~~~1984 and the Totalitarian Principle ~~~

[George Orwell’s magnum opus 1984 has much to bear on my object of study, ‘North Korea’ (which to me is a more appropriate moniker than the absurdly farcical ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’). If you have not yet had the pleasure of reading 1984, I suggest you seek out a copy at your nearest convenience. With persistence, it can be read in a sitting or two. The film rendition is also excellent, and there is a good Spark Notes summary. All that said, I won’t penalize the uninitiated with mysterious allusions. Finally, this page reads best when you zoom in (ctrl + on pc, ⌘ + on mac) to about 150 %]

Orwell’s novel about totalitarianism is the cautionary tale for the 20th century world in the west because it identifies the trajectory of society controlled by a centralized security apparatus. It was published in the wake of the Second World War as a simple warning: this can happen! That was enough for us, thank you very much. Ever since, a healthy fear of totalitarianism has been present in the body of the West, thanks to Orwell’s vivid picture of a repugnant world.

A world of malicious surveillance—even two-way video screens in the bedroom enforcing the pace of morning exercises—presents to us life without private space. There is no room for solitude nor for error or experiment. Winston Smith, the protagonist of 1984, does not even have a haven in his own mind. Rather, his mind has been built for him by the amorphous ‘state’ (though I will use ‘the Society’ to denote the amorphous North Korean ideology-factory-super-umbrella-organization we often misleadingly call the ‘state’). Winston begins by fighting the system on the battlefield of his mind, thinking heretical thoughts, and eventually escalates his subversion to transgressing in the real world, reading banned material and falling in love. But our hero (who, really, does the best he can) is captured, tortured by his friend, and physiologically crushed when he trades away the last part of himself he has any respect for: his love for Julia. There is no happy ending here, just as there is none foreseeable for North Koreans.

Before his unjust end, Winston Smith works at The Ministry of Truth, ‘an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete’, soaring into the sky, ‘startlingly different from any other object in sight’.

Winston’s job is to adjust historical documents as needed by the Party to ‘bring the past up to date’, for example by adjusting production estimates, changing state promises in old newspapers, or by ‘disappearing’ purged party members from photographs and history books.

Massaging away the unwanted past is as unavoidable in human societies as paying a loan-shark. It is, after all, difficult to reconcile American freedom with American slavery, or Canadian multi-culturalism with First Nations apartheid. But the totalitarian version of the forgetting process is not mostly negligent, it is mostly vicious: the past is purposefully obliterated with impunity. Winston’s work—completed when the original product of the unwanted past is incinerated—is a microcosm for the nominal characteristic of totalitarianism: the ‘reality’ purported by the Society is a total one; the dominant narrative is an unambiguously perfect one, expressed with singular surety. No allowance is made for alternative points of view, and there is no tolerance for a single deviation.

The ideas constituting the expressed reality of Society (national unity, continuous war, etc.) are understood in such a way that they merit being intertwined almost universally in every experience of every citizen. (I say ‘almost’ because just how much space there is for personal life as opposed to social life is unclear to me. However, it is clear that the mental experience of totalitarian social institutions is so deeply ‘constructive’ and affective as to make the precise size of this space irrelevantly small.) Factory workers sing war hymns at work, every billboard is an emotional expression of the ‘correct’ attitude, every set of leader portraits in every home must be wiped clean of dust every day with a special cloth just for that purpose. The effect on the mind is not only a regimentation, it is also a sort of ‘stupification by displacement’. The whole space of the world–and thus the mind– is filled from the classroom to the dictionary with the dead language of official ideology. There literally no room for alternatives.

In Winston’s world, the language is being ‘streamlined’. He has a tense lunch in the company canteen with his comrade Syme, an expert in Newspeak, who describes the latest dictionary developments.

“The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition.” he said. “We’re getting the language into its final shape—the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. . . . You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words—scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. . . . It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. . . . [Syme detects Winston’s lack of enthusiasm] . . . Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year? . . . Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. . . . Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. . . . The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. “

The totalitarian regime aims to go far beyond merely controlling what citizens can or cannot do in public. If a regime were so modest it would simply be authoritarian, that is, restrictive but only insofar as the oligarchy at the top needs it to be to sustain their privilege. The North Korean state, like the one Winston Smith lives in, tries with conviction to regulate even the most private life of the mind, to ensure the totality of reality. This is the main reason why characterizations of the North Korea regime as a self-interested oligarchy do not entirely explain the true extent of what is going on. The regime cares what people think, and thus intrudes on the mind itself, actively constructing it. This is the essence of the totalitarian principle.

