“Mediocrities everywhere, I absolve you. I absolve you, all,” uttered Antonio Salieri in the 1984 film “Amadeus,” loosely based on the real life of the Italian classical composer and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

As Mozart’s less-capable archrival, the movie version of Salieri was forced to shudder in jealousy, marvel with wonder, and bear witness to the immortal genius of a man many consider to be one of the greatest musical talents of all time.

Throughout history, tales of those with exceptional capacity of intellect and ability have sparked the awe of the general public, if not as fatal.


In Korea, a country famous for its education fever, such longing for God-given talent is usually manifested in the form of education.

Since 2000, the government had been promoting “the education for the gifted” in a bid to maximize the potential of child prodigies who demonstrate extraordinary abilities. There are currently over 2,500 classes for the gifted, with some 110,000 students receiving specialized educations.

Standout youngsters have been labeled “prodigy” and became darlings of the media; Kim Ung-yong in the 1960s grabbed nationwide fame after solving differential equations on a Japanese TV show, and such fever was repeated decades later in the 2000s when science wiz teen Song Yoo-geun had emerged.

The flip side to such adoration, however, is the pressure and even contempt for their failure to meet sky-high expectations of the public. When Kim returned to Korea with no visible accomplishments and entered a local college as a 21-year-old, the general public and the media were quick to label him a “failure.”

Song got the short end of the stick of media attention when his was embroiled recently in a highly publicized plagiarism scandal. He has also said that being touted as a child genius was “lonely,” being singled out from everyone else.

Experts have pointed out that heavy competition based on students’ academic achievement may be responsible for the “fall” of geniuses.

Lee Sang-kyu, a psychiatrist from Hallym University Medical Center, pointed out that Korean society tends to only label students who excel in schoolwork as gifted.

Parents tend to think that their children doing well in school is a task that affects the entire family. They say, ‘why can’t my child be a prodigy?’” said Lee, an expert in depression, child and adolescence issues. “A gifted individual is one in thousands, which means not all children are gifted. But in Korea, if you’re not a standout, you are a loser.”

“Not all geniuses are perfect in every way. The problem is that some parents are trying to ‘create’ geniuses that do well in everything, when even the academic circles are uncertain of what defines a genius,” he said.

A recent revelation by Song, who urged people not to praise him based on talent alone, demonstrates how being labeled “a genius” may be both a blessing and a curse.

“People call me ‘a boy prodigy’ and it’s been somewhat of a pressure. I believe it is because they expect me to accomplish a lot of things,” said Song in a lecture, predating his scandal. “Genius is a word used to assess a person’s lifetime of achievements. Thus, I’m not a genius -- I’m just someone working hard in the field of astrophysics, which I like.”

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)