4 ms·

>I'm no fan of the DPRK regime, but isn't it naive to assume that any state, even a completely mismanaged despotic one, will "inevitably" collapse? I could not

by M_Grey 10y ago

>I'm no fan of the DPRK regime, but isn't it naive to assume that any state, even a completely mismanaged despotic one, will "inevitably" collapse? I could not agree more, and if it does collapse there will be a lot of credit taken for prescience that will amount to having said the same thing for 60+ years. I think the problem is that the intellectual space around the DPRK is dominated by loud people with minimal expertise, but since expertise is so lacking, loud counts for a lot. I've read as much as I could on the subject of the DPRK, and even thoughtful scholars who make very guarded predictions seem very aware of the limits of their knowledge. One thing that most of them seem to agree on, is that most of us in the West underestimate the degree to which the North Korean people are into their own propaganda/mythology. That at least, seems to match with the struggles that defectors seem to face with adjustment. In essence, the people in the DPRK might not buy into the official line in all things, but what they do believe is no less bizarre.

valarauca1 10y ago
us in the West underestimate the degree to which the North Korean people are into their own propaganda/mythology. A lot of people truly do underestimate this. It is hard for Westerners to fully conceptualize but the ideological roots of Juche religious aspects. A surprising number of North Korean experts actively refuse to read Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il writing on the subject. Which the DPRK actively distributes online. Ignoring primary sources is weird when you're an expert in subject matter. The main purpose of Juche (from the ideological, not material stand point) is inscribing the significance of the socialist revolution into the consciences of the people at a religious level. As Kim Jong-il goes on to explain that people _need_ some social construct of a deity figure on a sociology-psychicological level. The goal of Juche is to place the importance of the revolution there (as communism is famously extremely anti-religious). Kim Il-Sung's writes that while socialism may extend to politics, education, and military life. It does not extend to the social and religious aspects of life. Without that daily constant re-enforcement people may lose site of its long term goals. He goes on to blame the failure of the USSR on this, one of his many critiques of Stalin. --- We rarely think but in English the expression, "Oh God." Is one deeply rooted within the western Juedeo-Christian tradition. It links our culture back to history of everything Caesar to Charlemagne to WW1 to the present. Once you can conceptualize that sociology-psychicological connection you can really see how deep ideological indoctrination can run. Furthermore what Juche and the DPRK has achieved.
- ue_ 10y ago
  >writes that while socialism may extend to politics, education, and military life. It does not extend to the social and religious aspects of life. The shaping of cultural life via the relations to the means of production refers to the shaping of the superstructure by the base, Marx claims. Although Bookchin has his own ideas (that the superstructure is not entirely shaped by the base, as evidenced by societies involving shamanism, something which he claims does not arise out of the economic base) most Marxists believe that every aspect of society is given rise to by material conditions, i.e the relationship of people to their means of sustenance. For the proletariat under capiatalism, this means their culture and way of life is shaped by working in return for wage-labour. However I feel as though Il-Sung may have been hinting at something we already recognise in our own societies; the "American Dream" may be such a substitute for a deity figure which encourages blind faith in the capitalist system, in which "anyone can be anything with enough hard work". So the question is: does Socialism require such a system of belief, or can it as Marx claims go without due to the normalisation of the Socialist mode of production? This dilemma is a common theme of debate within Socialism, with one camp of Orthodox Marxists saying that everything can be explained in terms of the economic base, while communalists and "identity politicians" claim that changing the relationship to the MoP does little to eradicate the cause of non-economic power structures, including shamanism, racism, sexism etc.
gibbitz 10y ago
Regardless of the likelihood of a collapse, it is a possibility. No plan is a plan for failure. What's fascinating for me about this video is that it shows how the DPRK citizens have a hard time with capitalism (implying that it isn't "natural" as the capitalism marketing machine would have us think). Usually stories on the DPRK focus on the problems inside that country without turning the same eye on our systems.

by M_Grey 10y ago

valarauca1 10y ago

us in the West underestimate the degree to which the North Korean people are into their own propaganda/mythology. A lot of people truly do underestimate this. It is hard for Westerners to fully conceptualize but the ideological roots of Juche religious aspects. A surprising number of North Korean experts actively refuse to read Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il writing on the subject. Which the DPRK actively distributes online. Ignoring primary sources is weird when you're an expert in subject matter. The main purpose of Juche (from the ideological, not material stand point) is inscribing the significance of the socialist revolution into the consciences of the people at a religious level. As Kim Jong-il goes on to explain that people _need_ some social construct of a deity figure on a sociology-psychicological level. The goal of Juche is to place the importance of the revolution there (as communism is famously extremely anti-religious). Kim Il-Sung's writes that while socialism may extend to politics, education, and military life. It does not extend to the social and religious aspects of life. Without that daily constant re-enforcement people may lose site of its long term goals. He goes on to blame the failure of the USSR on this, one of his many critiques of Stalin. --- We rarely think but in English the expression, "Oh God." Is one deeply rooted within the western Juedeo-Christian tradition. It links our culture back to history of everything Caesar to Charlemagne to WW1 to the present. Once you can conceptualize that sociology-psychicological connection you can really see how deep ideological indoctrination can run. Furthermore what Juche and the DPRK has achieved.

ue_ 10y ago
>writes that while socialism may extend to politics, education, and military life. It does not extend to the social and religious aspects of life. The shaping of cultural life via the relations to the means of production refers to the shaping of the superstructure by the base, Marx claims. Although Bookchin has his own ideas (that the superstructure is not entirely shaped by the base, as evidenced by societies involving shamanism, something which he claims does not arise out of the economic base) most Marxists believe that every aspect of society is given rise to by material conditions, i.e the relationship of people to their means of sustenance. For the proletariat under capiatalism, this means their culture and way of life is shaped by working in return for wage-labour. However I feel as though Il-Sung may have been hinting at something we already recognise in our own societies; the "American Dream" may be such a substitute for a deity figure which encourages blind faith in the capitalist system, in which "anyone can be anything with enough hard work". So the question is: does Socialism require such a system of belief, or can it as Marx claims go without due to the normalisation of the Socialist mode of production? This dilemma is a common theme of debate within Socialism, with one camp of Orthodox Marxists saying that everything can be explained in terms of the economic base, while communalists and "identity politicians" claim that changing the relationship to the MoP does little to eradicate the cause of non-economic power structures, including shamanism, racism, sexism etc.

gibbitz 10y ago

Regardless of the likelihood of a collapse, it is a possibility. No plan is a plan for failure. What's fascinating for me about this video is that it shows how the DPRK citizens have a hard time with capitalism (implying that it isn't "natural" as the capitalism marketing machine would have us think). Usually stories on the DPRK focus on the problems inside that country without turning the same eye on our systems.