The Future of the Korean Wave and the World

There are three sections to this conclusion. First, what will happen to the global Korean Wave into the future? Four organizational trends of the present Korean Wave are summarized as separate scenarios of the future: a multi-polar global culture; global Koreanization; centralized global digital culture managed by de-nationalized global platforms; and a 'drop out' culture creating various regional commons around material production as some nations experience breakdown of their urban industrialization due to cultural exhaustion, yet joined with a larger global commons and global culture regardless via digital technology. Second, there is a discussion of Korea's growing 'drop out' culture—which is becoming common across many successful urban industrial cultures instead of only Korea. In discussing that last scenario, the idea of a four-step development gauntlet in earlier chapters is continued to argue for a 'fifth gauntlet' that is now on our developmental horizon, that should be solved to continue such development. This fifth gauntlet is something existentially challenging to the ongoing urban industrial development in many developed countries instead of only Korea. This 'drop out' culture is a kind of cultural revolution against the past fast development drive of an urban industrial culture. Koreans are already 'dropping out' of such a fast paced urban industry and cultural industry—making a ‘fifth gauntlet’ problem to be solved, to continue to develop. What will happen if this trend continues as well? Therefore this section is different than the previous sections. In previous sections, the questions asked about the future of the economic Korean Miracle or the future of the cultural Korean Wave mostly have been: “How can other nations keep up with or learn from Korea to apply its policies to their own development policies?” In this section, the question for the future becomes soberly different. The question now is: “Can Korea keep up with itself, i.e., can Korea learn to fix its own growing internal problems of a declining birth rate combined with an increasingly alienated and isolated culture of economic exhaustion of elderly and youth alike that ultimately endangers both the durability of its culture, the economic Korean Miracle, and the cultural Korean Wave?” Does a mad rush to be top of the world economically and culturally from 1997, and the growing economic inequality after that year, increasingly exhaust the cultural reproduction and thus change the spirit of the country instead of renew it as before in the virtuous cycles mentioned earlier? However, this biologically reproductive exhaustion and thus exhaustion of past cultural transmission is occurring as an externality found in many of the most developed countries of the world now, so it is a common problem to be solved. Five ideas from the countries tackling their own ‘fifth gauntlet’ issues show themes of how some have already fixed this trend of cultural self-destruction via several policies. All five policy suggestions for fixing a ‘drop out’ culture involve building greater synergies and social integration between the problems that a country has. Third, a short conclusion asks will Korea be a harbinger leading the way to a more multi-polar global economy and cultural world, or will Korea remain an outlier—so far ‘ahead’ in this digital world that it is impossible to catch up unless Korea falls? Arguments for Korea as both harbinger and outlier were given throughout this book. We can learn from Korea regardless of one’s interpretation about it. Korea is the country of many comparatively good decisions and good accidents that helped catapult it to global success in the late twentieth to early twenty-first centuries. Korea is hopefully only the first of stellar successes in a constellation of more globally-distributed digital economies in a more multi-polar global culture. Not only can we learn from Korea, we should learn from Korea. It is the best example yet of how to successfully hold a culture together in a fast development drive, how to keep your democracy and civil rights by intentional data fragmentationdata fragmentation, as well as how to become a winner in a global digital economy and a global digital culture, instead of falling apart at each step of the way there. We should learn from the digital, developmental, and cultural secrets of the organization of the economic Korean Miracle and the cultural Korean Wave because it is our common future, ready or not, to compete in this way globally. It is better to be knowledgeable and prepared than to be taken unawares by this digital triple global storm that already is altering everyone’s lives and leading to the breakdown and reformatting of nations. Let other countries pioneer more dystopian digital visions. Korea has pioneered the most positive and consensus-driven digital future so far.