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North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

bbc.co.uk

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Re: North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

#41

Post by sharkweek »

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #33
sharkweek wrote: post #24

Honest question - let's say at some point in the future North Korea sees their current regime fall and a more democratic or at least benevolent dictatorship takes over. What sort of mass psychological issues are we looking at here? I can only imagine how the minds of the current citizenship work, would it be nearly impossible for those raised only knowing what they know to recover from the previous trauma?

I believe people everywhere in the world are used to supressing the difference between the stated ideals of their land (equality, liberty, free elections) and the reality (prejudices, xenophobia, racism, assassinations ordered by the government, voter sway via public ads). If our minds can supress the differences between ideals and reality in USA, Russia, India, Pakistan, Japan or any other country of residence, I be…

Interesting - I am curious if that's common in North Korea. I can imagine there are a lot of under the radar rumblings about how things are supposed to be as opposed to how they are. Thus I could assuming that most obedience is fear based as opposed to actual loyalty.

Re: North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

#43

Post by Touche »

JonnieCache wrote: post #28
peteretep wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you expect the world to do exactly? Military intervention? They'll lay waste to Seoul. Sanctions? Already there, and, generally they hurt the people rather than the leader. What's your solution?

Stop using the removal of dictators as a justification for invading countries you're strategically interested in, because it looks really fucking stupid when NK is allowed to ban haircuts and starve people. Similar things apply to zimbabwe etc. EDIT: "you" used here in a general sense.

Just because you can't remove all dictators doesn't mean you shouldn't try to remove those you can.

Any country with a built up military is probably not going to be invaded; the possibility of a world war is not something we can risk in the nuclear age.

Re: North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

#44

Post by valarauca1 »

Istof wrote: post #40
valarauca1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is free in The Democratic Republic of Korea. Glorious Eternal Leader pays for everything. This is why everyone votes for socialism every time. Free healthcare, food, education, transportation.

even email is free over there

They even went and made it illegal to talk ill about the Eternal Glorious Leader, I mean how could speak ill of the creator of such a glorious socialist paradise?!

Re: North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

#45

Post by S4M »

sharkweek wrote: post #24

Honest question - let's say at some point in the future North Korea sees their current regime fall and a more democratic or at least benevolent dictatorship takes over. What sort of mass psychological issues are we looking at here? I can only imagine how the minds of the current citizenship work, would it be nearly impossible for those raised only knowing what they know to recover from the previous trauma?

I think you should see how the difference of mentality clashed between East and West Germans after the reunification, and amplify that a bit. I suspect it would take one or two generations to close the gap between the two Koreas after the hypothetical reunification.

Re: North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

#46

Post by xerula »

Theodores wrote: post #29

In multi-cultural countries people have significantly different hair. In North Korea hair is somewhat harmonised, i.e. black and straight. Length is the only variable available to play with when it comes to style of cut. From their perspective this edict may be no more of a big deal than having to have your fingernails trimmed.

You lack imagination about all the different things that can be done with uniformly black, straight, fine hair. Length is not the only variable, and there is still a huge range of hairstyles that people could choose from if they were free to do so.

Also, if I was subject to an edict requiring me to trim my fingernails, that would be a pretty big deal to me. A big, intolerable deal. You imply that from their perspective it wouldn't be, but are you so much of a cultural relativist that you think such a perspective isn't seriously unhealthy?

Re: North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

#48

Post by andyjohnson0 »

sharkweek wrote: post #24

Honest question - let's say at some point in the future North Korea sees their current regime fall and a more democratic or at least benevolent dictatorship takes over. What sort of mass psychological issues are we looking at here? I can only imagine how the minds of the current citizenship work, would it be nearly impossible for those raised only knowing what they know to recover from the previous trauma?

The only state that I can think of that is remotely comparable to North Korea is pre-1992 Albania [1] - isolated and repressive, with a kind of leader-worship cult going on. After that all fell apart in the mid-nineties things didn't work out too well economically and socially, though I'm not sure that was due to mass psychological problems in the population. Survivors of cults such as Scientology that encourage isolation and obedience to a leader figure might also provide some pointers.

The problem is that it is hard to be sure about the state of mind of the general population. They could be mostly completely brainwashed and controlled; or going along with the charade out of necessity while behind the scenes there is widespread shared disgust at the leadership; or they could be living terrified, isolated lives unable to speak about their private thoughts to anyone, even their families, out of fear of police informers. People do attempt to escape the country, though, so there is some dissent.

Overall I'd say NK is unique, and when it disintegrates the social effects probably won't be like anything we've seen before.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albania#Communist_Albania_.2819...

Re: North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts

#49

Post by andyjohnson0 »

S4M wrote: post #45
sharkweek wrote: post #24

Honest question - let's say at some point in the future North Korea sees their current regime fall and a more democratic or at least benevolent dictatorship takes over. What sort of mass psychological issues are we looking at here? I can only imagine how the minds of the current citizenship work, would it be nearly impossible for those raised only knowing what they know to recover from the previous trauma?

I think you should see how the difference of mentality clashed between East and West Germans after the reunification, and amplify that a bit. I suspect it would take one or two generations to close the gap between the two Koreas after the hypothetical reunification.

East Germans were generally quite knowledgeable about life in the West and were aware of the deficiencies of their own society. I don't think North Koreans are quite so aware of conditions outside their country. Last year there was a big crackdown on "knowledge smugglers" [1] bringing "subversive" western and Chinese material into North Korea.

[1] http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/north-ko...

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