Seems like so many people are into blogging and recording their thoughts and opinions on the internet and I never had a desire to but since I have one, I enjoy writing, I guess I'll take advantage of it. North Korea's been in the news a lot lately because of some missle tests the other day. I was working when the story broke and it went from 2 missles to 7 including the one that may reach our nation. That country is strange man. I read Animal Farm and 1984 after learning a few things about the country and after reading both books, I was in shock at how much North Korea resembled Oceania. What really strikes me about the country is the cult of personality surrounding their leader. Now, I wouldn't use that term and I'm sure many would disagree with me. I say they mythologize their leaders. I say this after reading some of Terry Pratchetts books. In the Discworld, the afterlives of all the religions exist. A common theme is that human beings have this power of belief that enables one to (this is the only way I can express it) create new modes of being. It plays a central role in Hogfather where this world's parody of Santa Claus disappears and creates a belief vacuum and so all kinds of weird entities start popping out of nowhere to fill the void. North Korea is officially atheist yet they have transformed their leaders into almost godlike beings. The original leader (Kim Jung Il's father) was eternally granted the post of president post-mortem. When Kimmie Jung was born, supposedly it was on a mountain and the heavens responded with lightening and a double rainbow. I sometimes wonder if the leaders of the "revolution" know that people need something to believe in and or even recognize some power of belief and have to channel it into something: the leaders of the state. I'm probably not the first to say that but the part I'm adding is the label...or even making up the word mythologize.
It's funny, caught a segment on cnn today showing all these North Koreans placing flowers at some opulent showing Kimmie's dad leading people...somewhere or something...and afterwards, they all bowed at once (and there were A LOT of people). Kinda reminded me of footage of Muslims at their daily prayers.
It's funny, caught a segment on cnn today showing all these North Koreans placing flowers at some opulent showing Kimmie's dad leading people...somewhere or something...and afterwards, they all bowed at once (and there were A LOT of people). Kinda reminded me of footage of Muslims at their daily prayers.