We live in an era where asset values leap overnight. While some earn years’ worth of salary in a matter of days, those who believed diligence was the ultimate virtue find themselves falling into the despair of becoming “the newly poor” (벼락 거지). Watching the value of labor hit rock bottom, people struggle to break free from existing paradigms; yet, strangely, the job market and social systems still demand that we wear the outdated name tag of “sincerity” (성실). Why is society so obsessed with this concept?
Sincerity Is Not “Ability,” but “Predictability”
The sincerity society demands is, in fact, less of a moral value and more of an issue of “cost reduction.” From the perspective of those running an organization, the greatest fear is uncertainty. A person with adequate skills who sits at their desk at a fixed time costs less to manage than a genius whose talent is unpredictable. In other words, the sincerity required by society is a signal to “become a predictable being.” Giving the assurance that the gears of the system will not suddenly stop—that is why sincerity is still traded even in an age of skyrocketing asset values.
Systemic Inertia Is Slower than Paradigm Shifts
While the speed of the asset market moves like light, the inertia of social systems is as heavy and slow as a massive cargo ship. Curricula, labor laws, and corporate performance metrics are still designed based on the “diligence” of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. Even for creative labor that generates new value, there remains an inertia that believes results only emerge through “quantitative input”—the act of keeping one’s seat for a set amount of time. People try to move on, but the vessel containing them (the social structure) maintains the mold of the past.
“Social Gaslighting” in the Name of Sincerity
From the standpoint of the state or mega-capital, sincerity is the easiest control mechanism to handle. If everyone hopped onto the rise of asset values and deserted the labor field, the system would collapse. Therefore, society constantly beautifies and injects the value of diligence. The narrative that “the sincere will eventually prevail” acts as a form of “social gaslighting” to maintain the system. It is a strategy to prevent the workforce from leaving by granting psychological medals to labor-field sincerity, even if the actual rewards are given by the asset market.
Nevertheless, Is Sincerity the Last Bastion?
Paradoxically, the final reason society repeatedly demands sincerity is that it is the lowest threshold that can be asked of everyone fairly. Not everyone can possess innate talent or massive capital, but “the sincerity of keeping time and completing assigned tasks” is a competency that, theoretically, anyone can provide. The fact that sincerity remains the easiest and cheapest metric to judge a person’s value in a complex world is the sad reason why society cannot let go of this old tool, no matter how much we try to change the paradigm.
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