Brian Reynolds Myers | |
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Born | 1963 (age 60–61) [1] New Jersey, U.S. |
Alma mater | Ruhr University University of Tübingen |
Occupation | Professor [2] |
Organization(s) | Dongseo University, [3] Busan, South Korea |
Known for | The Cleanest Race (2010) A Reader's Manifesto (2002) |
Spouse | Myung-hee Myers |
Relatives | Glenn Lynn Myers (father) |
Website | www |
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963), usually cited as B. R. Myers, is an American professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, best known for his writings on North Korean propaganda. He is a contributing editor for The Atlantic and an opinion columnist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal . Myers is the author of Han Sǒrya and North Korean Literature (Cornell, 1994), A Reader's Manifesto (Melville House, 2002), The Cleanest Race (Melville House, 2010), and North Korea's Juche Myth (Sthele Press, 2015).
Myers was born in New Jersey, near Fort Dix. [4] His mother is British, [5] and his father was a U.S. Army officer from Pennsylvania who served in South Korea as a military chaplain, [6] [7] [8] often helping out local orphans. [9] [10] Myers is also a descendant of John F. Reynolds though his father. [11]
Myers spent his childhood in Bermuda and his high school youth in apartheid-era South Africa, [12] [13] [14] and received graduate education in West Berlin during the early 1980s, [15] [4] [16] occasionally visiting East Germany. [17] He earned an MA degree in Soviet studies at Ruhr University (1989) and a PhD degree in Korean studies with a focus on North Korean literature at the University of Tübingen (1992). Myers subsequently taught German in Japan [16] and worked for a Mercedes-Benz liaison office in Beijing during the mid-1990s. [18]
Before his appointment at Dongseo University, Myers lectured in North Korean literature and society at the Korea University's North Korean Studies Department. [19] He also taught globalization and North Korean literature at the Inje University Korean Studies Department. [20]
Myers’ opinion columns for the Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal generally focus on North Korea, which he says is not a Marxist-Leninist or a Stalinist state, but a "national-socialist country." [21] He has also commented in The New York Times on the common view of the ROKS Cheonan sinking in South Korea with regard to its perception of North Korea. [22] He stated that there was a lack of outrage over the incident among South Koreans due to the racialized nature of Korean nationalism; in other words, there was no major uproar over the incident in South Korea because of the concept of racial solidarity with the North Koreans that many South Koreans feel, which Myers said overruled patriotism towards South Korea in many cases. [22] Myers stated that inter-Korean racial solidarity manifests itself by South Koreans supporting the North Korean soccer team at the FIFA World Cup and such. [22] He contrasted the racialized nature of South Korean nationalism with the civic nature of U.S. nationalism, stating that South Korea's antipathy over attacks by North Korea was potentially dangerous to the national security of the South Korean state: [22]
South Korean nationalism is something quite different from the patriotism toward the state that Americans feel. Identification with the Korean race is strong, while that with the Republic of Korea is weak. [22]
His book reviews have included denunciations of American historian Bruce Cumings [23] (who he says is an admirer of the North Korean regime), American author Toni Morrison, [24] American author Denis Johnson, [25] South Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong, [26] and American author Jonathan Franzen. [27]
Myers' Han Sŏrya and the North Korean literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK (1994) was adapted from his 1992 dissertation at the University of Tübingen and published as the sixty-ninth volume of the Cornell East Asia Series. [28]
A Reader’s Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose (2002) was developed from his critical review essay of the same name published in the Atlantic in 2001. [29]
The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters (2010) is a discussion of North Korean propaganda, contending that North Korea under Kim Jong Il was guided by a "paranoid, race-based nationalism with roots in Japanese fascism." [30] Myers asserts that the North Korean political system is not based on communism or Stalinism, and he contends that the official Juche idea is a sham ideology for foreign consumption and intended to establish Kim Il Sung's credentials as a thinker alongside Mao Zedong. [31] Myers also claims that post-Cold War attempts to understand North Korea as a Confucian patriarchy, based on the filial piety of Kim Jong Il and the dynastic transfer of power from his father, are misguided and that the North Korean leadership is maternalist rather than paternalist. [32]
