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Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle
- dev_dull 7y ago>According to the North Korean daily Nodong Sinmun (Worker's Newspaper), the leadership was fighting a guerrilla war against the possible incursion of capitalism into the sphere of personal appearance. So what you will about free, market-controlled economies, but the current alternatives sure don’t look too good for the “worker”
- anoncake 7y agoNorth Korea tries strictly control its citizens because it's a totalitarian dictatorship. That doesn't even have anything to do with economics. Don't assume everything the North Korean government says makes sense.
- sorokod 7y agoIf you think of the situation in North Korea as a hostage situation, you wi find that the action of the criminals ( the government ) is generally rational.
- anoncake 7y agoThe North Korean government does have rational reasons for saying absurd things. The things it says are still absurd.
- xnyan 7y agoThis is a really sophomoric opinion. Do you really want to throw down, I.E sum total of worker suffering introduced by capitalistic states vs socialistic vs communistic? If I can prove with mutually agreed facts that capitalism has a higher body count that any other political system, will you agree to change your position.
- tanzbaer 7y agoI'd love to see that proof.
- Matticus_Rex 7y agoI've seen it before -- it involves blaming basically all war and all deaths under market economies on capitalism and doing serious gymnastics on deaths under non-market economies of the "it wasn't real socialism!" sort.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago>"it wasn't real socialism!" sort // Usually it's Western Capitalism vs Communist [Dictatorship] Regimes and the argument is entirely valid. If you're forced in to it it's not communism -- people won't in general follow an ideology that contradicts their natural propensity to greed and winning above others (pride), so it generally is not communism when you're talking about groups above a small town size. I spend quite a bit of time thinking about how to transition from our widely oppressive capitalistic system to a more communistic one in a way to accommodates people's propensity towards greed and still maintain democratic freedoms to the greatest extent. It's something that in the long term might solve a lot of our overuse of resources.
- dev_dull 7y ago> I spend quite a bit of time thinking about how to transition from our widely oppressive capitalistic system to a more communistic one The problem, of course, is that without force they’re short lived, like volatile molecules exposed to air. All matter eventually retreats to its most stable form. Of course, nothing stops like minded individuals from forming communist societies (communes), and they do sometimes. Even a small one doesn’t stay together long without force or a very strong binding identity, such as religion or family.
- Matticus_Rex 7y agoIf you're going to play "it isn't real socialism," then you have to play "it isn't real capitalism." I'm pro-free market with an econ background, and I'll be the first to tell you that virtually nothing in Western "capitalism" is all that recognizable as something promoted by free market economists.
- turk73 7y agoI've never hardly known a free, or market-controlled anything in my entire life. What we have is corporatism, where giant companies go to government and lobby for monopolies of one kind or another. There is no actual competition, only a semblance of competition. As bad as life may be for the average worker, it was far worse in the Soviet Union. Living inside the Iron Curtain sucked massively unless you were a member of the party elite, and then it was literally a party. Same as it ever was--every system will be subverted by some tiny elite so that they can rule you and live the high life while you toil. The only thing that has ever partially solved the problem is for regular people to fight them.
- 0xcde4c3db 7y agoIt's sort of funny that this was an actual TV program, but the association of hairstyle with personal virtue and shared political views is a much broader phenomenon. As a current example, online political activists/commentators have been known in recent years to disparagingly refer to people as having "fashy" or "feminist" hair.
- BEEdwards 7y agoThen something with real life consequences and not just internet nonsense, the hair of people of color is banned in both schools and places of work. IE dreads and afro styles.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoThis argument is pretty poor IMO - hair styles common to certain light-skinned people, skinhead and mohicans (say), are banned in many schools and places of work (in UK) too. It's weird to me that people get dictatorial about hair (but understandable in the sense that people will control what they feel they can to assert their dominance; petty power plays are rife in human society) but it doesn't seem racist.
- danaris 7y agoIt's racist when the styles that are banned are what certain ethnic groups' hair does if you don't take any special effort to style it—you just let it grow out and tend it normally—or if they're a very culturally common style among that ethnic group. Skinheads and mohawks are banned because they are strongly associated with violence and gang activity. Are you saying it's fine to associate traditional hairstyles of those of African heritage with violence and gang activity?
- UnpossibleJim 7y agoThe problem with associating the skinhead haircut with skinheads is, it's also associated with balding men who would rather not fight the inevitable and look sad trying =P
- GuiA 7y agoI’ve always been intrigued by the heavy use of “let’s” in texts translated from Japanese and Korean in the past. I didn’t understand if it was a stylistic choice by translators, or if those languages did actually use it that much? It sounds so stilted in English, what linguistic mechanics make it not so in those languages? Turns out it’s its own verb tense! It’s called the “volitional” and you use it when you want to emphasize that you want to do something, typically with the person you’re speaking to. The best way to render it in English is by using “let’s” (“let’s go eat”). http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/desire_volition#Volitional_Form http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/desire_volitio...
