Yeonmi Park, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the Alignment of Some Refugees with Far-Right Talking Points

[Koldo]

What context would you say I need to write a comment on this subject?

The context where the statement was actually uttered. Just so you don't misrepresent what another person said.

 

[Koldo]

I think that kinda treads into purely semantic territory. The main point was that Yeonmi Park's statements were hyperbolic to the detriment of clarity and appreciation of the difference between the situation in the U.S. and that in North Korea. That she found professors' asking students about their preferred pronouns to be so offensive is in itself bizarre given that it's a practice that harms no one, but that issue is secondary to the excessive exaggeration in her statements.

I had no hard time understanding her though. So I can't agree with you.

I don't see much point in calling any specific issues "first-world problems," although I agree that some issues are more urgent than others. For instance, starvation is clearly more pressing than the usage of an incorrect pronoun, even though the latter can still cause distress to some people.

In my opinion, calling someone "spoiled" for having issues that we might view as less pressing than ours is counterproductive, dismissive, and minimizing of their experiences. It's possible to be in solidarity with others even if we think their issues don't necessarily have the same urgency as ours, and vice versa. By that same token, someone could call Yeonmi Park's gripes about her experience at an Ivy League university "first-world problems."

It is a first-world problem!
Which doesn't mean it is irrelevant, just that it is really important to put it into perspective.

After all, how many people in the world get to attend an Ivy League school and then complain about its culture? That certainly isn't an issue most people in developing or third-world countries can claim to have experienced. For almost any problem one can think of, there's always an arguably worse or more urgent one. That's why I don't think such comparisons or minimization of issues that may be important to others is useful.

I find them extremely important, if not essential. Google 'Karen' and you will see what I mean.

 

[Kooky]

The context where the statement was actually uttered. Just so you don't misrepresent what another person said.

So I am not allowed to comment on her words because I was not present when she spoke them?


What about you, were you there?
If not, then how can you trust yourself to put her words in the proper context where they were uttered?

 

[Koldo]

So I am not allowed to comment on her words because I was not present when she spoke them?


What about you, were you there?
If not, then how can you trust yourself to put her words in the proper context where they were uttered?

What are you talking about?
Where did I mention anything about being present when she spoke?

 

[Kooky]

What are you talking about?
Where did I mention anything about being present when she spoke?

"The context where the statement was actually uttered."
Since you were not forthcoming with any further information, I have to read your statement literally.

 

[Koldo]

"The context where the statement was actually uttered."
Since you were not forthcoming with any further information, I have to read your statement literally.

Let me try again: I meant you were quote mining her.

 

[Kooky]

Let me try again: I meant you were quote mining her.

That doesn't make it any more informative to me, sorry. In what way do you think I have misquoted her?

 

[Koldo]

That doesn't make it any more informative to me, sorry. In what way do you think I have misquoted her?

She didn't say that the USA was worse off than North Korea. She was talking about one specific issue where she sees it as worse than in North Korea. One very specific point.

 

[Kooky]

She didn't say that the USA was worse off than North Korea. She was talking about one specific issue where she sees it as worse than in North Korea. One very specific point.

It's not just "one specific point". It's a whole range of issues, as the article mentions. Here, I've highlighted the various points in which the US is just as bad as North Korea, or worse:

"I expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think," Park said in an interview with Fox News. "I realized, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying."

Those similarities include anti-Western sentiment, collective guilt and suffocating political correctness.

She was also shocked and confused by issues surrounding gender and language, with every class asking students to announce their preferred pronouns.

"English is my third language. I learned it as an adult. I sometimes still say 'he' or 'she' by mistake and now they are going to ask me to call them 'they'? How the heck do I incorporate that into my sentences?"

"It was chaos," said Yeonmi. "It felt like the regression in civilization."

"Even North Korea is not this nuts," she admitted. "North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy."

She accused American higher education institutions of stripping people's ability to think critically.

"In North Korea I literally believed that my Dear Leader [Kim Jong-un] was starving," she recalled. "He's the fattest guy - how can anyone believe that? And then somebody showed me a photo and said 'Look at him, he's the fattest guy. Other people are all thin.' And I was like, 'Oh my God, why did I not notice that he was fat?' Because I never learned how to think critically."

"That is what is happening in America," she continued. "People see things but they've just completely lost the ability to think critically."

"North Koreans, we don't have Internet, we don't have access to any of these great thinkers, we don't know anything. But here, while having everything, people choose to be brainwashed. And they deny it."

Having come to America with high hopes and expectations, Yeonmi expressed her disappointment.

"You guys have lost common sense to degree that I as a North Korean cannot even comprehend," she said.

 

[Koldo]

It's not just "one specific point". It's a whole range of issues, as the article mentions. Here, I've highlighted the various points in which the US is just as bad as North Korea, or worse:

I was taking about the case where she specifically said: "North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy."

But fair enough, she did criticize other things. But she did not say that North Korea is better than the USA, all things considered. If anything, she said the exact opposite when she criticized the athlete.

 

[Kooky]

I was taking about the case where she specifically said: "North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy."

But fair enough, she did criticize other things. But she did not say that North Korea is better than the USA, all things considered. If anything, she said the exact opposite when she criticized the athlete.

She still drew parallels between North Korea and the US, insinuating (or perhaps this is just a Fox spin that she followed for her own reasons) that US liberals are equivalent to the followers of a brutal authoritarian regime - while simultaneously deriding their issues as not being "real" concerns.

Frankly, this is such an ignorant and hateful take on US politics that I at first thought Fox News put words into her mouth to make her sound like the kind of right-wing nutjob their audience is bound to cheer, but it seems like at least some of her sentiments on these issues seem genuine.