Brian Reynolds Myers Quotes

They can't understand why any American in his right mind who's not escaping a jail term or something, would voluntarily want to come to [South] Korea and live here.

They have a much more positive view of the country than I do.

South Korea is a very capital-centric country.

The left wing and the right wing in this country [South Korea] are equally invested in keeping alive the myth of a far-left North Korea. This is what exasperates me. I realize that I'm up against so many different constituencies, each of which has an interest in maintaining the myth of North Korea as a far left state.

Triteness of content has not necessarily hurt ideologies in the past. There are very few original or profound ideologies on the political scene.

North Korea is very much sui generis. It is best seen as being on the cusp between far right and far left. In European political terms I would call it a Strasserite state, after the leader of the Nazis' left wing. Which is to say it is a race-oriented, militaristic state with socialization of assets.

In South Korea, which is a much less conservative environment, politicians do not take their wives around with them as much as their American counterparts do. Showing pride in your wife is thought of as juvenile bad form. There's a special pejorative for people who do it.

South Koreans are very nationalist, too, because in South Korea nobody cares if the North Korean people starve to death, but they get very nervous about the Chinese people investing heavily in North Korea and they get very worried about the prospect of China maybe taking over North Korea. In other words, they only worry about North Korea in terms of nationalist problems and nationalist questions.

Communism is all about breaking down nationalism, about uniting workers around the world, and North Korea has always been about the opposite, it’s been about racial purity and pride, so remember North Korea was isolated even inside the old east-block, even inside the Soviet block.

South Koreans do not consider the integrity of their state important enough to go to war for.

North Korea has to inspire its people and so far it's done that.

North Korea's future depends on a large extent on South Korea's future.

What you have here in South Korea really is extreme nationalists.

You don't prove a point with nationalists; you cannot make nationalists happy.

North Korea fears an improvement in relations.