But the People Are So Friendly

Kerry Howley | August 18, 2005

In an excellent book review in the New Yorker, Ian Buruma considers Western admiration for the socialist paradise otherwise known as North Korea:

Bradley Martin quotes a British visitor named Andrew Holloway, who found the "secure and cheerful existence and the comradeship" of the "average" citizen "moving to behold." Despite having written a long book cataloguing torture, famine, and mass murder, Martin approvingly notes that readers of Holloway's account "not consumed with knee-jerk loathing for socialism might be hard-pressed to adjudge as evil beyond redemption a society so apparently successful in inculcating values such as kindness and modesty." My own impression, reinforced by Martin's book, is that North Koreans behave pretty much like all people forced to fight for bare survival: kindness is a dangerous luxury.

The poor-but-oh-so-happy sentiment pops up without fail in any crappy travel magazine version of a visit to Myanmar, Laos, or Nepal (and probably any other desperately poor and badly governed country), in which "the people" are always gleeful, generous, and colorful. I'm not exactly sure what it is about being ruled by insane dictators that makes people so damn nice, but here's an idea: If you're a Western travel writer, or, say, German tourist, and you're going to an impoverished country full of hungry people in which you clearly stand out as someone with money to spend, people might be extra nice to you.

Via Cafe Hayek.

Comments

|8.18.05 @ 1:06PM|#

"If you're a Western travel writer, or, say, German tourist, and you're going to an impoverished country full of hungry people in which you clearly stand out as someone with money to spend, people might be extra nice to you."

True dat...

|8.18.05 @ 1:07PM|#

The cultural arrogance and selfishness of people like this British guy Holloway! It reminds me of the British guy who, after the Christmas tsunami that killed 250,000 people, walked a beach in Indonesia that had been denuded of anything man made and expressed relief that it had been returned to its natural state. He felt that it was now more pure. As if the tsunami had happened to make life more pleasant for him. It must be nice to be so blind to the suffering of others to walk around North Korea and utter such drivel. Man, now I'm in a bad mood.

|8.18.05 @ 1:07PM|#

Kim Jong-il as noble savage?

...I'd love to hear what Holloway thinks of us Americans or his fellows in Britain.

I find myself thinking about Kerouac suggesting that American blacks of his time were the only people who were really free.

Yuck!

|8.18.05 @ 1:07PM|#

This is the first comment out of anyone's mouth after they visit Cuba.

|8.18.05 @ 1:17PM|#

It reminds me of the British guy who, after the Christmas tsunami that killed 250,000 people
Ah yes, the guy who became the target of a disapproving H&R post by I think Nick G., which in turn resulted in Insta-Glen declaring that Reason was no longer a libertarian magazine. Fun times.

|8.18.05 @ 1:19PM|#

Ever notice that every place you go on vacation seems so much nicer than home? Well, of course it does! You don't have to live & work there.

There's probably another mechanism at work here which bolsters these positive impressions. I doubt the mad dictator's regime will allow anything bad to happen to the visitor. I recall that when I visited Eastern Europe in the 80's that I had a marvellous time (really, it was fantastic!); later, it dawned on me that my travels were well-engineered to insulate me.

|8.18.05 @ 1:24PM|#

People in places with dysfunctional formal economies might actually be more personable and friendly than those who live in functioning economy.

People in situations like North Korea survive through cultivation of personal networks. Since the formal/legal system does not work they rely on family connections and friends-of-friends to get the necessities of life. When you add in the extra fear that unpopular people might get denounced to the authorities, people have a great incentive to be polite and avoid giving offense.

One can only be an indifferent jerk in an environment where the rules have no personal element to them. Much of the rudeness and alienation we see in much of the developed world is the result of the functioning rule of law.

|8.18.05 @ 1:25PM|#

Reminds me of the story a couple of months ago where Cameron Diaz was so impressed by the citizens of whatever country because they had animal dung on their walls and they were so "in touch" with nature. Drew Barrymore's contribution to the discussion was bragging that she had just pooed in the woods.

|8.18.05 @ 1:29PM|#

"The cultural arrogance and selfishness of people like this British guy Holloway!"

He's not selfish...just stupid! And thoughtless. Doesn't seem to have a clue. Reminds me of Shirley MaClane's visits to Communist China years ago. (lots of years ago.)

|8.18.05 @ 1:32PM|#

pooed in the woods

That was from MTV's "Trippin'", one of the most unintentionally laughable shows ever - so bad it was good.

Jeff|8.18.05 @ 1:33PM|#

Thank god for the "end of history."

|8.18.05 @ 1:40PM|#

Tim,

Prepare to have your world rocked again . Same (filmmaking) team, but this time, it's gymnasts! Some more details here. I really want to see an interview with these filmmakers, because I really want to know if there is any nudge-nudge, wink-wink aspect to their whole enterprise.

Anon

|8.18.05 @ 1:42PM|#

Actually, I think that one source of this phenomenon is the very strong sense among western aesthetes of the picturesque.

I have to admit to being vulnerable to this failing myself.