Myers furthers his argument about the status of Juche as a non-ideology in his book North Korea's Juche Myth (2015). According to his own account, promoting him to write the book was the realization he was making "not the slightest bit of headway" with The Cleanest Race in challenging the conventional wisdom about Juche in the academia. [33] North Korea's Juche Myth develops a three-pronged categorization of North Korean propaganda. Some works are in the "inner track", meant for North Korean eyes only. Others are in the "outer track", meant primarily for North Korean consumption but mindful of the fact that foreigners can access them too. "Export track" propaganda specifically targets foreigners. [34]
Myers’ book The Cleanest Race has been challenged by several academic critics. [35] Charles K. Armstrong, then of Columbia University, suggested that the book "gives an intellectual gloss to attitudes many in the West already have about the DPRK". [36] Felix Abt, a Swiss business affairs specialist who lived in North Korea for seven years, describes Myers' claims in The Cleanest Race as "flawed" and "shaky". Abt wrote that it was "rather absurd" to describe Juche as "window-dressing" for foreigners. [37]
South Korean literary critic Yearn Hong Choi also regards the thesis of Myers' Han Sǒrya and North Korean Literature as erroneous:
How can Myers say that he [ Han Sǒrya ] is not a socialist realist? How can Myers say that Han's thought is not compatible with communist ideology? I can understand Myers’s views on orthodox socialist realism, yet I see socialist realism abundantly present in North Korean literature: North Korean writers still advocate socialist realism. Myers simply does not interpret socialist realism as they do. [38]
Tatiana Gabroussenko points out that Myers is the only Western academic who thinks that North Korean literature does not have the hallmarks of socialist realism. [39]
Scholar Andrei Lankov favorably reviewed The Cleanest Race as taking a "fresh approach" on North Korea. [40] Lankov also says Myers' work is "informative" [41] but is not sure whether his thesis has any relation to reality. [42]
Myers's North Korea's Juche Myth was favorably reviewed by Jan Blinka and Balazs Szalontai. [43]
Myers is married to a South Korean woman, Myung-hee Myers. [44] He lives and teaches in South Korea, where he moved to in September 2001. [14] [16] During the late 1990s, he lived in Valencia County, New Mexico. [45] [46] Politically, Myers is a supporter of the Green Party of the United States and animal rights. Myers can speak Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and German. [47] He is a vegan. [16]
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Conservatism in South Korea |
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Despite his progressive view of American politics, he is often regarded as a "conservative" in South Korea because he has a critical view of the "nationalist-left" political views of South Korean liberals and progressives, including the Democratic Party of Korea. [48] [49] In a December 2014 interview with conservative Munhwa Ilbo, Myers identified himself as a "conservative and staunch anti-North Korea". [50] He opposes anti-Japanese/anti-imperialist Korean ethnic nationalism and advocates South Korea-based state nationalism. [51] According to the Hankyoreh, left-leaning media in 2011, Myers rated it as having a "typical view of American conservatism". [52]
South Korean liberals and progressives support the view that the Republic of Korea (South Korea) was founded in 1919, when the Provisional Government was established, not 1948, the official establishment of the South Korea government. In contrast, South Korean conservatives recognize Aug. 15, 1948, as the 'founding day' of the Republic of Korea. [53] Myers supported the position of South Korean conservatives by expressing the view that August 15, 1948, should be commemorated by enacting the founding anniversary. [50]
Myers had an interview in 2024 with the ultraconservative Segye Ilbo, supported by the Unification Church; he opposed the Impeachment of Park Geun-hye and defended pro-Park conservatives. Myers defended Park Geun-hye, accusing the Impeachment of a "parliamentary coup". [51]
The politics of North Korea takes place within the framework of the official state philosophy, Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. Juche, which is a part of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, is the belief that only through self-reliance and a strong independent state, can true socialism be achieved.
