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my grandma once put like a thousand dollars in a managed fund thing for me so yeah im a capitalist
anyway i was at my mums place yesterday and she was showing me this book she was almost finished reading in her book club about kim jong un and supposedly the dynastic politics that led him to be able to take and hold power. authors credentials include 8 years as washington post beijing bureau chief lol
i mentioned the american bombing campaign and she had never heard of it, and we looked up the index and the whole korean war was mentioned only in passing. imagine writing a whole fucking book about how a political dynasty is able to create and maintain a stable dynastic hold on power for 70 years across three generations without even touching on the utter destruction of that country by an external enemy and how that contextualises the continued threat that external enemy still poses, and then how those events and their consequences might stabilise internal support for a dynasty that has continued to (somewhat successfully) resist that external enemy
anyway as a capitalist, i implore you not to read this book for us and then definitely dont tell us exactly how shallow and brain-poisoned the narrative actually is so we can laugh at it
redditor joke
They are not rocks, jesus christ, they are minerals :dean-frown:
They have lead and mercury though. Two very popular and fashionable minerals.
I mean, you can read their actual theory and critique them on those grounds. For instance, Juche is explicitly idealist, it says so, it critiques Marx for being materialist.
In critiquing that, you might ask why the DPRK is an idealist form of Socialism, and could it have anything to do with being under pretty shitty material conditions, like a constant murderous siege by the US and it's client state that was actually no shit Fascist until like 1998.
Pretty much every "Bad Thing" we can point to in an AES state is the symptom of one of several survival strategies they've taken in the absence of any Socialist support in the Imperial Core. Even at it's peak, before the Sino Soviet Split, the United Eastern Bloc had less than 1/3rd the total resources of the NATO Powers. That's why you see AES states having huge percentages of GDP devoted to military spending just to provide some kind of deterrence, and why nuclear capabilities are so tempting.
Kim Il Sung does not criticise Marx for being materialist, he criticises materialism for not being humanist enough. Juche has an element of marxist humanism.
"In the past the relations between substance and consciousness, between being and thinking were regarded as the basic question of philosophy."
Multifarious things exist in the world where we live. It is called the material world or matters in philosophical term. People feel various things with their sense organs like eyes, nose, ears, tongue and skin, and find out characters and value by synthesis, analysis and reasoning of the materials by their feelings, making this or that concepts. It is called consciousness or thinking phenomena in philosophical term.
In the past the relations between matter and consciousness, between being and thinking were regarded as the basic question of philosophy. This is the question of which is prior, matter or consciousness.
Here materialism means that matter is primary and consciousness comes from the matter, whereas the idealism means that consciousness is primary and matter comes from consciousness. The previous philosophies were classified into materialism which analyzed the world materialistically and idealism which analyzed the world idealistically according to the understanding of the relationship between matter and consciousness.
Since the beginning of the philosophical thinking of humankind, thousands of years long history of the philosophical development is the history of struggle of these two conflicting philosophical world outlooks.
It is impossible to say all about the development of the two trends of philosophy, the materialism and idealism, but what is obvious is that the relations between matter and consciousness, being and thinking were regarded as the fundamental question of philosophy and the controversy that continued for thousands of years finally ended in the 40s of the 19th century after the emergence of the Marxist materialistic dialectical world outlook.
Why did the previous philosophies have to regard the relations between matter and consciousness, being and thinking as the fundamental question of philosophy?
Here is a reason.
Once upon a time the people were seized by unscientific illusion for the lack of understanding about the circumstances.
For example, the people in primitive age did not understand the reason why it was lightening and thundering and why the moon sometimes looked round or crescent. So they thought all phenomena in the surroundings were occurred by the miracle of supernatural "being" like Jupiter.
But the people, through the constant struggle to conquer the nature and shape their destiny, revealed the secrets of nature and freed from the mystic illusion, and in this course, they could have a correct understanding of the surrounding world first. Without understanding about the surrounding world which restrict them and about the origin of the world, they can not understand or shape their destiny. The people raised the question of the origin of the world, the question of mutual relation between matter and consciousness as the basic question of philosophy from the early period of the development of the philosophical world outlook and the question was scientifically answered by the Marxist materialistic dialectical world outlook.
But it was not the end of the development of the world outlook.
The question of the origin of the world is answered scientifically. Under this condition the people are greatly interested in having a correct understanding about themselves, especially about the man's position and role in the world. In other words, under the conditions in which the question of the origin of the world was answered materialistically, it is the lawful requirements of the development of the world outlook to clarify the man's position and role in the world.
The Juche idea raised man's position and role in the world as the fundamental question of philosophy by applying such lawful requirements, thus newly renovating the fundamental question of the past philosophies.
Next, the scientific character of the fundamental question of the Juche philosophy is that it correctly reflects the requirement of our age, the era of independence.
A new age requires a new outlook on the world and the development of the age is accompanied by the development of the world outlook.
But as mentioned in the previous lessons, our age is the new age of history, the age of independence in which the people's struggle for independence took place in a more broad and diversified way in the worldwide arena than ever before.
A great turn was made in the people's position and role in our age, the age of independence.
Accordingly, the age of independence requires the world outlook that enables the popular masses to shape their destiny independently and creatively with a high awareness that they are masters of their destiny.
What is important in establishing the world outlook is the question of man's position and role in the world.
Only when this question is raised and answered, is it possible to give a correct philosophical answer to the important and principled questions in the revolutionary practice of our times, the questions such as whether the popular masses could shape their destiny with their own strength or not, and whether the people in each country could achieve the liberation and build a new, free and prosperous society with their own strength or not.
The Juche idea reflected such requirement of the era of independence and newly raised the question of man's position and role in the world as the fundamental question of philosophy and answered it, thus brilliantly carrying out the task that the philosophy should fulfill.
Here is another important reason why the fundamental question of philosophy was newly raised and answered by the Juche idea.
--- Kim Jong Il
This is a great passage by Kim Jong Il, but I can't help but feel this is a return to Hegelianism with the Mass Line replacing the Zeitgeist.
I have not read Hegel and I have a very rough understanding of Hegelianism so I can't comment on that. But I don't see why Juche is in a way "worse" than the humanism in Marx himself, like his theory of alienation and the theses on Feuerbach. Kim Jong Il was to me very clearly inspired on the latter when he wrote that passage. Things like:
I The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such. […]
X The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity.
XI The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.
would fit just fine in Kim's passage.
Maybe you're too quick to dismiss a philosophy that emerged in an actually existing socialist society. Once we're rid of the class struggle that colours the philosophy of today, what do you imagine the philosophy of tomorrow will focus on, if not on the struggle with the environment and with ourselves to build a better world?
I don't dismiss it, and yes, the philosophy of some FALGSC would definitely focus on the agency of a liberated humanity, given that it is largely post-scarcity.
But I think that Juche arises from it's material conditions (the focus on "age of independence" for instance, is clearly a response to the DPRK's forced Autarky, since we clearly do not live in that age) and saying that these material conditions are now secondary, even internally, is not correct. Necessary, maybe, in ensuring the survival of Socialism in the DPRK, but not correct in any external sense.
Much of my criticism is not that it isn't useful (if it was moderated somewhat into merely emphasising the effect the Cultural Superstructure can have in turn on material conditions I would be largely in agreement), but that it is in many cases a philosophy that tries to merge a desire to go beyond the current ongoing material class contradictions with the unfortunate reality that those contradictions are largely why the DPRK is under siege socialism.
So while I might find some aspects of Juche excellent tools for resolving post-capitalist contradictions in high stages of Socialism, and I admire how it has allowed a Socialist state to survive in extremely adverse conditions, I don't find it very useful as a toolset for Socialist development in the Imperial Core, or for the initial stages of a global Socialist society.
I think this is literally the first and only time I've ever seen anybody quote Kim Jong Il. Like, for all the discourse surrounding the DPRK you would think that quotations would be more common. I've also never seen quotations from Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Un
I'm fastidious about primary sources, but yes, the level of discourse about the DPRK is generally so low that there barely is any reason to quote their leaders. Most of the discourse is concerned about the poverty, or started by people that actually believe that they do inter-generational punishment or that Kim killed his own girlfriend and drowned a general in a tank full of piranhas. In that case talking about the Korean War or simply pointing out the absurdity is enough.
The only places I remember seeing informed discussion about the DPRK is at a KFA event hosted by a local party, and in Russian forums, but online and in English it's never the case. Maybe occasionally on revleft and bunkerchan.
All I know is that everything we hear about North Korea in the media is propaganda. This doesn't make it all untrue though, the building blocks of propaganda is not lies but emphasis. I don't think North Korea is a very nice place to live though partly due to sanctions and siege partly due to the government, however I don't think doing an imperialism there is going to make things nicer for the people
So every story about what's happening in the DPRK gets filtered through the South Korean press, and then filtered again through the American press. One funny (in a :agony-shivering: way) aspect of these stories is how translation errors compound on each other and produce pretty ridiculous headlines that westerners take uncritically because it's what they've been conditioned to expect - one example I remember being the DPRK government "announcing that they found a unicorn skeleton", which was actually an interesting story about archeology where an ancient Korean leader had the character for "unicorn" in his name.
Uh anyway the two things that I know for sure is that there is a Pyongyang Marathon that attracts lots of runners from around the world, but don't steal anything while you're there because they seem to take that shit pretty seriously.
Something worty defending: they have successfully rejected and thwarted the American Empire for 7 decades.
It's always weak to say "don't pay attention to all the negative things western media is saying about this country, we shouldn't sanction them or Heaven forbid invade them" because even if people agree with what you say in that moment, propaganda is so pervasive that they'll forget all you said the moment they see a defector's story or baseless claims about public executions for having the wrong haircut. The way you fight the possibility of US intervention is to explain to people why the DPRK is as it is, to engage in specific and concrete points about their historical circumstances and the inconsistencies in the accusations western outlets have published. Sadly those things can also be wiped away by propaganda but it takes more of it. No liberal is going to stop supporting war against the DPRK because a leftist told them it's not necessary, but I'm sure they could change their minds if the narrative that the DPRK is an irrationally brutal feudal hellhole gets challenged and they're exposed to the circumstances that shaped the DPRK.
Anecdote: I've been anti imperialist my whole life, only started questioning western narratives on foreign governments last year.
My brain was like "yeah Maduro's bad, but you know what's worse? US intervention" and was like that for every single target of US imperialism.
Did you watch much news? When I didn't really have a specific name for my ideology and I was just questioning the status quo, I wasn't super attentive to the news cycle which I think is part of why I became a socialist rather quickly. I've talked with family and sometimes I get them to agree about something like workers are being exploited by their employers in a general sense, but as soon as it's time to talk about a specific issue like the labor shortage they have a line prepared about how the new generation is lazy, people became reliant on unemployment checks, and all these arguments that are clearly regurgitated. Talked with a vaguely lefty friend (agrees with me on police, landlords, healthcare, etc) about China and he basically had a speech prepared about the Dalai Lama and Tibet. For people who already know the US imperialist line, you NEED to know a what's factually wrong about the most common accusations. Just getting them to acknowledge that US imperialism has made every situation the US has gotten involved in worse won't be enough because they'll just say "this time it's different, X is worse than Nazi Germany so the US is justified in intervening." Wish more people were like you or I who learned early on that US intervention made everything worse but :foucault-madness:
I think it was growing up in the iraq war era when anti intervention was a liberal issue that did it, but while everyone else forgot, I for some reason held on to it. I've never watched the news though
You have to tread a fine line in the opposite direction, though. To a lot of people, suggesting that the DPRK is anything but a totalitarian murder circus which is crazy just because will get you labelled as "brainwashed" by propaganda or simply some moron who's willing to defend all enemies of "Amerikkka". To the people who will at least hear you out, you need to angle in with the fact that the DPRK is a "monster" of the US' creation.
You're going to get inevitably labelled as brainwashed whenever you try to challenge people's existing brainwashing. I choose to challenge the very core of the characterizations of North Korea because most people have simply never heard an alternative narrative presented. I've found that coming at people directly can be more effective because people can sense and respect honesty.
Idk they aren't imperialists so I'll defend that at least
Would you accept a documentary presented by American trots interviewing "defectors" from the DPRK in Seoul about the defector industry?
https://youtu.be/BkUMZS-ZegM
theres lots to know about DPRK, theres a lot of information out there. You have to realize that in the west probably like 6 autistic people like me actually read the history and culture on a subject like this. And conversely, DPRK doesnt have major sites to distribute stuff. So this is done thru friendship organizations. the KFA. Has many chapters, with more stuff than you could possibly imagine.
and you were right not to trust a word the capitalists.
I'm not a capitalist but you might like this good slice-of-life documentary about the DPRK.
