Brian Reynolds Myers

Even North Korean people who are not necessarily happy with economic policies are still loyal to the state itself. It's a military-first state, so whether it does very well on the economic front or not, is not central to public support for it.

People tend to overlook the fact that North Korea's economy collapsed at about the same time as South Koreans lost faith in their own state. The late 1980s and early 1990s were a time when South Koreans were questioning the very legitimacy of their republic.

That's a mistake I think that a lot of Western observers make is to assume that Korean nationalism is hundreds if not thousands of years old. When in fact nationalism is incompatible with Korean Confucian tradition.

Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time.