Juche, officially the Juche idea, is a component of Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism, the state ideology of North Korea and the official ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea. North Korean sources attribute its conceptualization to Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and first leader. Juche was originally regarded as a variant of Marxism–Leninism until Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung's son and successor, declared it a distinct ideology in the 1970s. Kim Jong Il further developed Juche in the 1980s and 1990s by making ideological breaks from Marxism–Leninism and increasing the importance of his father's ideas.
Korean nationalism can be viewed in two different contexts. One encompasses various movements throughout history to maintain a Korean cultural identity, history, and ethnicity. This ethnic nationalism was mainly forged in opposition to foreign incursion and rule. The second context encompasses how Korean nationalism changed after the partition in 1945. Today, the former tends to predominate.
Reading is a popular pastime in North Korea, where literacy and books enjoy a high cultural standing, elevated by the regime's efforts to disseminate propaganda as texts. Because of this, writers are held in high prestige.
Baik Bong (Korean: 백봉) is a North Korean author known for writing the official biography of Kim Il Sung.
The Communist movement in Korea emerged as a political movement in the early 20th century. Although the movement had a minor role in pre-war politics, the division between the communist North Korea and the anti-communist South Korea came to dominate Korean political life in the post-World War II era. North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, continues to be a Jucheist state under the rule of the Workers' Party of Korea. In South Korea, the National Security Law has been used to criminalize advocacy of communism and groups suspected of alignment with North Korea. Due to the end of economic aid from the Soviet Union after its dissolution in 1991, the impractical ideological application of Stalinist policies in North Korea over years of economic slowdown in the 1980s, and the recession and famine during the 1990s, North Korea has replaced Marxism-Leninism with the Juche idea despite nominally upholding Communism. References to Communism were removed in the North Korean 1992 and 1998 constitutional revisions to make way for the personality cult of Kim's family dictatorship and the North Korean market economy reform. The Workers' Party of Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Un later reconfirmed commitment to the establishment of a communist society, but orthodox Marxism has since been largely tabled in favor of "Socialism in our style". Officially, the DPRK still retains a command economy with complete state control of industry and agriculture. North Korea maintains collectivized farms and state-funded education and healthcare.
The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), also called the Korean Workers' Party (KWP), is the sole ruling party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea. Founded in 1949 from a merger between the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea, the WPK is the oldest active party in Korea. It also controls the Korean People's Army, North Korea's armed forces. The WPK is the largest party represented in the Supreme People's Assembly and coexists with two other legal parties that are completely subservient to the WPK and must accept the WPK's "leading role" as a condition of their existence. The WPK is banned in the Republic of Korea under the National Security Act and is sanctioned by the United Nations, the European Union, Australia, and the United States.
The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters is a 2010 book by Brian Reynolds Myers. Based on a study of the propaganda produced in North Korea for internal consumption, Myers argues that the guiding ideology of North Korea is a race-based far-right nationalism derived from Japanese fascism, rather than any form of communism. The book is based on author's study of the material in the Information Center on North Korea.
Kim Jong Il was the Supreme Leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011.
Kim Il Sung was the leader of North Korea for 46 years, from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994.
Events from the year 1955 in North Korea.
On the Art of the Cinema is a 1973 treatise by the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. It is considered the most authoritative work on North Korean filmmaking.
Han Sorya was a Korean writer, literary administrator and politician who spent much of his career in North Korea. Regarded as one of the most important fiction writers in North Korean history, Han also served as head of the Korean Writers' Union and Ministry of Education.
Cho Ki-chon was a Russian-born North Korean poet. He is regarded as a national poet and "founding father of North Korean poetry" whose distinct Soviet-influenced style of lyrical epic poetry in the socialist realist genre became an important feature of North Korean literature. He was nicknamed "Korea's Mayakovsky" after the writer whose works had had an influence on him and which implied his breaking from the literature of the old society and his commitment to communist values. Since a remark made by Kim Jong Il on his 2001 visit to Russia, North Korean media has referred to Cho as the "Pushkin of Korea".
The Propaganda and Agitation Department, officially translated as the Publicity and Information Department, is a department of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) tasked with coordinating the creation and dissemination of propaganda in North Korea. It is the highest propaganda organization in the country.