- dannyw 7y ago“Ba” in Chinese, which is appended to the end of a sentence :) “Eat dinner” + “ba” = “let’s eat dinner?”
- crehn 7y agoAnd in Korean, 자 (cha) is attached to a verb to make it "let's ...". 먹다 (to eat) + 자 = 먹자 (let's eat) However for questions, 먹을까? (shall we eat?) and 먹을래? (want to have a bite from this thing I have?) are appropriate.
- yorwba 7y agoKorean and Japanese are quite different, so any insights about grammar do not necessarily transfer. The verb form in the title is listed as the "formal non-polite hortative" in this conjugation table: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%ED%95%98%EB%8B%A4#Conjugation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%ED%95%98%EB%8B%A4#Conjugatio... The equivalent Japanese verb is conjugated like this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B#Conjugation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B#Conjugatio... Wikipedia on hortatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortative
- OJFord 7y ago> ['let's'] sounds so stilted in English It sounds perfectly normal and commonplace to me (British). - Let's see... - Oh yes, let's! - Uh, no, let's not. - Let's think of another example... - Let's stop there. Google Ngram Viewer does put it at about 8x more common (contemporarily) in British English than American English though, and with a shorter history in the latter.
- dontbenebby 7y ago>The program claimed that hair length can affect human intelligence, in part because of the deprivation to the rest of the body of nutrients required for hair to grow. What I took away from this is some high up NK official is bald ;)
- dontbenebby 7y ago>In the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang, Western news articles reported that a hidden camera was placed to catch citizens with improper hairstyles. This was part of a television programme broadcast at the same time as Let's Trim Our Hair in Accordance with the Socialist Lifestyle. The offenders would then be interviewed by the presenter and asked to explain themselves. Their name, address and workplace would be announced to deter others from being embarrassed and ostracized. This could be a Black Mirror episode.
- IAmEveryone 7y agoIs “Cops” much different? It’s similar voyeurism, I. e. the enjoyment to watch lesser people suffer the hard hand of the police state. Most of the cases on that show also need social work more than policing.
- mises 7y agoJesus Christ, more disturbing and evil socialist propaganda from the disturbing and evil North Korean government. I am perpetually disappointed that we haven't found a resolution to the horrible violations of individual liberty happening there, and am disappointed the Chinese will not quit playing protector of N Korea.
- IAmEveryone 7y agoIsn’t the need to produce a TV program actually a sign that they weren’t successful with more draconian measures? And let’s not pretend there isn’t a lot of pressure to look a certain way to be successful in at least some careers in democratic countries.
- bin0 7y ago"In the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang, Western news articles reported that a hidden camera was placed to catch citizens with improper hairstyles. This was part of a television programme broadcast at the same time as Let's Trim Our Hair in Accordance with the Socialist Lifestyle. The offenders would then be interviewed by the presenter and asked to explain themselves. Their name, address and workplace would be announced to deter others from being embarrassed and ostracized." From the article. Also, this comparison is like saying that Soviet Russia producing propaganda was a sign that the gulags didn't work.
- nichos 7y agoWhat's worse is you have college kids going around calling themselves socialists and communists. I guess they stopped teaching history in college.
- blfr 7y agorecommended haircuts for men every 15 days reminds me of the GSElevator tweet[1] #1: Haircuts are the ultimate economic indicator. In bad times, it's every 8 weeks. In good, it's every 6. #2: I go every 3 weeks. thus once again proving that communist countries are more prosperous than rotten capitalist economies where even top bankers only cut their hair once a month. [1] https://twitter.com/gselevator/status/255383764027457536 https://twitter.com/gselevator/status/255383764027457536
- fibers 7y agoThis seems better than how the ad industry and tech workers in it help facilitate the most warped beauty standards that women are expected to achieve which might lead to eating disorders on the long run.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoPerhaps "Let's wear our hair and clothes in accordance with the Capitalist Lifestyle" is too on-the-nose in the West. Much better to call it something inspiring and cosmopolitan like "Vogue". Or even "Cosmopolitan."
- kennywinker 7y agoAh yes the government mandated cosmo subscriptions we all are forced to have are quite a burden. ;P
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoOffice mandated hair, suit and tie, or skirt and heels policies just to work a non-public office can be. Thankfully not as common as they were.
- mrandish 7y agoI am deeply grateful that working in tech startups my entire life from college to retirement, I never worked anywhere that had a dress code.
- ngngngng 7y agoFunny enough, the people I know with the most extreme dress and grooming habits identify as socialists.
- cm2012 7y agoThe ad industry has almost no control over how people like to wear their hair. It can just advertise products that support what's already popular - long or short hair, frizzy or straight, etc.
- 0815test 7y agoWell, that explains it. We knew that the North Korean embassy in the UK weren't happy about the suggestion that a certain high-profile person from NK should take better care of his hair: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-27038723 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-27038723 Turns out there was quite the backstory behind it. Do as I say, not as I do, and all that.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoI'm pretty sure Kim Jong Un has one of the approved hairstyles, isn't it the middle one here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2018/08/17/TELEMMGLPICT000171847265_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqutubNGxeqbD0m2XylzINLiOoem_3qpp9C-iKHR23jxY.jpeg?imwidth=1240 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2018/08/17/TELE... ?
