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My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

theguardian.com

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Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#91

Post by robertlagrant »

the_af wrote: post #66
opportune wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are social creatures with an innate sense of “status”. Absolute material inequality is only one form of inequality. You can feed, clothe, and give iPhones to the very poor but if they are at the bottom of a very deep social hierarchy with no hope to climb out of it, that inequality is still going to cause a lot of problems. People might turn to a life of crime for lack of better options, or participate into a…

> However, a greatly reduced disparity in living standards and material conditions does have positive social effects IMO. Consider that deaths of despair, poverty, and desperation are much higher under the Russian Federation than the USSR. I’m not saying that communism or socialism are good by any means, but I think there are real net benefits to low inequality sometimes even if they come at the expense of overall lo…

> I know I'm making a mistake in posting this thought so plainly here, for example.

Loads of people, especially young people, talk about being communists and socialists and equity and so forth. It's extremely normalised, particularly amongst young people, whose largest percentage experience in life is one of parents giving them things. Those instincts transfer to politics, especially if encouraged to do so by university professors.

> the fear of being accused of sympathizing with Communism is so ingrained in the English speaking world

Most of this is not ingrained in the English speaking world, either. In the UK it's not a big thing compared to remembering Germany. Far fewer people know communism's death (and life) tolls in the 20th century than Nazi Germany's, for example, and how much worse it was even without a world war to bump the numbers up.

> There's good reason to fear this backlash in a world that is rapidly equating Communism to Nazism and all forms of socialism and redistribution to Stalinism.

You've decided the person does like socialism and communism, but is afraid to say so. That is not what they are saying, and while it could be what they mean, you are not able to discern that any more than anyone else is.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#92

Post by blitzar »

bsjaux628 wrote: post #84
cmplxconjugate wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In around 2017 I had a scholarship at Wuhan University. During that time the university hosted a cultural fair for international students. What was most interesting to me (as someone from the UK) was that I met for the first time ever students from North Korea. These students were smartly dressed (suited and booted), which in comparison to everyone else in casual clothes, made them stand out. They spoke excellent Eng…

That's how propaganda works, they are trained to project that image of NK abroad

That's how propaganda works, we are trained to believe an image of NK.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#93

Post by blitzar »

Stratoscope wrote: post #12

Reading this brought back a vivid memory of listening to Voice of Korea about 20 years ago. I had a shortwave receiver in my Honda Civic - a Sony AM/FM/shortwave/cassette that was a drop-in replacement for the factory radio. On the way to work at Adobe in San Jose one day, I tuned in North Korea's English-language broadcast beamed to North America. One news announcement stuck in my mind so vividly that I remember it…

I heard Dear Leader plays 4D chess.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#94

Post by the_af »

robertlagrant wrote: post #91
the_af wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, a greatly reduced disparity in living standards and material conditions does have positive social effects IMO. Consider that deaths of despair, poverty, and desperation are much higher under the Russian Federation than the USSR. I’m not saying that communism or socialism are good by any means, but I think there are real net benefits to low inequality sometimes even if they come at the expense of overall lo…

> I know I'm making a mistake in posting this thought so plainly here, for example. Loads of people, especially young people, talk about being communists and socialists and equity and so forth. It's extremely normalised, particularly amongst young people, whose largest percentage experience in life is one of parents giving them things. Those instincts transfer to politics, especially if encouraged to do so by univers…

> Far fewer people know communism's death (and life) tolls in the 20th century than Nazi Germany's

Oh no. Here we go again. Sigh. My fault really, I knew what I was getting into.

> You've decided the person does like socialism and communism, but is afraid to say so

No, this isn't what I said. I suggest you go back and read it.

> That is not what they are saying, and while it could be what they mean, you are not able to discern that any more than anyone else is

Thankfully that's not what I'm saying either!

I knew this was a mistake, thanks for confirming.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#95

Post by robertlagrant »

the_af wrote: post #94
robertlagrant wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know I'm making a mistake in posting this thought so plainly here, for example. Loads of people, especially young people, talk about being communists and socialists and equity and so forth. It's extremely normalised, particularly amongst young people, whose largest percentage experience in life is one of parents giving them things. Those instincts transfer to politics, especially if encouraged to do so by univers…

> Far fewer people know communism's death (and life) tolls in the 20th century than Nazi Germany's Oh no. Here we go again. Sigh. My fault really, I knew what I was getting into. > You've decided the person does like socialism and communism, but is afraid to say so No, this isn't what I said. I suggest you go back and read it. > That is not what they are saying, and while it could be what they mean, you are not able…

This sighing, world-weary non-response isn't worth anything.

I've clearly laid out what I thought your response said, and what I think about that. Why reply with zero courtesy and zero content?

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#96

Post by the_af »

robertlagrant wrote: post #95
the_af wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Far fewer people know communism's death (and life) tolls in the 20th century than Nazi Germany's Oh no. Here we go again. Sigh. My fault really, I knew what I was getting into. > You've decided the person does like socialism and communism, but is afraid to say so No, this isn't what I said. I suggest you go back and read it. > That is not what they are saying, and while it could be what they mean, you are not able…

This sighing, world-weary non-response isn't worth anything. I've clearly laid out what I thought your response said, and what I think about that. Why reply with zero courtesy and zero content?

