kim jong un bans sarcasm

[seventh bullet]

It's a measure of the amount of control a state has over citizens' lives. No state can ever be 'totally total' but in the DKRP it's as close to total as it gets. The songbun system dictates your work and family life and the threat of punishment to three generations ensures the vast majority will conform. During a mass show of grief like Sun Jong Il's funeral does it really matter what percentage of the mourners are a) truly loyal b) 'brainwashed' by their education or c) pretending to cry in order to conform? And what does 'agency' mean when the vast majority are excluded from any political discourse. There is definitely a proportion of the population that is loyal and positive about juche but when you can see your whole family from grandparents to grandchildren stuck in a labour camp for open dissent what does it matter? The Kim's are a family of tyrants pure and simple.

I've attempted an answer to your question and put it in context. Now how about you answer mine?

You talk as if questioning whether 'totalitarianism' is the best way to understand societies such as DPRK has to involve a downplaying or denying of the awfulness they are built on (such is the power of propaganda, perhaps...), as shown by your earlier loaded question (why that particular aspect btw?).

Your first reply was to a post that referred to a particular ahistorical understanding of totalitarianism that through western education and propaganda in liberal democracies after WWII had helped to produce a popular workaday understanding of particularly Communist-ruled societies. It lingers on to this day in some respects, and it's this vulgar use of it I was attacking. The agency that individuals or groups have does not just narrowly mean the ability to oppose. That's another aspect of this liberal view. They have to be either true-believers crudely described as being 'brainwashed' by some, or atomised cynics who offer passive resistance and carve out as best an independent life they can.

Anecdotally, my own challenging of some variation of such an understanding occurred by meeting Russians of several generations who lived in the USSR, but more relevant to this, people who lived in the Stalin era. Ordinary people (well a mixture of working class and lower intelligentsia). Unfortunately, even to liberals, real people are not ideologically sound.

We know Marxism-Leninism failed, we know its regimes (or regimes that at least started out using such a doctrinal framework) were, to us, unacceptably authoritarian, even if some might be uncomfortable with the idea that 'Stalinism' is a marginal variation of western modernity, sharing contemporary top-down developments with the west in terms of state intervention in areas of public health, education, housing etc, all perfectly compatible with forced labour camps, torture chambers and bulldozed mass graves. Though even on its own terms DPRK went beyond what it means to be recognisably Communist. Before the ruling elite jettisoned it for a more explicitly national politics. Looking at the degree of coercion used is important, but 'totalitarian' as a genuine type of society that emerged in the last century? I'm not convinced. It can be a useful concept, but it comes with baggage.

 

[maomao]

You talk as if questioning whether 'totalitarianism' is the best way to understand societies such as DPRK has to involve a downplaying or denying of the awfulness they are built on (such is the power of propaganda, perhaps...), as shown by your earlier loaded question (why that particular aspect btw?).

I thought your statement that we were denying the North Korean people agency by stressing the terribleness of the regime was basically you sticking up for the DPRK at first. Most of my own insight comes from China. My inlaws were both pretty high up in their local party till they retired and they made their ascent in the late 60s early 70s. I've talked about it with them a lot. They're both still huge fans of the CCCP. I don't think they're brainwashed. I've also known North Koreans. From the ones in my halls at uni in China who had photos of the Great Leaders on the walls and weren't allowed to speak to students from other countries to refugees in Beijing. I even once met a Chinese speaking North Korean selling DVDs in a pub in Kentish Town (he must have got out through the snakeheads, every other DVD seller I've met in London was Fujianese). Most Chinese seem to think that the DPRK is just like China 40 years ago and given time will catch up. From what I've heard and read it's much much worse. Kim Il Sung was never much of a communist and his son was a straight up tyrant. I'm suspicious of anyone trying to write it off as just another communist experiment gone a bit wrong. Something quite different happened and there's a lot of suffering going on right up to today. I'm not a liberal and I'm not dismissing ordinary people but it seems a bit off to stress agency where people have very little influence over their situation.

 

[seventh bullet]

And we're back again. I have to be downplaying it or making excuses, or it 'isn't that bad.' Carry on being suspicious of this 'wife-beater' if you want.

 

[maomao]

And we're back again. I have to be downplaying it or making excuses, or it 'isn't that bad.' Carry on being suspicious of this 'wife-beater' if you want.

And if I call it a totalitarian tyranny I'm a liberal who's denying the people's 'agency'. Stalemate.

 

[seventh bullet]

That isn't what I'm saying at all! I was painting with a broad brush, not on about you personally in everything said. At this moment I'm doped up on Tramadol while dealing with a recurring abscess in my neck, so with this second head giving me grief I haven't got the energy or concentration to carry on now, but can continue tomorrow if you want? Continue, as in have a robust and maybe fruitful discussion, not reducing each other to the above.

 

[maomao]

That isn't what I'm saying at all! I was painting with a broad brush, not on about you personally in everything said. At this moment I'm doped up on Tramadol while dealing with a recurring abscess in my neck, so with this second head giving me grief I haven't got the energy or concentration to carry on now, but can continue tomorrow if you want? Continue, as in have a robust and maybe fruitful discussion, not reducing each other to the above.

Take your time. Hope the neck's better soon. Abscesses are shitty.

 

[coley]

i for one would rather be ripped to shreds by anti-aircraft cannon than given a lethal injection or the electrick chair.

Mmmm, there's the germ of an idea for a poll there

 

[seventh bullet]

And if I call it a totalitarian tyranny I'm a liberal who's denying the people's 'agency'. Stalemate.

So, after gettiing back home from hospital, can something be described as a 'tryranny' and also at the same time not be an ideological anachronism?

 

[maomao]

So, after gettiing back home from hospital, can something be described as a 'tryranny' and also at the same time not be an ideological anachronism?

I don't understand the question. The DPRK has a historical context and needs to be understood in that context certainly. How does that negate the fact that it is currently a 'cruel and oppressive government' or any other dictionary definition of tyranny that you want to pick? And in particular where does stressing the 'agency' of a people who've had less access to information and less political freedom over the last 70 years than almost anywhere on earth take us? Recognising that the state has been able to restrict political discourse and behaviour is not the same as calling them all brainwashed morons.

My turn to be busy, I'm up at 4 tomorrow. Take your time.

 

[seventh bullet]

I am still trying to understand why you jumped to the conclusion you did earlier. And I wasn't referring to you personally in that orginal post. Where have I attempted to negate anything? Show me. Above, you pretty much agree with what was said in the original post but continue 'stressing' that it denies the particular authoritarian nature of the state.

In talking about a 'Communist experiment gone wrong' I also think you seriously underappreciate the 'tyranny' of the Stalinist USSR.

 

[seventh bullet]

Reading back on this, to be honest I think we broadly agree, although we differ with regard to definition. That's still work in progress for me.