Of course people will resist foreign criticism of their country. It is not just loyalty, vestigial or otherwise, either; it is as often that even the best-meaning foreigners rarely know enough to give an informed criticism. I read criticisms of Italy, and even of Berlusconi (whom you may be sure I don't admire) whose ignorance is downright scary - people who predict that Germany will force Italy (and Spain, and so on) out of the Euro, people who cast Berlusconi as Mussolini reincarnated. AT that point, reacting is not even so much a duty to one's own country as to truth and commonsense. I witnessed the same reaction from an American reading an Australian article about the excessive rates of incarceration in the USA. It was something that she was worried about herself, but when the Australian writer mentioned "a hell-fire religion" as one of the possible reasons for the abnormal statistics from American courts and jails, she simply lost interest. And you should hear my conservative German friend, the Editrix, on American perceptions of Germany! It happens all the time.
As for the bizarre dynamics of North Korean society, I have a suspicion - I don't know enough to have more - that they have some sort of subterraneous connection with the cultural forces that led the Chinese, Japanese and Korean states to close themselves off from foreign contact for centuries.
no subject
Of course people will resist foreign criticism of their country. It is not just loyalty, vestigial or otherwise, either; it is as often that even the best-meaning foreigners rarely know enough to give an informed criticism. I read criticisms of Italy, and even of Berlusconi (whom you may be sure I don't admire) whose ignorance is downright scary - people who predict that Germany will force Italy (and Spain, and so on) out of the Euro, people who cast Berlusconi as Mussolini reincarnated. AT that point, reacting is not even so much a duty to one's own country as to truth and commonsense. I witnessed the same reaction from an American reading an Australian article about the excessive rates of incarceration in the USA. It was something that she was worried about herself, but when the Australian writer mentioned "a hell-fire religion" as one of the possible reasons for the abnormal statistics from American courts and jails, she simply lost interest. And you should hear my conservative German friend, the Editrix, on American perceptions of Germany! It happens all the time.
As for the bizarre dynamics of North Korean society, I have a suspicion - I don't know enough to have more - that they have some sort of subterraneous connection with the cultural forces that led the Chinese, Japanese and Korean states to close themselves off from foreign contact for centuries.