[KS] Rhetoric of Hatred: the cornucopia of Korean 4LW's and the English polish..

[J.Scott Burgeson]

--- On Thu, 5/24/12, Ruediger Frank <ruediger.frank at univie.ac.at> wrote:
I don't want to get political here, but I vaguely remember relatively recent phrases like "unruly children" (Hillary C.) and "I loathe that guy" (George B.). Not very mature either, I'd say.
Not mature, I agree, but distinctions of degree should not be equated with distinctions of kind. A few random, off-the-cuff remarks by Western leaders, however irresponsible, are rather different from a sustained official media assault of hate and invective lasting months and years on end. And let's not forget that it was not that "rat bastard from hell" Lee Myung-bak who bombed and attacked North Korea twice in 2010, so I don't see how North Korea's current vitriol and anger towards the South has much justification.
Besides, since when is a comparison across times not allowed. 
Of course, for moral relativists, such comparisons often serve their function, but certainly the global community continues to move forward, admittedly in fits and starts at times, towards a greater shared appreciation of certain values and notions of social justice. The Soviet Union had its gulags, but I doubt many Russians today would find them defensible; the US had its internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII, but officially apologized for them some 25 years ago.
I realize I am probably opening up some hugely messy can of academic worms in making such statements. I suppose that from a strictly moral relativist perspective, North Korea has every right to remove itself from the global community of nations and just "do its own thing."
Well, if that's what the North really wants, then I suggest we all just ignore it, stop propping it up with endless aid and whatnot, and let it go about "doing its own thing."
But, of course, that's not what they really want, is it?
--Scott Bug
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20120524/49c45171/attachment.html>