Meanwhile : Smell and prejudice

Han Seon-hwa The author is an honorary professor at UST and former president of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information. A recurring sensory motif runs through the Korean film "Parasite" (2019): smell. In the film, the wealthy Park family repeatedly notices the odor of the semi-basement family. Park Dong-ik says it "crosses the line." However hard the poorer family tries to hide its circumstances or pass unnoticed, smell cruelly exposes an invisible boundary. The reason may lie in the deep connection between the human sense of smell, emotion and prejudice. Smell operates differently from the other senses. Most sensory information travels through the thalamus before reaching the cerebral cortex, where it is processed and interpreted. Olfactory signals, however, do not pass through the thalamus first. They project directly to the amygdala, which is closely tied to emotion, and the hippocampus, which stores long-term memory. This pathway is often linked to the "Proust phenomenon," in which a particular smell or taste brings back memories and emotions from the past. That is why people may feel sudden disgust when encountering a certain odor, even before they can explain why. The opposite is also true. A familiar scent can create a sense of intimacy that is difficult to describe. Smell is not merely a set of airborne molecules. It can work as a switch that turns memory and emotion on almost instantly. Scientists say humans experienced a sharp decline in olfactory ability during evolution. Rats have about 1,300 olfactory genes, around 1,100 of which function. Humans have roughly 1,000 such genes, but only about 350 remain functional. One explanation is that as humans began walking upright, the nose moved farther from the ground, making smell less important for survival. Yet the retreat of smell may also carry another meaning. Because smell can stir emotion without passing through the filter of reason, perhaps humans needed to become wary of relying too heavily on it. People often attach meaning to smell and use it to judge or exclude others. A stranger's body odor or the unfamiliar flavor of another culture's food can become an instinctive cue for rejection. But unfamiliar smells do not have to remain markers of distance. As cheonggukjang (rich soybean paste) or blue cheese show, what once seemed strange can become culture and memory once it becomes familiar. Preventing smell from becoming prejudice or discrimination requires effort and vigilance. When an unfamiliar scent awakens bias, reason must intervene. Understanding difference may begin not with grand philosophy but with the willingness to stay a little longer before an unfamiliar boundary. This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.