~~~The Monument to the Founding of the Korean Worker’s Party~~~

Let’s get one thing out of the way at the start. The use of the well-known and well satirized early 20th century propagandist style in paintings, films, books, music, news broadcasts, poetry, public monuments, factory ceiling banners, train stations—the smiling farmers, the decisive Leader staring off into the distance towards the future, the soldier’s reassuring resolve—is in North Korea absolutely horrifying in its scope. Virtually the whole world is written in a closed, doctrinal language of cultural symbols and allowable utterances, even in workplace speech and personal conversations. 60 years of such a pernicious onslaught, by a single voice speaking in confidently forceful language, I think must have been intensely constructive of people’s interpretation of events, society, and self.

I want to begin teasing out how the ideological machine—which, remember, is not slowed down at all by economic failure, and in fact probably constitutes most of the real economy—is constituted.

The North Korean regime employs an army of bureaucratic artists whose job description is literally to ‘maintain the ideology of the nation state’. Painters, novelists, architects; intellectual labourers who work anonymously en masse to create a totally cohesive fabric of narratives and value judgments we can (and they do) call ideology.

In the service of building such a ubiquitous, contextually diversified and, above all, strictly monolithic culture, which B.R. Meyer calls ‘the Text’, all of creative inspiration is co-opted.

This monument was erected to commemorate the founding of the Party. It features the traditional hammer and sickle, and interestingly also a calligraphy/paint brush. The brush points to the explicit importance of ‘intellectual’ and ‘artistic’ labour for the Society. But North Korea is by our standards characterized by “intense anti-intellectualism” (B.R. Meyer). The ‘intellectuals’ and ‘artists’ are mere bureaucrats in the purest sense, (re)producing works according to the strict aesthetic and ideological order.

In order to build, and in the same way as painters are for example,

“North Korean architects are pressed into service as ‘theoretical and practical weapons’ of the system, whose [explicit!] task it is to create architectures that keep alive in the minds of their compatriots the benefits of the revolution, North Korea’s idiosyncratic Juche ideolody, and the glory of the ‘eternal president’, Kim Il Sung, and the ‘dear leader’, Kim Jong Il.”

[ Juche can be understood as nothing more than a name for the whole propagandized social world as described above, and everything that has ever come out of the leader’s mouths. B.R. Meyer’s calls it a ‘sham doctrine’. Noone can really explain Juche writings because they consist mostly of convoluted and empty platitudes.]

In a short piece in ESQUIRE, Corey Sobel describes the monument to the founding as:

A contender for “Ugliest Building of the 20th Century,” this monument anchors what is reputed to be the most depressingly clean city this side of Omaha. Commissioned by Kim Il-sung, (father of Mr. Jong-il), the hammer and sickle represent the triumph of the workers and peasants while the … brush symbolizes the success of intellectuals. Enough said.

We can sense the author’s disgust hidden just below his faux-casual disregard. But ugliness and beauty are two sides of the same coin; by being disgusted he proves that it is possible for a building to elicit emotion through its symbolic power. While one twists his lip, someone else may be swelling with pride.

I am not trashing Soble; On the contrary I think his reaction comes from a noble place. It from this place, for example, that comes distrust in Wagner’s music, because of how it made the Nazis feel. What Soble sees in those giant concrete fists, erected in stone to last forever, is a reminder that there are human beings still trapped inside our darkest 20th century nightmare.

Because it is an emotionally invested structure for us, outside, we can understand (feel!) that it is also invested for North Koreans inside. I can only speculate what moods and thoughts the locals feel and think when they look at the monument to the founding. But I can say for certain that this statue is no trinket:

If I were tasked to come up with new symbols for North Korea which reflected reality, I would keep the brush and add a pistol. The North Korean ‘state’ is all the resources to create and all the power to enforce partnered under one organizational structure. This structure appears to be virtually bullet proof, as the 50 meter high concrete ‘monument to the founding’ literally is.