The striking thing about "primitives" is that from the perspective of the observer [or tourist] they are rooted in their environment in a way that makes the visual tableau of that environment more picturesque. Rooted, and also unselfconscious. Note the tendency of western tourists, even when travelling in the west, to seek out "quaint" places like the Amish country, or the parts of Ireland, Spain and Italy that still had "peasants", back before such persons disappeared from all of those places. It simply is not very interesting, fun, or aesthetically pleasing to travel to a place and watch thousands of people stand around and camera-phone each other. It is much more pleasant to be the only person with a camera-phone, while everyone else grinds grain by hand, or repairs fishing nets by hand, or marches in some gory Catholic ritual, or whatever.

Sometimes I wonder, if I made decisions aeshetically instead of ethically, if I'd be much of a libertarian at all. Aesthetically I'm just as vulnerable to the siren call of the picturesque as this Holloway fellow, and instead of "freedom and reason for everyone", that can lead you to secretly hoping for "freedom and reason for me, serfdom and superstition for the people I want to buy a villa near".

|8.18.05 @ 1:45PM|#

Rhywun

That's right, I couldn't remember why they were talking about it or even there but I should have assumed it had something to do with MTV.

|8.18.05 @ 1:50PM|#

fluffy

I'm familiar with the longing for the aesthetically pleasing myself. I spent several months in a tiny English farming village called Grantchester a couple of years back--it had thatched roofs and a little old church and sheep and everything. Quaint. Beautiful. Tourists love it. So did I.

The locals who cannot find work in the city drink heavily every evening.

|8.18.05 @ 1:52PM|#

Sometimes I wonder, if I made decisions aeshetically instead of ethically, if I'd be much of a libertarian at all.

Just at a guess, I'd say aesthetic decisions decoupled from ethics are a big part of any totalitarian setup.

|8.18.05 @ 2:06PM|#

I remember watching a travel video for Cuba where the hostess couldn't stop talkng about how few homeless were in Havana. She obviously didn't know that people without a permit to live in the capital are periodically rounded up and put to work on sugar cane plantations.

|8.18.05 @ 2:06PM|#

Shannon-
What you're saying dovetails nicely with the discussion I had with economist Paul Seabright (the interview's online here if you care)--essentially that the "impersonality" and "anonymity" of modern life that people bemoan is a sign of a kind of robustness: Institutions give us sufficient assurance that we can do all kinds of transactions with people we don't necessarily know very well. But what you expect in such situations is tighter bonds with an in-group, coexisting with extreme distrust outside that group.

|8.18.05 @ 2:06PM|#

I wasn't that happy with Buruma's review. I thought he was unfair to Martin and took every chance he could to paint him as some kind of North Korean apologist. Read Martin's book - he may sometimes try to be "even-handed" but you cannot read that book without being appalled at the sheer enormity of what the Kim's have done. Martin's book will not create a bunch of NK sympathizers, far from it.

|8.18.05 @ 2:12PM|#

I guess the question I would ask is, if they had jobs AND a quaint place to live, how would there average blood pressure compare with a New Yorker's?

|8.18.05 @ 2:17PM|#

How's this for a theory: living in modern, western society turns you into a prick, and everyone else seems nice by comparison.

|8.18.05 @ 2:23PM|#

Capitalists can afford to be assholes.

|8.18.05 @ 2:28PM|#

Joe,

True liberty is the freedom to be an prick ,and not be jailed or executed for it

|8.18.05 @ 2:29PM|#

Remember the old Twilight Zone episode where Billy Mumy played the psychotic little kid who terrorized the town with his ability to make his every thought come true? Everybody was very friendly and polite there, too. "Oh, Anthony, it's good that you made the crops die! It's good that you made the rest of the world disappear! We love living here!"

ed|8.18.05 @ 2:46PM|#

Hmmm...Kim IS a ruthless little prick of a dictator, he IS responsible for the misery of an entire country, he HAS enslaved and murdered his own people, and he DOES have weapons of mass destruction...

But since those weapons are not pointed at us, it's not our concern. Right?

|8.18.05 @ 2:50PM|#

What've you done about it, ed?

Good point, though; for all our posturing about how this sort of thing may not be within the purview of the Feds, what can an individual (or a NGO) do to fight that ruthless little prick? Hold a rally?

|8.18.05 @ 2:55PM|#

I love that Twilight Zone, Jennifer!

Actually, here on the west side of the US, people are generally pretty polite. I was talking to my friend from Jersey about this, and I was saying it's because we're so spread out on the left coast that we don't have to try to create our own personal space, we just have it. You don't have that luxury so much in a place like NYC, so you've got to be a little more abrasive and in-your-face.

As for quaint - sure, it's nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Too boring. I would, however, love to have a cabin in the woods or a home in very small town that I could go spend vacation time in.

I guess it's "to each his own".

|8.18.05 @ 3:02PM|#

Nothing, really, unless you want to be a missionary of some sort.

I did some freelance animation for a group that has missionaries in nations all over the world, and they asked that I not highlight that they had a presence in certain nations.

They euphemistically refer to entry into nations like N. Korea as "Creative Access."

|8.18.05 @ 3:06PM|#

Lowdog,

People in the Jersey suburbs have just as much personal space as people in the LA suburbs. People in the neighborhoods of our older cities are no more obnoxious than people in our suburbs.

Jack William Bell|8.18.05 @ 3:08PM|#

Jennifer;

I remember that TZ episode well. Mostly because, as I was watching it I realized that I had read the story it was based on when I was a kid. reply to this