We don't like how they make their great kids great

[imomus]

The Vice Guide to North Korea is a 14-episode account -- made at some risk to the journalists -- of a heavily-guarded journey through North Korea. I found it fascinating, but I did notice some dubious ideology creeping in, especially in Episode 12, A Schoolchildren's Palace, billed as "meeting the country's creepily over-talented future generation".



Here Shane Smith edged towards that journalistic-political cliché I call the "we don't like how they treat their women / children" school. Basically, the idea behind this move is that in any given culture, men are responsible for the ideology, and women and children are helpless victims and hostages. The implication is that, although the men are a lost cause, the women and children could be captured and brought to some other culture, where they'd be much happier.

This "much happier", in Smith's account of North Korean children, involves being a lot less motivated and talented. "One of the most fun-slash-sad times," Smith says in Episode 12, "was to see the best-of-the-best school in Pyongyang." After showing some child prodigies playing musical instruments larger than themselves, Smith decides that "it's so sad because these great kids are learning and learning for the state". But what's wrong with learning -- to exceptionally high standards -- for the state, and at the expense of the state? Are these children really to be pitied? Mightn't they be -- as well as "great kids" -- fervently ideological admirers of Kim Jong Il, believers in North Korea's superiority over South Korea, and convinced that their "creepy talents" could only have been advanced so far in the particular system they were born into?



And mightn't the show they're preparing for -- a show in a land of shows, some of the most spectacular in the world -- be the intense focus of their lives, and a source of enormous pride for them?

I'm certainly not claiming the North Korean system isn't deeply problematical, but I wonder why we insist on the universal innocence of women and children when we look at cultures which are very different from our own? And I wonder whether the implied transferability of these women and children to our own system (where they'd be "healthy and free", of course) isn't a relic of the unpleasant imperial practices of rape, pillage and plunder: the strategy of killing all the men in a conquered zone and capturing all the women and children.

Comments

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[(Anonymous)]

I missed your show in Berlin. Will there be another one during the next weeks?

Best, Thomas (ThomaGross@aol.com)

[(Anonymous)]

There's something rather inevitable about this entry. If you'd been blogging in the 1930s, no doubt you'd be talking about the intense focus and source of pride that Hitler Youth had in their spectacular shows - a show in a land of shows, some of the most spectacular in the world.

And I don't really think we assume greater 'innocence' of the children of foreign cultures. We do this just as much with our own children too, in these times of paedophile paranoia.

[(Anonymous)]

Why need blogging not of your business... you have too much time with no job to do so blogging but you are too old now so what is point? You have no pride for family but your mother and father must be so disappointed to have useless son with pretend Chinese wife.

re: Korea / West Germany

[psalamone.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll check out the video over my work day.

Great show at West Germany last night, by the way, I could definitely see what you meant about bringing more theatricality to rock performance. As an improv comiker myself, I found your poses and gestures, dances and mimetics very entertaining.. and the tunes were good too!!

[(Anonymous)]

A remarkably silly post even by your high standards in the matter, Momus. Rote-learning mechanised movements on a parade ground seems a pretty reductive view of education. You ask why we should pity the children, but I might just as well ask why I should believe in your joyful scenario of happy kids taking enormous pride in their work, leader and country. One thing we know about totalitarian regimes is their use of force and repression in the service of ideology - there's no reason at all to imagine this doesn't pervade the education system as well.

Momus, I know your enemy's enemy is your friend and all that, but isn't this taking things a little far?

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

That's an enormous Godwin. Apart from the fact that North Korea is unlikely to invade anywhere or commit genocide, I don't think the Hitler Youth played that big a part in the Holocaust - comparing the two is like blaming today's US school children saluting the Stars & Stripes for the rape, torture and murder of Iraqis.

[(Anonymous)]

> One thing we know about totalitarian regimes is their use of force and repression in the service of ideology - there's no reason at all to imagine this doesn't pervade the education system as well.

Lucky you to be educated in an ideology-free environment.

[(Anonymous)]

No one is educated in an ideology-free environment, but you'd agree that totalitarian states and bourgeois democracies deal with it in rather different ways, wouldn't you?

[(Anonymous)]

Hm, I didn't like his tone either. I know a lot of small children who'd be overjoyed to get that kind of state-sponsored education, including my little niece, whose disabled mother works two jobs to be able to afford to indulge her tap-and-ballet obsession. None of those kids looked very coerced to me. Then again, maybe Kim Jong-Il uses invisible stealth whips. Faster, tiny dancers, faster!

[(Anonymous)]

Momus,

Remember when that guy did a spoof click opera entry. He used the pink and orange background. Do you still have the link to that? It was pretty well done.

[(Anonymous)]

Evoking the meaningless Godwin's law is tiresome.

The analogy works well enough. Two repressive totalitarian regimes with out-of-control personality cults. I don't see anyone blaming any children anywhere for anything. I see someone equating two personality cult youth movements.