- tanin 7y ago> The program claimed that hair length can affect human intelligence This was, and (maybe) still is, a wisdom in Thailand, but for different reasons. I was in high school in ~2002. My knowledge could be outdated. I hope they have changed this dogma. Thailand enforced certain hairstyles on students until the end of highschool. For male, it looked similar what is shown in the post. Probably even uglier. (Not all schools enforced it strictly. Some, especially private schools, let their students to have a better hairstyle.) Anyway, we believed that these superficial decorations would make students being distracted from studying. Students would focus purely on look and etc. It's a "tradition". Obviously, self-esteem was not a thing to consider back then. This hairstyle rule turned good teachers into hair polices. Teachers were obsessed with whether your hair was too long. Long hair became the sign of disrespect. When the movie, Speed, came out, Keanu Reeves had the buzzcut hairstyle which was shorter than what Thailand enforced. Many students thought "well, it's shorter and looks cooler. It should be fine". It turned out that cutting your hair shorter than what was enforced was also wrong. One funny tidbit: I've learned a valuable lesson that Buzzcut in US is called Skinhead in Thailand. I told several people at work that I would get a skinhead. People looked freaked out a bit because skinhead was associated with something really really bad; I don't remember what. Then, one friend kindly pointed out that what I wanted was a buzzcut. Edit: This article (https://www.wsj.com/articles/shear-follicle-thai-students-rebel-against-mandatory-haircuts-1466711841 https://www.wsj.com/articles/shear-follicle-thai-students-re...) captures the situation pretty well. And there's a photo inside which is accurate
- CondensedBrain 7y agoSkinheads were a punk-adjacent subculture that got overrun with neonazis. They never did shake the association.
- swebs 7y ago>The program claimed that hair length can affect human intelligence, in part because of the deprivation to the rest of the body of nutrients required for hair to grow. Heh, reminds me of Lysenkoism. What is it with socialists and their outright denial of science? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
- zacherates 7y agoConsider that possibly the stated reason is not the true reason. Maybe the authoritarian regime that run NK wants to control the way people look for various reasons: So the people don't culturally identify with other societies, so they don't spend time messing with more complicated styles (hair and other) because they consider it a waste of resources, so the people don't realize that the mere fact that outsiders can spend resources on more elaborate styles is a product of those societies being better off, that they want the people to internalize a shared society through uniformity, etc, etc, etc. ... and that in order to achieve those means, they will say anything regardless of truth, evidence, etc, and will punish dissent so that the truth doesn't matter (mostly).
- Nasrudith 7y agoAuthoritarians of all sort want to impose control and conformity. It doesn't have to be a rational reason - just that they go against "the authority" even if it fits every last jot and minuate of the written rules angers them.
- derefr 7y agoThere might be an interesting correlation between hair length and [some aspects of] human intelligence—but in the other direction than the one North Korea would like to imply. Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, a chemical that is produced by the brain to modulate plasticity during learning, seems to potentiate the effects of androgens on hair loss (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21729031 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21729031), i.e. accelerating balding in people who will eventually go bald. (This isn’t just theoretical, either—drugs which increase BDNF are reported to cause hair loss/balding in some people, presumably the ones who would eventually bald.) So, in a very hand-wavy way, you could hypothesize that people who go bald earlier in life, are producing a lot of BDNF, and therefore are doing a lot of cognitive restructuring, and maybe therefore are getting “smarter” in some sense.
- RandomInteger4 7y agoBalding and hair length are unrelated.
- walshemj 7y agocough I wonder what the view in North Korea is on Marx and Bakunin or even Keith Flet :-)
- NikkiA 7y agoNo worse than the billions of 'how to dress to look successful' and other bullshit books, courses, videos and seminars that capitalism spews every year.
- docdeek 7y agoThere's a pretty significant difference between a bullshit book that someone chooses to buy and a government sponsored TV broadcasts.
- flukus 7y agoIt's not just a bullshit book though, books like that attempt to codify existing entrenched standards. Ignoring those standards, like not wearing a suit to an interview, wearing a suit to an interview in some contexts or having an unconventional haircut can see you ostracized from society. At least when it's government mandated there is hopefully a clear and uniform set of rules. Ideally we could move beyond a world of judging people based on their haircut and dress code but I don't think the western world is much better than North Korea.
- sys_64738 7y agoI'm bald...
- robdachshund 7y agoI thought this was about the american undercut or neon dye at first haha.
- gumby 7y agoReminds me of the signs everywhere in Singapore when I was a kid: "Males with long hair will be served last", including example artwork. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_hair_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_hair_in_Singapore https://boingboing.net/2013/04/26/males-with-long-hair-will-be-a.html https://boingboing.net/2013/04/26/males-with-long-hair-will-...
- RickJWagner 7y agoI thought this was going to be about Bernie's no-comb 'do.