The North Korean Style of Insult

It would seem that the art of insulting people and character assassination has gone downhill in recent years with nowhere near the elegance and power that it has had in the past.   This great art is a pale shadow of its former greatness, at least here in the West.

A repetitive use of simple slurs, repeated over and over again, has become the standard fare when insulting someone's personality, ethics and morality. The same old watered down insults generally applied in a very generic form merely demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy and shallowness of the would-be character assassin.   How many times have we heard "He's an asshole. What a shithead. Scumbag!   Moron!"   These insults have no originality, they are mere placeholders for what used to be an honored part of rhetoric.

This decline may or may not be of practical importance depending on what field you are in, as some fields make more use of the insult and verbal backstabbing than others.  The culturally important field of visual effects and animation is known throughout the world for the shallow insults members of the field shower on each other.  Only paleontology is believed to be more verbally vicious and cutthroat.

This decay of this formerly great artform is just one example of the general collapse of America which can be seen in so many areas of our culture.  Whether the area is pop music for underage girls, pulp novels, sexist imagery or drive-in movies, all of these genres have lost much of their integrity and vigor.   Still, we must do what we can to shore up what is left and try to move on.

As is often the case when we have a civilization in collapse, the collapse is fortunately uneven and there continue to be regions that have maintained the art and sciences of the past with great integrity. Although the American style of insult and sarcasm have not been preserved to the best of my knowledge, other cultures have preserved their own traditions in this area.   If we are willing to let go of some of our pride we can learn from some of our neighbors to our benefit.

One esteemed style of insult, one of the greatest in history, was created during the Cold War by the various Communist governments. Although almost all the former practitioners of this style have abandoned their own traditions in their haste to embrace capitalism, one country has stood firm and maintained its traditions.  And that country is none other than the proud but misunderstood nation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as led by their Dear Leader Kim Sung-un.

Just recently I came across a fine example of this art when I read about the purge of Kim Sung-un's uncle, Jang Song-thaek, formerly the second most powerful person in the DPRK.   Tears came to my eyes as I read the announcement of Jang's execution so struck was I by the sincerity and venom of the text.

Despicable Human Scum

Here are some excerpts: 

Every sentence of the decision served as sledge-hammer blow brought down by our angry service personnel and people on the head of Jang, an anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional element and despicable political careerist and trickster.

However, despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him.

Jang encouraged money-making under various pretexts to secure funds necessary for gratifying his political greed and was engrossed in irregularities and corruption. He thus took the lead in spreading indolent, careless and undisciplined virus in our society.

He let the decadent capitalist lifestyle find its way to our society by distributing all sorts of pornographic pictures among his confidants since 2009. He led a dissolute, depraved life, squandering money wherever he went. 

The era and history will eternally record and never forget the shuddering crimes committed by Jang Song Thaek, the enemy of the party, revolution and people and heinous traitor to the nation.

You can read the full text of the announcement on the execution of Jang here.

I think this is truly a magnificent example of a classic Cold War style of character assassination in all its glory and it is certainly much more eloquent and impressive that merely calling Jang a scumbag or a shithead. I hope that our own nation can rise to this example. I particular hope that my field of visual effects and computer animation that puts so much store on attacking other people's character, yet does so in such a boring and stupid way, can also learn to do a better job.  (1)

Thank you, Dear Leader Kim Song-un for showing us the way.

Dear Leader

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea
http://www.korea-dpr.com/

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1. But keep in mind, if attempting to apply these techniques of rhetoric to the field of visual effects, that many of the practioners in the field do not know the meaning of most words over two syllables or at least pretend to be that ignorant.  So keep it simple for them, pithy and filled with color, but only simple words.