2 Years In North Korea. Pt. 2/3
Banned from freely traveling by our own U.S. Government
But back to this question of Why? Why provide for the needs of the people of the DPRK?
There are several reasons already mentioned: one is that the people of North Korea aren’t synonymous with mass media’s portrayal of North Korea. The people of North Korea are like you and me in many ways. They love their families, love their friends, they look out for one another, and celebrate special occasions. Kind of human sounding like you and me, eh?
Most North Koreans aren’t who you see in the military parades on CNN and Fox News. Many of us in the West are familiar with the adage, “bad news sells.” Unfortunately this fact is detrimental in many ways to a society’s cohesion and stability, as well as our perceptions of others.
As Psychologist, John T. Cacioppo Ph.D., says in his study “there is a greater surge (in our brain’s) electrical activity (to stimuli it deems negative). Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by downbeat news than good news.”
Think about it.
Ever heard positive coverage on the DPRK? Of course not. Nothing good happens there, right?
Wrong. You’re just being played.
It’s okay. It’s okay.
We’ve all been played.
Marketers have long known and appealed to this stimulus of negativity to drive sales, so the incentive becomes natural then to utilize it for financial gain. This is evident in the hyper polarizing news coverage of our day to arouse engagement and distain among and between viewers. This is called an engagement funnel in marketing terms intentionally crafted to lead you towards sales via clicks, commenting, and reposting. The more dramatic and bloody, the more coverage it gets. The viewers aren’t passive in this reality but are actually clientele, albeit often unknowingly.
Social media algorithms are designed to feed you toxic, polarizing information. DuckDuckGo it (rather than Google it, that’s a different article.)
While people are getting their dopamine fix from bad, demoralizing, satanic celebrations of hedonism like the Grammy’s, or race baiting headlines, normal people get caught in the fallout of society this strategy causes. This is because unlike the affluent performers and entertainers, we don’t have the luxury to play dress-up in ballon suits as the satanic worshipping Grammy performer, Sam Smith, does. We’re working to provide for our families and protecting our kids from such lunacy.
The hedonistic foundation on which the Western secular world currently slouches is doomed for failure because it fights against what is right and cannot stand as it is built upon divisiveness. Rest assured, the foundation of the Western secular world is as firm as a roasted marshmallow on a graham cracker, folks. It is oozing into oblivion without restraint.
It will collapse and is collapsing before our very eyes. Are those usurping their citizen-granted privileges initially working against every facet of positive change? It sure appears so.
When asked earlier what comes to mind when you think of the DPRK, these likely were those of marching soldiers and missiles. This is understandable if your only exposure to this country is mainstream media who exclusively uses pictures of military parades, their leader Kim Jong Un, and firing missiles (all images used for dramatic, divisive effect). But these images are not the full picture of those that live there.
Fact.
We know this superficially, but we don’t know this really. These families exist merely in concept to the rest of the world. If you heard that Koreans in the DPRK can and have experienced joy and happiness, you wouldn’t have an image or context to comprehend this truth because you haven’t been shown them.
But this is the truth.
Of course, the country has much work to do as it relates to freedom and liberty but the point here is that not everyone in the country is what it is portrayed to the world as by our media. Good news doesn’t sell, we know this but still allow misinformed and incomplete coverage to form our perceptions. The country is primarily composed of people, again like us in many ways, working to make ends meet.
We’re advocating peace over escalation.
To be a peacemaker though is boring to the world (to you, to me) and is primarily due to a misunderstanding of what a peacemaker actually does and doesn’t do. People would rather keep watching someone get hit in the face over and over than see genuine acts of love and peace being done to those said to be enemies.
True peacemaking in reality is a gritty, boots-on-the-ground, hands-on process only possible by being physically present in that place where peacemaking is the initiative. It’s not so Instagram or TikTok worthy, which a case could made this makes it a good thing, but it is far more important because peace-efforts literally save lives and prevent the death caused by war and battle.
Peacemakers confront needed change from the inside-out and is done successfully by exercising turning the other cheek when attacked in word or deed, in similar fashion to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther Kind Jr., and the author of the “turn the other cheek” lifestyle, Jesus Christ, who we most know changed the world for the unforeseeable future of mankind.
Due to our human nature being what it is though where we’re attracted to negativity like moth-to-flame, and peacemaking by its very nature being positive, it works against our very nature as humans in what we are stimulated by (psychologically/cognitively).
In a very real sense we have to fight against ourselves in order to bring goodness and peace into the world, which includes places like the DPRK, as well as our home countries. This isn’t an either/or scenario or option if peace is what will prevail. We have to be working on both ends of our worlds, meaning while we’re residing where we’re from to be working on peace-efforts, then while abroad where there’s more tension and possibility for a hot war be working on peace-efforts.
Peacemaking efforts on the Korean Peninsula isn’t headline grabbing material because it is a slow, monotonous and unassuming process. Should you search online though for recent news about Korea in general, you’ll see headlines that are exclusively documenting negative stories.
*North Korea warns of ‘overwhelming nuclear force’ to counter U.S. (NBC headline)
*N. Korean leader orders military to improve war readiness (Seattle Times headline)
*South Korea posts the worst trade deficit in its history (CNBC headline)
*9 missing after fishing boat capsizes in South Korea (South China Morning Post headline)
*Record Breaking 2022 For North Korea Crypto Theft - UN Report (LiveMint headline)
Bad, negative news after bad, negative news.
This coverage naturally forms our perceptions of what ALL North Koreans are like, despite it being misinformed. The good stories and good people there are never shared because it won’t engage the masses like the bad news does.
This is the end of Part 2. Click Here for Part 3.
