Kim Jong Il dies at 69

Since it came up...
I will try to do some reading-up on techniques of mind-control and deliver a well referenced OP on Friday.

Re: Gustav's charge that to declare them brainwashed is to infantilize them...

Why? it's everywhere in their culture.
In my own culture they spoonfeed us American superiority and exceptionalism...and even though there's no punishment for rejecting that other than low-grade mental dissonance...not too many people do.

The Iraq clusterf*ck had a 96% approval rating before we went...You know, I was one of the few running around saying this is a war we don't need and should not fight.
The worst I got was a note on my car regarding my flagrant anti-war stickers..:shrug:

Finding out about US war crimes is as simple as going to the library and reading the relevant books, but most Americans could not be bothered.

So...I see an example of no lack of information, little censorship, little coercive tactics...and the people still believing the lies the government tells them. So, considering that, I fail to see how saying the people of NK are subject to "brainwashing" is infantilizing to them.

Too, the United States seems to end up with lots of cults...like Roach Motels for their adherents sometimes-they can check in but can't check out:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco12.html
http://www.xenu.net/roland-intro.html

But yes, some of theNorth Koreans probably do love their leader very much.
They have no other reference.
I am not saying they are in any way inferior or childlike...but it's rather analogous to an abused preschool child.
To them, the hunger, terror, and propaganda are just the way the world is.
 
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Moderator note: gendanken has been banned for 3 days for insulting other members.
 
James,

Just for reference (as I'm sure I'm wasting my breath), Bells has done her own fair share of insulting.
But, it's ok. The abuse just keeps us in line as Kim Jong Il has so aptly demonstrated.

You know, I heard that Bells not only controls the weather, she also, more importantly, influences the grunyan runs. That's why the merpeople love her but hate Il. What do merpeople care about the weather?
 
James R said:
Moderator note: gendanken has been banned for 3 days for insulting other members.
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What? You didn’t show him your tits?

Gendanken said:
Quick--who posted the link and what is the purported Korean perception?
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A few academic critics challenged him but I found it interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reynolds_Myers#Reception_among_academics

Myers said:
North Korea's ideology is not merely a nationalist-tinged communism of the old Yugoslav variety. It is a race-based worldview utterly at odds with the teachings of Marx and Lenin. And yet, the outside world continues in the illusion that North Korea is a hard-line Stalinist state. True, the nation's first leader, Kim Il Sung, was installed by Soviet occupiers after World War II. It is also true that the personality cult of Kim Il Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong Il bears superficial resemblance to the cults of Stalin and Mao. Yet look closer, and it's clear just how different North Korean ideology is.

North Korea's race-centric ideology was inspired by that of the fascist Japanese who ruled the peninsula from 1910 until the end of World War II. Having been taught by their colonizers to regard themselves as part of a superior Yamato race, the North Koreans in 1945 simply carried on the same mythmaking in a Koreanized form. This paranoid nationalism might sound crude and puerile, but it is only in this ideological context that the country's distinguishing characteristics, which the outside world has long found so baffling, make perfect sense. Up close, North Korea is not Stalinist -- it's simply racist.
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North Korea: The Cleanest Race
 
invert_nexus said:
James,

Just for reference (as I'm sure I'm wasting my breath), Bells has done her own fair share of insulting.
But, it's ok. The abuse just keeps us in line as Kim Jong Il has so aptly demonstrated.

You know, I heard that Bells not only controls the weather, she also, more importantly, influences the grunyan runs. That's why the merpeople love her but hate Il. What do merpeople care about the weather?
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What merpeople?
What do you mean, merpeople?
 
First off, Gendanken is twisting my nuts but, in a way that is making me want to read more of her ravings.
Next, correct me if I'm wrong but are a few people getting caught up on the precise defintion of brainwashing here? Brainwashing... Ok, so technically not applicable (generally) as there hasn't been (for those grief-striken - presumably) a forced change in their original perception of events but rather an absence of available information in which they could have formulated an opinion other than the states propaganda. But, removing the potential for exposure to opinions differing from the states is sort of a proactive "brainwashing", no?
 