My comment does have content; it rejects your interpretation and also reasserts something: that people (mostly in the English speaking world) aren't capable of rational discourse about socialism or redistribution or inequality because these are all Communism-adjacent topics, and they've been taught that there's no more evil thing than Communism, and therefore these topics are fraught with danger.

Anyone wishing to discuss anything even tangentially related to the aforementioned topics must carefully coach their words with disclaimers like "well, of course socialism doesn't work" and "of course Communism is authoritarian and evil", lest anyone even thinks they are supporting Stalinism or whatever.

Then you get the "history lessons" about death tolls and whatnot, and it's a really tiring topic. Or someone will mention teenagers sometimes go through a phase where they are drawn to communism because they don't understand life, or something trite like that.

So it's best to avoid, in English speaking forums, mention of redistribution, income inequality, or socialism; or if you cannot help yourself, then you must add lots of disclaimers that you are not a socialist and that you know that Communism is evil, or you'll engage in..

... I was going to say "conversations like this one", but this one is pretty mild so far, thankfully.

My final thought is that what I said is very descriptive of how these topics tend to go here on HN; it was just an observation. Not a treatise.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#97

Post by robertlagrant »

wkat4242 wrote: post #62
opportune wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are social creatures with an innate sense of “status”. Absolute material inequality is only one form of inequality. You can feed, clothe, and give iPhones to the very poor but if they are at the bottom of a very deep social hierarchy with no hope to climb out of it, that inequality is still going to cause a lot of problems. People might turn to a life of crime for lack of better options, or participate into a…

Yeah also compare western Europe to America. As we have much better welfare and higher taxes, income inequality is much lower here in Europe. And in particular violent crime is much much lower as a result. I'm not saying going full communist is an option but all out everyone-for-themselves capitalism doesn't work either. And really why do people need to be able to have billions? They can never use it up in their life…

> As we have much better welfare and higher taxes, income inequality is much lower here in Europe. And in particular violent crime is much much lower as a result.

I don't think this is an obvious inference. There are many factors that cause crime, and violent crime. E.g. I don't know if this is valid, but as an example to consider: America has countries to its south that are markedly different in prosperity. As people move from those countries into America, wealth disparity goes up without anyone doing anything to make others poorer. If Western Europe doesn't have this same situation, then the disparity won't be constantly increased, and it's easier to optimise over time with taxes.

Or how about this: the US taxpayer pays for the majority of global defence. If you live in a Western European country, you have benefitted from this. You may have only recently joined NATO having suddenly realised it's time to buy some insurance one second before the car crash, and luckily for you the US is willing to be that insurer that accepts you. This means you could spend money on vote-winning policies instead of on national defence for a long time.

As I say, there are many factors. Just saying that raising taxes and increasing welfare are the keys to lowering violent crime is not sufficient, I think.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#98

Post by opportune »

the_af wrote: post #66
opportune wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are social creatures with an innate sense of “status”. Absolute material inequality is only one form of inequality. You can feed, clothe, and give iPhones to the very poor but if they are at the bottom of a very deep social hierarchy with no hope to climb out of it, that inequality is still going to cause a lot of problems. People might turn to a life of crime for lack of better options, or participate into a…

> However, a greatly reduced disparity in living standards and material conditions does have positive social effects IMO. Consider that deaths of despair, poverty, and desperation are much higher under the Russian Federation than the USSR. I’m not saying that communism or socialism are good by any means, but I think there are real net benefits to low inequality sometimes even if they come at the expense of overall lo…

I think you might be inferring too much about my phrasing. I wasn't trying to add token disclaimers to pass off praise of socialism/communism - I was trying to get ahead of the reply "yeah but the cons far outweigh the pros"/"there are better ways to ensure equality than making everybody poor", which are actually positions I'd agree with.

I don't know exactly how to articulate this, but I wish people were willing to consider "capitalism vs socialism" less as a black and white "good vs evil" dichotomy, and more as a vast spectrum or cluster of policies. In reality, those are the kinds of systems we live with. Even if you find yourself firmly on one side of the spectrum, or in favor of policies mostly in one cluster, I think we should be intellectually curious enough to look at the other side and see what kind of ideas they have, because some of them might be good.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#99

Post by duxup »

pphysch wrote: post #37
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are human beings just like us. That doesn't make their society just like any other society.

No society is the same. DPRK society is radically different than ours (e.g. by not valuing individualism), to the point that it causes a xenophobic reaction in a lot of people, but it is based on the same human fundamentals as ours.

I think your statements are really opaque in this conversation. It took until this post here before I had a clue what and what direction you were even going. Your other posts could have been read to indicate exactly the opposite of the one I'm responding to.

Re: My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

#100

Post by Pigalowda »

blitzar wrote: post #92
bsjaux628 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how propaganda works, they are trained to project that image of NK abroad

That's how propaganda works, we are trained to believe an image of NK.

I wonder what other intelligent things you believe. And it’s not “NK” it is DPRK.
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