After reading "Ethnic Theories of Plane Crashes"

           Reading this chapter was a painful wake-up call. When Gladwell first mentioned the failures of Korean Airlines, my patriotic sentiments were ready to be offended and to rebut to whatever he had to mock about my country. However, as I read through his detailed, step-by-step analysis of attributing plane crashes to the cultural aspects of the Korean people, I had to recognize what Gladwell had brought up was, largely, true. We Koreans are educated and trained from birth to be respectful to authority. The acceptance of hierarchy is embedded throughout our entire nation, and those who are at the lower level of the pyramid are expected and demanded to be subservient to their superiors; whether it’s children to their parents, employees to their employers, or just the young people to their elders. And this tendency doesn’t exist only in Korea, but in the Oriental World as a whole. Many countries that belong to the Eastern Cultural Region rank at the top of Power Distance Index scale, which means that people from this region generally don’t challenge the ones in power.

                  Sometimes, this sort of paying-deference-to-authority identity, or the deep-rooted culture that formed the identity, can be viewed as “beautiful.” That’s the expression Gladwell uses to describe the excerpt of a typical Korean dialogue between individuals in different power ranks; he says that the subtlety is courteous and beautiful. However, I agree with Gladwell that in certain circumstances, such subtlety is unnecessary or even dangerous. The kind of conversation that Mr. Kim and his 과장 had after work shouldn’t take place in a cockpit of a plane that is facing bad weather conditions, technical malfunctions, and especially severe lack of fuel. If the person in charge, the captain in the cockpit, is fatigued and unable to make reasonable decisions, whoever can take over should take over, particularly since hundreds of lives are at stake. But maneuvering airplanes isn’t the only task that involves human lives or other valuable resources; driving buses or subways, rescuing people from emergencies or disasters, investigating and tracking down criminals, importing merchandise, exporting merchandise, or any other possible job you can imagine of is responsible for perhaps the countless livelihoods, or actual lives, of people. Therefore, given the detrimental consequences of failures of each and every one of these tasks, the agents of these tasks should primarily focus on maximizing efficiency and minimizing the risk of failure. Ironclad hierarchies are hardly an effective method to achieve that goal.

                  And that’s why I believe traditions and customs that demand “respect” to subordinates do more harm than good, almost in every case. Although I understand such cultures have their own merit, in a rapidly globalizing world like ours, respect is considered to be something that should be “earned;” not “demanded.” Free exchange of ideas, open minded discussions, diversity, and horizontal bureaucracies are what define and innovate today’s world, and customs that hinder these ideals could be evaluated as “obsolete.” Especially if someone is in a situation in which he or she is responsible for other’s lives, cultural legacies cannot be an excuse for a mistake. Whether you are a Colombian, South Korean, or a member of any other ethnicity, you cannot be absolved for crashing a plane. Maybe this is why we Koreans should also start to liberate ourselves from the tradition that values unconditional obedience. That’s what I firmly believe in, at least.

                  However, I also understand that changing is difficult. Until I read this chapter, I thought I was irrelevant with the Korean norms of submitting to authority. However, when I read the excerpt of Mr. Kim and his 과장- I imagined myself being put in a similar situation and contemplated how I would have reacted in such circumstances. The answer was painfully clear: I would have behaved the same way Mr. Kim or his 과장 did, and never even think once I was epitomizing our subtle culture. Moreover, all the customs that Gladwell discussed-standing up when a senior enters a room, using deferential language to superiors, or waiting until the oldest person lifts his or her spoon at the dinner table-were natural courtesies that I followed in my everyday lives! I was shocked. Not because I thought our traditions were some useless crap, but because I recognized how deeply permeated our culture was within our thoughts, habits, actions, and lives. How could I request other people to change, when I myself was being heavily influenced by culture?

                  Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, I believe changing is possible. The example of Korean Airline demonstrates how change of cultural viewpoint was tricky but possible, and also worthy. Worthy enough to transform an airline that had 17 times more accidents than American airlines to one of the safest and renowned airlines in the world, and worthy enough to earn the firm a Phoenix Award in 2006 and make its record spotless since 1999. I won’t say that change is always better, but definitely in some places, change is needed. And the cockpit of a plane is just one example; who knows in this vast new world how many more places require openness, flexibility, and horizontal relationships instead of hierarchies. As it is becoming more important in various occasions for every single member of a group to speak up, the need for Korea to adapt to different cultural values is increasing. So let’s change; if Korean Airlines can do it, so can we.