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quadraphonics said:
Describing the operation of a system that infantilizes and dehumanizes its subjects, is not the same thing as actually infantilizing or dehumanizing them.
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lets eyeball.......
quadraphonics said:
The whole point of totalitarianism is to literally make subversive ideas unthinkable, not simply to repress their expression.

The way that works in NK has been to make the Dear Leader the central object of all expressions - not just political ones
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it is absurd to propound the notion that the n.koreans are incapable of subversive thought. that they are incapable of thinking the great leader is a charlatan and a joke and they do not snicker at his ludicrous pronouncements. i mean, how would one even know this? are you intimately acquainted with a statistically significant segment of n.korean society to make such a determination? do you have some studies that conclude with such a finding? why do you think you are assigned a minder when visiting if these people are allegedly mindless drones trusted to make all the right noises without being stage managed?

does the great leader isolate each and every individual and break them down one by one into a state of mindless compliance? or would he take the more practical route of simply forbidding specific sentiments to be expressed out aloud? and that this voiced opinion if heard or reported would result in harsh penalties? it is violence and fear that yields results not futile attempts at mind controlling an entire populace

a n.korean's direct experience of deprivation is somehow buried deep within his psyche by some cognitive trick simply because the tools of propaganda utilized by the regime are deemed to be effective to the point that it overwhelms any rationalization and independent thought. the dissonance is overwhelming and contradicts what is in plain sight

that is the level you infantilize the n.koreans
you deny them even an iota of agency. to you they are subhumans and it is seriously morbid ideology that compels such denouement. you project your fears.
quadraphonics said:
Only if you play your usual asinine troll game of stripping out relevant context.The object of "belief" was the literal contents of the propaganda. The object of "understanding and relating" was the larger world.
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lets eyeball....
quadraphonics said:
And so the death of such a leader does cause real grief: not because people literally believe the propaganda, per se, but because their entire system for understanding and relating to the world is built around the Leader's role.
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there are no useful distinctions there
the conceptual underpinnings of "understanding" and "relating" is a system of belief whether induced by propaganda, myth or reason. it is filtered thru those prisms. if the great leader maintains they are more prosperous than s.korea and they have no independent means of verification, they would tentatively accept the pronouncement. this understanding translates to a belief so what point are you trying to make here?
quadraphonics said:
Even if you recognize the bullshit, the larger system is part of your identity, and so doublethink kicks in pretty strongly.
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seriously? now the n.koreans are raving lunatics?
they can maintain they are living in a land of milk and honey while simultaneously starving to death? this really plays out like a fictional novel to you, does it not? commonsense be damned, orwell rulz!

/snicker
quadraphonics said:
I've long thought that various forms of indoctrination commonly imposed upon young people (nationalist, political, and especially religious) constitute brainwashing, yes. I have lost friends over my insistence that the Pledge of Allegiance and Sunday School, in particular, are objectionable forms of brainwashing.
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ahh
it all makes sense now
shall we go speak out against the walmart cheer as well?
quadraphonics said:
There is also the reasonable expectation that defectors - by definition, people willing to risk tremendous punishments in order to escape - will be skewed towards the less susceptible segments of the population. You wouldn't really expect anyone who is actually "brainwashed" to even attempt to defect, now would you?
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why the bracketing? not sure anymore? :)
sure it is reasonable but the overriding expectation is not some half baked theory of the mind but something more tangible like hardship and opportunity
 
Bells said:
And as I pointed out earlier, social conditioning has a lot to answer for. Do you think the farmers are crying just as violently? They are not being shown at all, are they? As real as it might be to those in the footage being beamed to us from North Korea, the underlying message remains the same..

And that is what you cannot get through your thick skull. That no matter how genuine their tears might be, how they have been brought up and yes, brainwashed and threatened into considering him to be godlike and so they cry like lunatics when he died, the underlying fear remains. If they do not cry, if they do not show enough emotion, then it can be to their and their family's detriment. They would have seen it when Kim Il Sung died in 1994. The State even provides them with actors to make sure they know what is expected of them. They are conditioned to do as they are told. Because they know if they do not, it will be to their detriment.

Do you understand now?
/.../

Fear is a great motivator Gendy. Kira kind of made my point, which you seem to have missed.
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Do you know how easy it is to lose one's job in the Western economy?


