Dear Leader

[4thofeleven]

Covering Narcissus in a mythology tute today. Discussion turns to whether modern society is more tolerant of narcissistic behaviour than ancient cultures. Some guy mentions cults of personality, and mentions some of the more bizarre aspects Kim Jong-il's behaviour as leader of North Korea.

Lecturer goes nuts, demands to know where he'd heard this. He says he heard it on the news. She goes off on a rant about the American media, and how the Americans only disparage North Korea because it's got a different government to them, and how she can name fifty countries worse off than N. Korea and how does anyone really know what's going on in Pyongyang?

I tried to argue that maybe the fact nobody knows what conditions are really like in N. Korea is kind of a bad sign in itself, and that even if you assume 90% of what's said about Kim Jong-il is lies, that still leaves a good 10% of solid weapons-grade crazy...

Needless to say, this sorta derailed the discussion for the rest of the tute. I wouldn't have thought I'd ever encounter someone who thinks "Kim Jong-il's a little nutty and Pyongyang's not a nice place to live" is such a controversial opinion...

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

I met someone who actually got into N Korea and saw with his own eyes how the cult of personality is, uh, "encouraged." And the tour guide flipped out when he took a picture that accidentally happened to show a teeny corner of a marketplace in the distance, because that didn't meet the exacting standards for what they want to show to the world. Don't ask me why. (They made him delete it, but he managed to email it to himself first.) So... yeah.

It probably would have been fruitless to ask for that list of fifty countries and argue that how does she know they're worse off and not just different, but it's fun to imagine.