & instead blindly followed the orders”.
Some experts say Prof HwangÂ’s underlings at the Seoul National University had no real choice.
“Prof Hwang’s researchers followed the only logic of survival available to them…even if it meant faking the research results,” said Korean studies Professor Vladimir Tikhonov at the University of Oslo.
MBC television network reported on Tuesday that one of the two researchers at Prof HwangÂ’s Seoul lab, who donated eggs for research, was pressured to do so for fear he would not list her as a co-author for a paper.
Influential professors at prestigious schools “are allowed to build their own private kingdoms, promoting & demoting their underlings largely at will”, said Prof Tikhonov, a naturalized Korean of Russian origin.
Listing professors as senior authors on papers even if they contributed little, fabricating receipts to cover up their personal use of research funds, & running errands for them are just some of the headaches grad school students say they face.
“It’s hard to refuse requests for fear of retaliation,” said a doctoral degree candidate, who once went to his professor’s house on a weekend to fix a computer.
But professors argue that such is misconduct is uncommon.
“I think it’s just a small number of professors who make such absurd requests,” said Professor Cho Dong Jun, who teaches international relations at the University of Seoul.
“I’ve never seen such a case.” -
If LKY tells a junior minister to do something he disagrees with, what do you think the junior minister will do?
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The Korean and Singapore societies seem to share a common Confucian approach in our culture, which seems to have influence our unquestioning respect for authority.
This unquestioning respect for authority, and also a strong confucian value for order in our society, has resulted in politicians taking advantage of this innate respect, by passing laws that further reinforce this attitude with the psychological fear of losing out economically if ever one runs foul with the Law.
Before we even attempt to discuss about training our Young to say "NO", can we change the minds of our Teachers, Community Leaders, Ruling Elites, and the Government to accept "NO" to their demands ?
This perception in the "ATTITUDE towards Authority" will need a fair bit of tinkering that will require the Seniors to step down from their "Eagles' Nests' built on 'Ivory Towers'. -
We should remove and expunge Confucianism from policymaking.It has no long-term use in running a Republic, and frankly, it has given us a lot of long-term problems.Originally posted by Atobe:The Korean and Singapore societies seem to share a common Confucian approach in our culture, which seems to have influence our unquestioning respect for authority.
This unquestioning respect for authority, and also a strong confucian value for order in our society, has resulted in politicians taking advantage of this innate respect, by passing laws that further reinforce this attitude with the psychological fear of losing out economically if ever one runs foul with the Law.
Before we even attempt to discuss about training our Young to say "NO", can we change the minds of our Teachers, Community Leaders, Ruling Elites, and the Government to accept "NO" to their demands ?
This perception in the "ATTITUDE towards Authority" will need a fair bit of tinkering that will require the Seniors to step down from their "Eagles' Nests' built on 'Ivory Towers'.
Leave it in the household or in the social spheres.Better still, quit the propagation.
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How's that possible in todays polictical scene. If you own a car .. you will drive it.Originally posted by LazerLordz:We should remove and expunge Confucianism from policymaking.It has no long-term use in running a Republic, and frankly, it has given us a lot of long-term problems.
Leave it in the household or in the social spheres.Better still, quit the propagation. -
Not if it's tough on you if you drive.Originally posted by MobyDog:How's that possible in todays polictical scene. If you own a car .. you will drive it.
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Originally posted by LazerLordz:
The ancient philospher has been used by present day Politicians who manipulate chauvisnism to gain political advantage.
We should remove and expunge Confucianism from policymaking.It has no long-term use in running a Republic, and frankly, it has given us a lot of long-term problems.
Leave it in the household or in the social spheres.Better still, quit the propagation.
Confucianism has been used by present day Politicians - in Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and China - to obtain unquestioning obedience from the population to the politicians so as to advance their own cause.