A very old civilisation

[HelPick2]

Korea has such an oustanding culture because, like other great cultures, it is of an old civilisation, and had thousands of years to perfect itself. The civilisation centring in the Taedong River basin (near Pyongyang) is 5000 years old, much older than Western civilisation.

For more information:
http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/English/Books/Daedongkang/daedong-8.htm

[Neutron Jack]

For more information:
http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/English/Books/Daedongkang/daedong-8.htm A fact-filled website, indeed. At http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/NaeNaRa/MAIN/MAIN-ENG.HTM, it has a list of "Immortal works", which includes the "Works of Kim Jong Il"! Clearly, this is an unbiased, scholarly, site.

[Zep]

Ixabert, if you continue to launch new threads on subjects completely unrelated to skepticism at the rate you are going, you will get pinged as a scammer and then banned from this forum. I'm sure you wouldn't want that, would you.

Anyway, would you be so kind as to limit your topics to skeptical stuff, AND limit the number of new threads too. That way, we all stay friends.

[HelPick2]

Originally posted by Neutron Jack
A fact-filled website, indeed. At http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/NaeNaRa/MAIN/MAIN-ENG.HTM, it has a list of "Immortal works", which includes the "Works of Kim Jong Il"! Clearly, this is an unbiased, scholarly, site.

Even though I do not subscribe to most of Kim Il Sung's or Kim Jong Il's ideas, I found some of those works quite informative.

[diomedes]

I lived in Seoul from 1997-2001 and this is the type of crap I always heard from Koreans. "We have 5000 years of history." Actually it's a myth: They have about 2000 years of history, since that's approximately when writing was introduced from China. (Actually I'm being generous, and you could maybe reduce the time period by a couple hundred years.)

It's all part of the Korean Racial Myth. The subext is that since we have 5000 years of history and you don't, so we are much more advanced and EVOLVED and in everyway superior in everything we do than you.

Of course we just laughed at them, which drove them buggy, and took long vacations in Japan or Thailand where people are pleasant. (See Thailand and die!)


Some responses to the statement, "Korea has 5000 years of history:"

"And this is the best you've been able to do?"

or "You can have the last 5000 years, the next 5000 belongs to us."

or, "Yeah, baby, whatever. Listen I have some good tasting liquor back at my place."

Of course which response you chose depends on the conext in which you find yourself in.


I do think this is appropriate on a skeptical boards since the themes implied are national myths, ideologies of national superiority, racism (since many Koreans consider themselves genetically distinct from the rest of humanity, and do not claim any type of general humanity which they share with the rest of the inhabitants of this planet) and related topics. Do not these examples of conformist un-thought deserve a debunking as well?

(In fact it was while still living in Korea that I found this board while searching the net for critical thinking related sites in an attempt to make myself better able to argue these topics.)

The Korean education system and Korean society does nothing to encourage critical thinking skills--and I'm talking about the ROK. Instead students are indoctrained into the great Korean racial myth, so they really, really need our help.

(Most of my friends in Korea were, by Korean standards failures, but they were some of the best people I've ever met anywhere. The ones that dropped out are the ones who are tuned in. It pains me to see the suffering inflicted upon them by their ignorant countrymen who form the majority.)


--------

(Edited because I just looked at the website.)

Yeah, the link is North Korean propaganda, and I just want to make clear that I wrote mostly about the South not the North.

The South also has a plan for the North: the wants to enslave the North Koreans into sweat shops, strip it of its natural resources and take all the profits for themselves. They don't seem to understand that the North Koreans might disagree with a point or two in this post-reunification scenario.

[Zep]

Originally posted by diomedes
I do think this is appropriate on a skeptical boards since the themes implied are national myths, ideologies of national superiority, racism (since many Koreans consider themselves genetically distinct from the rest of humanity, and do not claim any type of general humanity which they share with the rest of the inhabitants of this planet) and related topics. Do not these examples of conformist un-thought deserve a debunking as well?Sure, but can I suggest that we keep to that, and not let the politics submerge it?

[Skeptic]

I lived in Seoul from 1997-2001 and this is the type of crap I always heard from Koreans. "We have 5000 years of history."

Heh. "My history can beat up your history" is a favorite game in some cultures. A joke about it?

Chinese: My people have 3000 years of history.
jew: my people have 4000 years of history.
Chinese: Impossible! What did your people eat for the first 1000 years?