Some strikingly illustrative statements can be found in the book On Architecture, supposedly authored by Kim Jong Il himself. The works of the leaders–the ‘Juche’ cannon–contain the only sanctioned interpretation of reality. The words of the leaders are always the last.

“One can understand the political, economic, and cultural development of a country by seeing its architectural structures.”

“The question of unity arises not only in the formation of the space of a city but also in individual structures, details,decorations, the relationship between structures and natural space, and in all aspects of architectural formation.”

“Architects must accept and fulfill the leader’s plan and determination not as orders and duty but as a matter of pleasure and honour.”

“The working-class Party must take in hand the work of architectural creation and steadily intensify its guidance and control. The system of Party leadership of the work of architectural creation must be thoroughly established. This means ensuring that architects aquire the revolutionary attitude of accepting the Party’s policy on architectural creation without any question, and champion and carry it out. They must ensure that architectural creation is conducted under the unified leadership of the Party Centre.”

“Architectural structures created by humanity are not only material but also spiritual products. None of them has ever been created without mental efforts and without the investment of materials.”

“The leader’s image must always be placed in the centre of the architectural space. Architectural space must be composed to ensure that the leader’s image dominates all the elements of the space, and that all the architectural components throw the leader’s image in bold relief.”

“Architecture is created by the creative wisdom, labour and artistic activities of the masses. Therefore, architecture comprehensively reflects the material needs of the people, their customs, sentiments, emotions, aesthetic tastes and other aspects of human life of the period.”

“The formative, artistic quality of Juche architecture inspires a strong emotion of beauty in people. Sustaining symbolic expression is especially important in architectural formation. An architectural structure that sustains symbolic expression can give a deep impression and arouse strong emotions and vigor, but a structure that lacks symbolic expression looks drab, oppressive and lifeless.” “

“Because of the high ideological and artistic qualities of its content and form, architecture as an art rouses peoples aesthetic and emotional interest, and thus performs its informative and educational function.”

It is important for the architects in charge of urban planning to sustain their creative individuality, but it is more important for them to abide by the principle of collective creation.”

“The national characteristics of architecture find their expression mainly through its form, and the national form expresses the national characteristics. The national characteristics of architecture assume historical concreteness.”

“Strengthening control by the masses is also important in ensuring the collective guidance of creative work. Meetings to hear the masses criticisms should be widely organized, and the masses should be encouraged to participate actively in such meetings in order that their voices should be heard.”

