In this blog post, I’ll compare the wine craze that swept South Korea in the 2000s with the subsequent popular surge in interest in the humanities. I’ll examine the commonalities that emerge when knowledge and culture are consumed as commodities, as well as the mindset needed to truly appreciate the humanities.
Talk of the “humanities” is everywhere. Department store cultural centers are launching a series of humanities courses for the general public, and bookstores have shelves filled with books featuring “humanities” in their titles. Moreover, posting reviews after attending humanities lectures or talk concerts can sometimes come across as a subtle form of self-aggrandizement. Is it just my imagination, or does this current wave of interest in the humanities—which once swept across society—feel strangely familiar?
Do you remember the wine craze that swept South Korea in the mid-2000s? Fueled by the perception that “wine is good for your health” and recommendations from experts, this craze instantly transformed South Korea’s drinking culture. Office workers and businesspeople alike were busy memorizing wine regions, vintages, and characteristics, and they even treated the methods of pouring and drinking wine—and even its “taste”—as if they were sacred scriptures. Those who knew nothing about wine were often viewed as out of touch with the times or lacking in cultural refinement, which in turn led countless people to become engrossed in “studying” wine. Knowledge of wine had become established as an essential part of an intellectual’s general education.
There was, however, something rather peculiar about this wine craze: people began to show off their knowledge of wine rather than simply enjoying the wine itself. Wine is a beverage that is difficult to learn “properly.” Not only do flavors vary greatly by region and grape variety, but the sheer number of varieties—reflecting its long history—makes it difficult to grasp this deep world with knowledge acquired in a short period. Furthermore, since wine is experienced through the highly subjective sense of taste, it is hard to understand its true flavor through superficial descriptions alone without firsthand experience. However, amid the wine craze at the time, it was not uncommon for those dubbed “wine snobs” to present themselves as having reached a “masterful level”—memorizing information about various rare vintage wines and distinguishing their flavors by region. This phenomenon reflected an obsession with the knowledge itself—such as vintages, ratings, and production backgrounds—rather than a deep understanding of wine.
Today’s boom in the humanities is not much different. Students enrolling in humanities courses browse the catalogs of companies or cultural centers and select courses that suit their tastes. After paying a reasonable fee, they enjoy lectures tailored to their level. This entire process unfolds much like online shopping, and attending a lecture is not much different from watching a movie or a musical. However, this merely lulls them into the illusion that they are engaging in “intellectual enjoyment” rather than simply seeking entertainment. There is insufficient time for serious exploration of the subject matter within the lectures, nor are students given enough time to read and reflect on the original texts covered in class on their own. Just as wine snobs blather on about acquired knowledge without truly understanding the taste of wine, students of humanities lectures end up becoming “humanities snobs” themselves.
Humanities that focus solely on superficial “tastings” without a process of deep contemplation of the subject matter are dangerous. Consumers accept the “instructor’s thoughts,” neatly packaged and organized, and are led to believe that these represent the very essence of the humanities. This misconception further accelerates the consumption of the humanities, and ultimately, countless classics and products of intellectual inquiry—simply consumed without sufficient exploration—fail to realize their full value. Consumers, having lost the ability to think for themselves, satisfy their intellectual hunger and vanity by consuming yet another lecture or book on a different topic. The repetition of this cycle could ultimately pose a crisis to the humanities as an academic discipline. This cycle, which lacks the “process of reaching conclusions through thought”—the most crucial aspect of the humanities—may, even amid a societal craze for the humanities, result in nothing more than the mass production of people who consume knowledge without actually adopting a humanistic mindset.
Consumers who enjoy wine and the humanities seek to demonstrate their own value by “consuming” them. Just as knowledge of wine has served as a means to flaunt one’s status, the humanities can also be consumed as a means to flaunt one’s intellectual level and value. Capital, skillfully tapping into this psychology, has succeeded in turning the humanities into a marketable commodity. As the term “humanities” suggests, lectures in the humanities—which should originally explore fundamental human thought and spirit—sometimes remain at the level of personal counseling or offering comfort in life, let alone engaging in analysis or criticism. Of course, the comfort offered by the humanities to individuals is not entirely without value. It can certainly play a positive role in empowering those who are disheartened and serving as a source of new vitality in their lives. However, the problem lies in the fact that the goal of humanities—once eroded by capital—may shift toward generating more profit. Commercialized humanities can lure even those who seek to engage in rigorous intellectual inquiry and savor scholarship itself with sweet comfort, causing them to bypass the painful process of critical thinking. This “healing” approach to the humanities can lead to the idolization of specific figures or thinkers, using their names to sell books and lectures and thereby accumulate even greater wealth.
Culture, once selected and enjoyed exclusively by the upper class, also functions as “invisible ink” that distinguishes social classes. Wine, which was once a luxury enjoyed only by a select few, rapidly became mainstream as it stimulated the public’s desire to flaunt their social status or to belong to the upper class. However, as wine became more widely available and consumed by the masses, it could no longer serve as an indicator that distinguished only the upper class. The “invisible ink” actually turned into a stigma, creating a fear that those unable to keep up with such social trends might be perceived as uncultured or of low status. Amid this fear, people are constantly pressured to consume commodified culture—whether to avoid falling behind or to prove their own worth.
The wine craze that swept through South Korean society from the early to mid-2000s until around 2008 gradually lost its momentum amid the economic crisis and recession, and interest in the humanities began to fill that void. Is it really a coincidence that the waning of the wine craze and the emergence of the humanities craze largely overlap? The popular humanities craze—characterized by “healing” and counseling—has, to some extent, replaced the social status once held by wine, functioning as a new form of “invisible ink” or a new stigma. We have moved from an era when those unfamiliar with wine were treated as uncultured to an era where those lacking a sensitivity to the humanities are regarded as emotionally barren. At first glance, today’s social climate—which appears to have shifted from a trend of indulging in luxury goods to an academic trend of self-exploration and valuing the inherent worth of humanity—is, in essence, not fundamentally different from the “wine era” of the past. The humanities, too, could at any moment—just like wine—give way to another “craze” should social circumstances change. It is a rule of thumb that if you consume anything too quickly or too easily, you cannot truly appreciate its flavor. The humanities, too, require a proper “way of wine.”
