I mean "lets purge our academics of non-believers" is a practice applied in basically every society, for time immemorial. The non-charitable reading is that th

I mean "lets purge our academics of non-believers" is a practice applied in basically every society, for time immemorial. The non-charitable reading is that they're implying that "access to information" is the blocker from NKers just rising up and accepting "western" norms, and _if only they knew how amazing society could be_, they would change their minds. It's the same brainworms as the liberal "oh, if only you knew all the facts then you would agree with me". It implies some sort of objective truth that western society has found, yet these societies haven't. Educated people in NK know about voting and democracy. It's not some super well-kept secret to keep the masses down. Censorship is just applied in much more banal ways (preventing too much embarassing information about people in power from spreading, and making it hard for any form of opposition to organize itself)