Transparency and low trust

 

In my experience, Korean workplaces have lots of red tape and require paperwork for many actions workers take. They collect evidence and trails for employees’ work, spending, trips, and work-related conversations. This record and evidence keeping is even more common for governments and universities where you have to submit a ton of paperwork and get approved if you want to get anything done. This isn’t a necessarily bad thing. It promotes transparency in operation and may increase work efficiency if well managed. But it can become a burden for workers and a mechanism of control by companies and governments. It is also a sign that society lacks trust.

When I was teaching in Korea, I had to submit evidence every semester that the class was conducted in English. The schools asked me to take photos of the students’ handwritten exam answers and record student presentations and submit them for approval. If you ever miss a class, then you have to prepare a make-up plan and get approval. And for everything, you have to fill out standardized forms. Even traveling abroad personally during the summer break requires filling out a form and giving notice to the administration. This is a common practice across Korean universities.

If you take the subway in Korea, there are priority seats for pregnant women conspicuously marked pink. But how do you know that the person sitting there is pregnant? Some Korean women wear a “badge” saying they are pregnant, because, I don’t know, people need evidence. You can get those badges from local government offices. Once I even saw a “pregnant woman alarm” system near the pink seat in which a sound beeps and light blinks if a fob-carrying pregnant woman comes near. It may sound clever, but dystopian in a sense.

It is reported that now it is a common practice for young Korean couples seeking to marry to exchange health exam records, especially those related to sexually transmitted diseases. Why? It is because they want to make sure that the person you are marrying is clean – sexually. Marriage is often a “business,” and it is not a bad idea to make sure of your partner's health status. Americans also often do prenups before tying the knot. But this whole thing sounds too transactional and makes me take pause.

All of these episodes are signs that we live in a low-trust society. Since you cannot believe what your employees say and whether the woman in the pink seat is pregnant or not, you require evidence. Granted, you cannot naively believe what people say because there are always cheaters who exploit the system and the goodwill of others. It is often necessary to provide evidence and records. However, if such a practice becomes widespread in every facet of society, it is troublesome. You become suspicious of and question other people’s words and actions.

The slogan of transparency dominates today. Governments, schools, and companies are encouraged to open their operations and decision making to the public for viewing. Workers need to provide records of their actions. Most of all, everyone on social media reveals everything and watches over others. You can obtain information on virtually anything and share it with others. The dark side of this transparency doctrine is, as the German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han said, the disappearance of privacy, the collapse of trust, and homogenization of human life. Being transparent and producing standardized forms of evidence means a lack of mystery and nuance in life, as Han argues.

I do not deny the importance of transparency in society. I believe being transparent is generally a virtue, especially in public life. But too much of it and requiring it for every social action infringes upon an intimate personal life and may create more problems.

The doctrine of transparency will likely persist in modern, technology-oriented society. Korea, at the vanguard of technological innovations, is also leading the idea of transparency in social life. But it would be worthwhile to weigh what we lose and what we gain by the promotion of this so-called transparency.

Min Seong-jae (smin@pace.edu) is a professor of communication and media studies at Pace University in New York. He is a 2023–24 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Korea.