If they do not cry, if they do not show enough emotion, then it can be to their and their family's detriment.
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Is that what you do - cry enough, show enough emotion, do enough of anything that will help you keep your job and your status in the community?

Of course you do.
 
wynn said:
Do you know how easy it is to lose one's job in the Western economy?




Is that what you do - cry enough, show enough emotion, do enough of anything that will help you keep your job and your status in the community?

Of course you do.
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Wynn, are you mistakingly quoting information you haven't read?? I can't believe that you would purposefully ignore what you've quoted to post loosely associated drivel in an attempt to oppose a point of view you've yet to establish. Horseshit....
 
invert_nexus said:
Well, from Bells anyway. Gustav denies the existence of brainwashing which demands further discussion I'll get back to when I can, but Bells has explicitly stated that some if not most of those people in the videos are brainwashed (although on further thought, I beleive a framework of terminology need be outlined and will get back to later) and thus are legitimately grieving for someone that they consider to be a great man.
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Because Bells likes to assume and vehemently support the idea that we, Westerners, have not been brainwashed / indoctrinated. (Esp. that she hasn't been brainwashed / indoctrinated.)

Of course we are. The methods and contents of brainwashing / indoctrination may vary across time and countries, and they may sometimes be very subtle or scattered among many sources - but we are nevertheless brainwashed, indoctrinated, held in check by fear for our bare survival.
 
wynn said:
Because Bells likes to assume and vehemently support the idea that we, Westerners, have not been brainwashed / indoctrinated. (Esp. that she hasn't been brainwashed / indoctrinated.)

Of course we are. The methods and contents of brainwashing / indoctrination may vary across time and countries, and they may sometimes be very subtle or scattered among many sources - but we are nevertheless brainwashed, indoctrinated, held in check by fear for our bare survival.
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Complete horseshit.... "EXPOSURE" is the culprit here. There are varying degrees of it dependant upon your available resources or aptitude but, information is available in it's entirety should you seek it. We are NOT held in check by fear.... by ignorance perhaps, but that's another story....
 
gendanken said:
Ask an American to fake cry; then ask a Korean and then a Latino.

Then force all three plebs to start laughing.
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I don't think the North Koreans are faking their crying.

Imagine the weight of realizing that you live in a country, in a world, where no matter what you do, you eventually lose. Imagine the weight of realizing that the same hardship you have been going through is likely going to continue forever and ever, regardless of the country you live in or the people you associate with.

Who wouldn't cry.
 
Ellis said:
Complete horseshit.... "EXPOSURE" is the culprit here. There are varying degrees of it dependant upon your available resources or aptitude but, information is available in it's entirety should you seek it. We are NOT held in check by fear.... by ignorance perhaps, but that's another story....
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Think of your words next time you tell a palatable lie.
 
wynn said:
Indoctrination has been successful when the subject internalizes the indoctrinated beliefs and considers them their own.



Focusing on the misery of others tends to take our focus away from our own problems ...
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This is brainwashing... correct. Now, use it appropriately.

Focusing on our own problems tends to take our focus away from the misery of others....
 
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chimpkin said:
To them, the hunger, terror, and propaganda are just the way the world is.
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quadraphonic said:
The scary thing about NK is that major portions of the population have been subject to pretty tight information isolation, constant propaganda, and vigorous discipline for a long time. Literally, generations.
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In the beginning, in 1948, Chaos, an amorphous, gaping void encompassing the entire universe, and surrounded by an unending stream of water ruled by the god......
 
Gustav said:

In the beginning, in 1948, Chaos, an amorphous, gaping void encompassing the entire universe, and surrounded by an unending stream of water ruled by the god......
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You're probably being sarcastic?
But...that's almost the level of distortion of the outside world they likely have.
And...of course not everyone buys into the propaganda...or conversely, they are just so incredibly miserable they are willing to risk anything to get away, no matter where it takes them.
 
chimpkin said:
You're probably being sarcastic?
But...that's almost the level of distortion of the outside world they likely have.
And...of course not everyone buys into the propaganda...or conversely, they are just so incredibly miserable they are willing to risk anything to get away, no matter where it takes them.
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Yarp, I believe that's a more "common sense" assessment of the dilemma.
 
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