Will the Information Society Become a 'Society of Fools'? The Age of Losing Empathy

It has been pointed out that the information society remains at the level of formal information that strips words of their context and meaning, making true wisdom and insight hard to attain. The argument is that information alone, lacking individual experience and philosophy, is merely a list of data and is unlikely to develop into knowledge. This tendency to trust information blindly is also why people are easily swayed by simplified religious-style slogans such as communism or fascism.

Information science was born in 1946 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, and Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver established its theory. They treated information as a quantitative bundle of words independent of meaning and defined it as extracting appropriate words based on statistical probability. This carries the limitation of excluding the essential context and meaning of language and handling words only as mechanical data.

These policies focused on training functional workers rather than nurturing creativity. Especially after the 1980s, university departments began turning into information departments, showing that these educational goals spread across society.

People grasp the essential meaning of language through glances and hand gestures, but machine language wipes out this context entirely. This forces reliance on mechanical data instead of true communication, and like Kim Choon-soo's poem 'Flower,' which has no meaning until its name is called, it diminishes the importance of meaning formed through interaction.

This leads to stripping language of its emotional context and judging only by the hypocritical standard of whether it is polite, deepening the labeling by particular words, as seen with sexual harassment.

Mild fatigue is labeled 'burnout,' and people take leave or medicate. Arbitrary use of words like 'gapjil' (abuse of power) escalates unnecessary conflict, and the meaning of the word itself ends up exerting more influence than the actual phenomenon.

Such a phenomenon distorts the original meaning of language and makes people rely on simplified information.

This can block genuine empathy and lead to the breakdown of human relationships. Quoting classics or four-character idioms to project authority can likewise be criticized in the same vein, showing a tendency to value form over content that has spread across society.

Since the 1980s, when data-centered information science emerged, the development of digital technology and neoliberalism have produced results that break down social relations. Feminism and the pandemic have also acted as factors severing human contact, and the final outcome of this phenomenon is appearing in today's MZ generation. This is leading to a continuing decline in social intelligence.

Capitalism tends to mechanize all human sign activity and try to strip away empathy. This appears as an attempt to remove individual subtle differences and standardize visuals. Treating the body as a means through six-pack abs or plastic surgery, and thereby damaging human intrinsic value, can also be seen as part of this capitalist sign activity.

It is pointed out that even the value of childbirth is disappearing, with sexual satisfaction becoming the standard for marriage. This connects to a social fascist tendency that judges and coerces others by one's own standards.

This formalism distorts the allocation of social resources and the evaluation of talent, producing serious side effects.

The case of designer Lee Jae-seok starkly shows the formalism of Korean design. Despite a talent sweeping New York advertising awards, he was excluded from the design and advertising world simply because he graduated from Keimyung University rather than Seoul National University or Hongik University. This reveals how a social unconsciousness that values the form of academic background over actual content and ability excludes talent and deprives people of opportunity.

If the structural problem of ignoring content and clinging to appearances persists, securing future competitiveness will be difficult.