“Architects can make greater strides in architectural creation only when they have a clear understanding of the importance and significance of architectural creation, and are deeply aware of their mission and duty to humanity.”

~~~Concentration Camps and Consent~~~

The dual nature of North Korea’s totalitarianism

On the surface it is a happy state of affairs: the North Korean nation is the greatest in history, led by philosopher kings. But in an evil world North Korea has been left the only nation following ‘the true path of history’. If its ultimate victory is to be assured, the citizens must submit absolutely to the collective effort as guided by the wise leaders.

If North Koreans are caught subverting this imaginary in any way—the tiniest lapse, a pessimistic comment or a forgotten lapel pin— they are shown how real is their leader’s malice for enemies of the nation. The paradise portrayed in propaganda has a horrific obverse, a shadow world. Concentration camps in the mountains, from which one has little hope of returning from, re-enforce the perfect purity of North Korean paradise by banishing anyone who is not themselves a reflection of that purity.

Try to swallow this fact: concentration camps, as hellish as the Nazi ones we are all familiar with, are in operation right now, at the moment you read this, in which hundreds of thousands of people are being cruelly tortured, starved and turned into dirt.

In these camps women are raped by guards; if they then get pregnant they are murdered. Children are forced to watch the executions of their parents, which can occur with as little pretense as the original arrests that sent them there to begin with. Three generations of an enemy’s family are usually arrested by the secret police in order to completely cleanse the world of subversion.

These camps support the regime economically as well. The enslaved inmates provide enough labour to mine coal and other minerals, log forests, and produce products, portions of which are sold to consumers internationally.

North Korean totalitarianism is not only maintained with terror—terror that turns every person into a tool of the Society responsible for policing each other and themselves. As Hannah Arendt said in Origins of Totalitarianism:

Just as lawfulness in constitutional government is insufficient to inspire and guide men’s actions, so terror in totalitarian government is not sufficient to inspire and guide human behavior.

The total reality of North Korea is also maintained by the smiling consent of the people—people who believe the camps keep them safe from enemies. As described in the first two posts, the manufactured reality of the Society fills up the world and requires everyone to express themselves in its language. When they aren’t starving to death, North Koreans do not keep their heads down and be glum; they cheer at parades, volunteer on work details on top of their normal work hours, spend free time rehearsing for elaborate shows, and weep like the sky is falling when the leader dies.

Who can say their tears are not ‘real’, or the condemnation of enemies within their midst? The mind is constructed through articulation. Tell yourself out-loud that you are a worthless loser ten times. Now tell yourself you are part of a unique mission in history, united with your community on the path to creating a better world. Remind yourself that times are tough right now, but with sacrifice and will, we can succeed!

In 1943, when Germany’s war prospects were on the wane, Joseph Goebbels, the most devastating sycophant of history, riled up his audience, guiding them to the answer to his question: Do you want total war?

This speech to the Nazi people epitomizes the most difficult aspect of totalitarianism for us to acknowledge: that the people expressly give their permission to the leadership. We should of course acknowledge the horrifying amount of manipulation conducted to attain that orchestrated feedback-loop. But at the end of the day, the people have to reconcile with themselves having cheered in jubilation at the assent of the Kim family, having denounced their friends or family. I am not blaming the victims of totalitarian society, my sympathy lies with them always. I am saying that totalitarian Society only exists when it includes everybody, and thus, everyone is tied up in it. Complicit.

The Nazis did not capitulate when their prospects looked hopeless. The North Koreans will not either. Against famine, American Imperialism (which caused the famine), and internal enemies they will continue to fight. Why? Because sacrificing for a higher purpose and persevering through hardship can be noble if so desired by one and the many.

A recent report from the prominent American think tank RAND claims that the North Korean regime is upon the precipice of collapse and news articles have been quick to spread this “conventional wisdom” uncritically. The ambiguity of the situation is admitted, but the report is still misleading. (For example, at one point it cites an article by scholar Andre Lankov in which he discusses the conditions for revolution. Immediately after the report claims “such conditions appear to exist in North Korea”, when in the the article Lankov had said “if we look at the conditions in North Korea we will see that none of the conditions for a revolution are present.”)

The RAND report is primarily focused on the potential consequences of a collapse, but it assumes collapse will happen soon, and provides faulty reasons for believing so.

North Koreans are starving? They have been for years and the regime has turned the famine into a heroic stand against Imperialism.

The leader might be killed, causing civil war? Having no window whatsoever into the inner politics of the Party, we should assume that, like in the USSR, and like the deaths of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung, a leadership crisis is no stumbling block for an entrenched elite well-schooled in maintaining Party unity.

The people will revolt? Dissent in North Korea has no voice, and as far as we know has no organization whatsoever.

Totalitarianism fell in Europe suddenly, without warning, and the same might happen in DPRK? Actually, it was slowly crumbling for decades in Europe, with popular dissidents spearheading a relatively robust anti-regime counter-culture.

Conclusion.

The depth of North Korean totalitarianism is without precedent. We shouldn’t consider ourselves clueless, but North Korea is definitely a case that reveals the oxymoronic nature of ‘political-science’. Indeed, Arendt remarks:

we actually have nothing to fall back on in order to understand a phenomenon that nevertheless confronts us with its overpowering reality and breaks down all standards we know. There is only one thing that seems to be discernible: we may say that radical evil has emerged in connection with a system in which all men have become equally superfluous.

After everything I have learned my conclusion is a terribly sad and disabling one. There is no hope today for North Koreans. Totalitarianism as we know it has only been overcome by an implosion caused by the weakness of its systematic control, or been destroyed in a violent conflict from without. Neither possibility can be seen on the horizon.