[(Anonymous)]

Um, the school shown is the "best-of-the-best", a Potemkin showcase that even foreigners are allowed to visit. Therefore, I'm sure that it is absolutely typical of the education that all North Korean children are offered everywhere across the country...

No Credit Crunch for Kim Jong Il

[(Anonymous)]

Half of London is being made redundant right now, but this sales pitch from the DPR Korea sounds idyllic.

Let's go!

--

The DPR of Korea (North Korea) will become in the next years the most important hub for trading in North-East Asia.

Lowest labour cost in Asia.

Highly qualified, loyal and motivated personnel. Education, housing and health service is provided free to all citizens. As opposed to other Asian countries, worker's will not abandon their positions for higher salaries once they are trained.

Lowest taxes scheme in Asia. Especially for high-tech factories. Typical tax exemption for the first two years.

No middle agents. All business made directly with the government, state-owned companies. No middle agents.

Stable. A government with solid security and very stable political system, without corruption.

Full diplomatic relations with most EU members and rest of countries.

New market. Many areas of business and exclusive distribution of products (sole-distribution).

Transparant legal work. Legal procedures, intellectual rights, patents and warranties for investors settled.

[akabe.livejournal.com]

podium ! (as they say when bikesnobnyc writes a good essay) great points!

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of anonymous comments today.

[(Anonymous)]

We imagine that our identities are “natural.” We imagine that “freedom” allows us to naturally develop into “who we are.” But 200 years ago, none of us could have developed into skateboarders, film editors, fans of American Idol, and lovers of Sunkist and chicken nuggets. We are shaped, beyond our own control, by our environment. We do not become reflective, independent people until age 20 or so. And some never really even get there. So what matters if a few adults “mold” children with their “ideological agenda”? What’s the difference? It is impossible for anyone to develop “naturally.” Freedom is an ideological agenda. A free country is probably going to be one that places a high value on progress and material wealth. Even if one chooses to live a “post-material” lifestyle, one still has to live among all the signs of modernity—cars, designer t-shirts, television, rap music, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

Most of the "regulars" are all too familiar with Momus' posts, and don't feel compelled to leave comments anymore. And it doesn't appear that Livejournal is replacing those old folks with new blood.

Momus has over-saturated the market by provided us with 350 essays a year. Fatigue is bound to set in. But it also gets to be an addiction. If there's no Momus post in the morning then the day feels somehow incomplete.

[(Anonymous)]

Regardless of how shitty the other North Korean schools may or may not be, this school is still State-funded. I.e.: it's about ability, and not ability to pay.

[kementari2.livejournal.com]

I can see how the fact that such a poor country can provide advanced opportunities for (the most able of) its children is positive and impressive. No doubt many of these children enjoy their strict but inspiring experiences excelling as a part of something larger and beautiful. I also think it's likely that patriotism adds pride to their dedication.

However, I'll never look at totalitarian state-inspired youth programs the same after having watched a documentary on the secretive doping of hundreds of East German athletes. Boys and girls alike were given massive amounts of testosterone without their knowledge or consent. One of the boys in the program suffered a fatal heart attack because of this. After facing years of prejudice for her severely altered appearance, one woman underwent a sex-change operation. Another committed suicide. Most of the athletes now suffer from heart problems, hormone imbalances, and chronic joint pain.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Don't be so disingenuous. Other countries have had similar movements - anyone who posts a "if you'd been around in the 1930s" comment is trying to discredit someone by specific association with Nazi genocide. The commenter should criticise North Korea on its own terms, rather than make a lazy comparison to Hitler and expect that to do his work for him.

[(Anonymous)]

> Boys and girls alike were given massive amounts of testosterone without their knowledge or consent.

The western system of goading people into taking drugs and then publicly humiliating them when they're caught is much better. After all, you only *really* oppress someone when you make them do it to themselves (and it allows you to escape any blame. All choices are voluntary, after all - right, commuters?)

[(Anonymous)]

... not to mention Washington's drugging of soldiers during various wars. And the increasing prevalence of Ritalin and Prozac prescriptions amongst schoolkids.

[surferelf.livejournal.com]

"Pretend Chinese Wife" is a great band name.

[digitalheir.livejournal.com]

I do agree he takes it a bit far, one weblog a day, but it's admirable to see he has got the discipline to do so. Why is it that he does this? Why not have a weekly weblog and spend the rest of your time writing a book, making a record, picking fruits - something that would earn more money?
Or overthink the subject matter a bit more. The man didn't diss the ambition or talent of those children, but the indoctrination of the state. These children didn't choose to commit their lives to their craft. What the blog says to me is, as a hyperbole: if the state tells you you're happy, and you believe it, there's nothing's wrong with that. I'd rather be a slacking underachiever in Amsterdam who's free to choose whatever he wants than a mindless drone in a Philip K. Dick novel.

[viceanglais.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they are worried about some neo-McCarthy witch hunt. "Are you now or have you recently contributed to Click Opera?"