This is a list of works important to the study of North Korea.
On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work, also known as the "Juche speech", was a speech delivered on 28 December 1955 by Kim Il Sung. The address mentioned his Juche ideology by name for the first time. It is considered one of Kim's most important works and a "watershed moment" in North Korean history. Views differ if the speech used the term juche to launch an ideology or more conservatively to assert that the Korean people were the subject of the revolution. The former believes that Juche, as a distinct ideology, was developed by Hwang Jang-yop on his re-discovery of the speech. The speech was published for the first time in 1960 and in many subsequent, heavily edited revisions since.
Racism in North Korea is a phenomenon that is relatively poorly understood. The North Korean media and government's usage of Korean ethnic nationalism's race-based concepts such as "pure blood" has been described as racist.
Officially, the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) – the ruling party of North Korea – is a communist party guided by Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism, a synthesis of the ideas of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The party is committed to Juche, an ideology attributed to Kim Il Sung which promotes national independence and development through the efforts of the masses. Although Juche was originally presented as the Korean interpretation of Marxism–Leninism, the party now presents it as a freestanding philosophy of Kim Il Sung. The WPK recognizes the ruling Kim family as the ultimate source of its political thought. The fourth party conference, held in 2012, amended the party rules to state that Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism was "the only guiding idea of the party". Under Kim Jong Il, who governed as chairman of the National Defence Commission, communism was steadily removed from party and state documents in favour of Songun, or military-first politics. The military, rather than the working class, was established as the base of political power. However, Kim Jong Il's successor Kim Jong Un reversed this position in 2021, replacing Songun with "people-first politics" as the party's political method and reasserting the party's commitment to communism.
Myers, B. R., 1963-
Then, while driving in his jeep one night that winter, he came upon the Waegwan orphanage. 'There were over a hundred children there, and I couldn't believe how shabby they looked,' [Myers] remembers. 'They were barefoot — and it was cold outside. One kid had a belt made out of wire to keep his pants up. They didn't even have anywhere to take a bath — they just had helmets filled with water occasionally dumped over their heads. And, of course, most of them were GI babies who'd been fathered by soldiers and just left at the police station.' If was especially bad to be an orphan in Korea. 'If you can't trace your family back five or six generations, you're nobody,' Myers notes. So he decided to add some theater to his anti-VD campaign: to raise awareness about the orphans' plight in every crevice of the camp — and, true to his mission — use it as a reminder of sexual consequences. Myers raised money among the soldiers to buy clothes and shoes for the orphans. He enlisted Army engineers to build them a proper bathhouse. At the end of every month, Myers sat at the head of the pay line with a 'For the Orphans of Waegwan' donation can. Some of his in-your-face tactics hit too close. When Myers got permission from the mess sergeants to bring a group of children to the mess for Thanksgiving dinner, for instance, one of his commanders, a lieutenant colonel, lashed out. 'He pulled me aside and said, "This is our Thanksgiving, not theirs. What the hell are they doing here? You have no business doing this and you'll pay for it" — the implication being that he'd get me,' Myers remembers. 'And this is a guy who'd just come from church!'
By the way, I used to live in New Mexico too, in the small town of Los Lunas, which is now less famous for having had Bo Diddley as deputy sheriff than for being the site of the hardware store in Breaking Bad. I took the 2-hour drive up to Los Alamos circa 2000, when I delivered an abandoned husky to the state's only husky rescue service.
[The] Minjoo Party, [is] a nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-Chinese, Ukraine-indifferent, none-too-LGBT-friendly party of a sort those papers would rage against if it were in Europe. But the Council on Foreign Relations works in mysterious ways.
Yi Hae-sŏng, a young podcaster, was one of many conservatives who lamented Moon's reference to 1919 as the year in which the Republic of Korea was established. With those and other words, the president declared himself the heir to a nationalist and not a constitutional-democratic tradition, a man who will rule more in the spirit of the exile government that strove to liberate the minjok than of the republic that joined America in resisting North Korean aggression.