Pariah lies

National Review, Feb 9, 2004 by Paul Hollander

As one reads on, it becomes an increasingly compelling question how it is possible for a professor of history at a great institution of learning--Chicago--to have any sympathy for such a regime. One explanation may be that, like other similarly disposed visitors to Communist countries, Cumings was favorably impressed by the remnants of a traditional social order reflected in the conduct and interaction of ordinary people, their respectful manner and sense of community. On his conducted tours he rejoiced in the prevailing orderliness and cleanliness--the little old ladies sweeping the streets (presumably without any official encouragement!)--and contrasted these appealing conditions with their absence in South Korea and other non-Communist Third World countries. Among the revealing and novel information he provides is that "every citizen 'who travels, checks into a hotel, or dines at a public restaurant is required to carry a sanitation pass,' verifying that he or she has been to a public bathhouse within the past week."

Cumings is aware of the flaws of North Korea, but they have no perceptible emotional impact on him. He generally withholds moral judgment, owing to his zeal to rehabilitate it and to his reflexive indulgence in moral equivalence (the U.S. and South Korea, in this view, are no better).

Sections of the book offer some useful information about the cultural-historical background and recent economic difficulties of North Korea and about the personal lives and character of its two leaders (dead and living). It is however of far greater interest as a document illustrating the remarkable persistence of the political attitudes of academic intellectuals durably estranged from their own society and predisposed to find virtue in others opposed to it, and in the surviving idealized social arrangements of the past.

Mr. Hollander's books include Political Pilgrims, Anti-Americanism, and most recently Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist.