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Brian Reynolds Myers

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Brian Reynolds Myers
Born1963 (age 62–63)[1]
New Jersey, U.S.
EducationRuhr University
University of Tübingen
OccupationProfessor[2]
Organization(s)Dongseo University,[3]
Busan, South Korea
Known forThe Cleanest Race (2010)
A Reader's Manifesto (2002)
SpouseMyung-hee Myers
RelativesGlenn Lynn Myers (father)
Websitewww.sthelepress.com Edit this at Wikidata

Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963), usually cited as B. R. Myers, is an American professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, best known for his writings on North Korean propaganda. He is a contributing editor for The Atlantic and an opinion columnist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Myers is the author of Han Sŏrya and North Korean Literature (Cornell, 1994), A Reader's Manifesto (Melville House, 2002), The Cleanest Race (Melville House, 2010), and North Korea's Juche Myth (Sthele Press, 2015).

Early life and education

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Myers was born in New Jersey, near Fort Dix.[4] His mother is British,[5] and his father was a U.S. Army officer from Pennsylvania who served in South Korea as a military chaplain,[6][7][8] often helping out local orphans.[9][10] Myers is also a descendant of John F. Reynolds though his father.[11]

Myers spent his childhood in Bermuda and his high school youth in apartheid-era South Africa,[12][13][14] and received graduate education in West Berlin during the early 1980s,[15][4][16] occasionally visiting East Germany.[17] He earned an MA degree in Soviet studies at Ruhr University (1989) and a PhD degree in Korean studies with a focus on North Korean literature at the University of Tübingen (1992). Myers subsequently taught German in Japan[16] and worked for a Mercedes-Benz liaison office in Beijing during the mid-1990s.[18]

Career

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Before his appointment at Dongseo University, Myers lectured in North Korean literature and society at the Korea University's North Korean Studies Department.[19] He also taught globalization and North Korean literature at the Inje University Korean Studies Department.[20]

Journalism

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Opinion columns

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Myers's opinion columns for the Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal generally focus on North Korea, which he says is not a Marxist-Leninist or a Stalinist state, but a "national-socialist country."[21] He has also commented in The New York Times on the common view of the ROKS Cheonan sinking in South Korea with regard to its perception of North Korea.[22] He stated that there was a lack of outrage over the incident among South Koreans due to the racialized nature of Korean nationalism; in other words, there was no major uproar over the incident in South Korea because of the concept of racial solidarity with the North Koreans that many South Koreans feel, which Myers said overruled patriotism towards South Korea in many cases.[22] Myers stated that inter-Korean racial solidarity manifests itself by South Koreans supporting the North Korean soccer team at the FIFA World Cup and such.[22] He contrasted the racialized nature of South Korean nationalism with the civic nature of U.S. nationalism, stating that South Korea's antipathy over attacks by North Korea was potentially dangerous to the national security of the South Korean state:[22]

South Korean nationalism is something quite different from the patriotism toward the state that Americans feel. Identification with the Korean race is strong, while that with the Republic of Korea is weak.[22]

Book reviews

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His book reviews have included denunciations of American historian Bruce Cumings[23] (who he says is an admirer of the North Korean regime), American author Toni Morrison,[24] American author Denis Johnson,[25] South Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong,[26] and American author Jonathan Franzen.[27]

Books

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Myers' Han Sŏrya and the North Korean literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK (1994) was adapted from his 1992 dissertation at the University of Tübingen and published as the sixty-ninth volume of the Cornell East Asia Series.[28]

A Reader’s Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose (2002) was developed from his critical review essay of the same name published in the Atlantic in 2001.[29]

The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters (2010) is a discussion of North Korean propaganda, contending that North Korea under Kim Jong Il was guided by a "paranoid, race-based nationalism with roots in Japanese fascism."[30] Myers asserts that the North Korean political system is not based on communism or Stalinism, and he contends that the official Juche idea is a sham ideology for foreign consumption and intended to establish Kim Il Sung's credentials as a thinker alongside Mao Zedong.[31] Myers also claims that post-Cold War attempts to understand North Korea as a Confucian patriarchy, based on the filial piety of Kim Jong Il and the dynastic transfer of power from his father, are misguided and that the North Korean leadership is maternalist rather than paternalist.[32]

Myers furthers his argument about the status of Juche as a non-ideology in his book North Korea's Juche Myth (2015). According to his own account, promoting him to write the book was the realization he was making "not the slightest bit of headway" with The Cleanest Race in challenging the conventional wisdom about Juche in the academia.[33] North Korea's Juche Myth develops a three-pronged categorization of North Korean propaganda. Some works are in the "inner track", meant for North Korean eyes only. Others are in the "outer track", meant primarily for North Korean consumption but mindful of the fact that foreigners can access them too. "Export track" propaganda specifically targets foreigners.[34]

Reception

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Myers's book The Cleanest Race has been challenged by several academic critics.[35] Charles K. Armstrong, then of Columbia University, suggested that the book "gives an intellectual gloss to attitudes many in the West already have about the DPRK".[36] Felix Abt, a Swiss business affairs specialist who lived in North Korea for seven years, describes Myers' claims in The Cleanest Race as "flawed" and "shaky". Abt wrote that it was "rather absurd" to describe Juche as "window-dressing" for foreigners.[37]

South Korean literary critic Yearn Hong Choi also regards the thesis of Myers's Han Sŏrya and North Korean Literature as erroneous:

How can Myers say that he [Han Sŏrya] is not a socialist realist? How can Myers say that Han's thought is not compatible with communist ideology? I can understand Myers’s views on orthodox socialist realism, yet I see socialist realism abundantly present in North Korean literature: North Korean writers still advocate socialist realism. Myers simply does not interpret socialist realism as they do.[38]

Tatiana Gabroussenko points out that Myers is the only Western academic who thinks that North Korean literature does not have the hallmarks of socialist realism.[39]

Scholar Andrei Lankov favorably reviewed The Cleanest Race as taking a "fresh approach" on North Korea.[40] Lankov also says Myers's work is "informative"[41] but is not sure whether his thesis has any relation to reality.[42]

Historian Suzy Kim criticized Myers's methodology, arguing that the overriding problem throughout his book is a flawed translation. She criticized Myers's race theory when analyzing inter-Korean (especially North Korean) politics; while he translates the word mimjok (민족; 民族), which means nation or ethnic group in Korean language,[43][44][45] as the "race", but minjok and "race" are not synonymous.[46] In Korean, the synonym for 'race' is injong (인종; 人種), rather than minjok.[47][48][49]

Myers's North Korea's Juche Myth was favorably reviewed by Jan Blinka and Balazs Szalontai.[50]

Scholar Pak Noja, also known as Vladimir Tikhonov, a Soviet-born Korean activist and historian, criticized Myers, commenting that had the academic rigor of overseas Koreanology had been a little bit higher, his work would have clearly been established as a non-academic, somewhat amateurish historical revisionist attempt like The Comfort Women of the Empire. He points out that the content of his book, regardless of Myers' inclinations, is so detached from a balanced account of historical facts that citing it can lead one into confusion.[51]

Personal life and politics

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Myers is married to a South Korean woman, Myung-hee Myers.[52] He lives and teaches in South Korea, where he moved to in September 2001.[14][16] During the late 1990s, he lived in Valencia County, New Mexico.[53][54] Politically, Myers is a supporter of the Green Party of the United States and animal rights. Myers can speak Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and German.[55] He is a vegan.[16]

South Korea politics

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Despite his progressive view of American politics, he is often regarded as a "conservative" in South Korea because he has a critical view of the "nationalist-left" political views of South Korean liberals and progressives.[56][57][58] In a December 2014 interview with conservative Munhwa Ilbo, Myers identified himself as a "conservative and staunch anti-North Korea".[59] He opposes anti-Japanese/anti-imperialist Korean [ethnic] nationalism (민족주의; 民族主義; minjokchuŭi) and advocates anti-communist South Korean [state] nationalism (국가주의; 國家主義; kukkajuŭi).[n 1][61][62][63] According to the Hankyoreh, a left-leaning media outlet in 2011, Myers was described as having a "typical view of American conservatism".[64]

South Korean liberals and progressives support the view that the Republic of Korea (South Korea) was founded in 1919, when the Provisional Government was established, not 1948, the official establishment of the South Korea government. In contrast, South Korean conservatives recognize Aug. 15, 1948, as the 'founding day' of the Republic of Korea.[65] Myers supported the position of South Korean conservatives by expressing the view that August 15, 1948, should be commemorated by enacting the founding anniversary.[59] Also, he argues that honor of Syngman Rhee, the 'founding president' (건국 대통령) must be restored, rather than that of minjok independence activist Kim Gu;[66] in South Korea, Rhee is known as a right-wing anti-communist "state nationalist" dictator, because Rhee prioritized state (국가) over minjok (민족).[67]: 40–1 

Myers had an interview in 2024 with the ultraconservative Segye Ilbo, supported by the Unification Church; he opposed the Impeachment of Park Geun-hye and defended pro-Park conservatives. Myers defended Park Geun-hye, accusing the Impeachment of a "parliamentary coup".[61] He also expressed negative views on both the Sunshine Policy and the abolition of the National Security Act.[68]

Myers supported changing minjok to "Republic of Korea" in the text of the Pledge of Allegiance, but criticized Hankyoreh for calling for the abolition of the Allegiance on the grounds that it encourages state nationalism; Myers holds the view that state nationalism is necessary, including Allegiance, but Hankyoreh opposes state nationalism and supports minjok-based left-wing nationalism.[62][69][70]

In January 2024, Myers compared the right-wing to far-right conservative People Power Party and Yoon Suk-yeol with Tony Blair’s Labour Party, and described the centre to centre-left liberal Democratic Party as a "nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-Chinese, Ukraine-indifferent, not-too-LGBT-friendly party".[58] Some scholars and media analyzed that Myers’s political analysis is biased toward the [South Korean] conservative; his views are often equated by critics with the New Right (뉴라이트) movement.[51][64][71] He did not support the New Right,[72] but called it a "brave" matter that New Right activists discussed North Korea’s infiltration in certain parties, unions and church groups.[73]

Bibliography

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  • Myers, Brian Reynolds (1994). Han Sŏrya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK. Ithaca, New York: Cornell East Asia Program. ISBN 0-939657-84-8.
  • — (2002). A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness of American Literary Prose. Hoboken, New Jersey: Melville House Publishing. ISBN 0-9718659-0-6.
  • — (2010). The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters. Hoboken, New Jersey: Melville House Publishing. ISBN 978-1-933633-91-6.
  • — (2015). North Korea's Juche Myth. Busan: Sthele Press. ISBN 978-1-5087-9993-1.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ↑ B. R. Myers opposed to minjok, the central element of Korean [ethnic] nationalist or reunification discourse, but does not oppose Korean reunification itself, and he supports a "Republic of Korea" (South Korea)-led state-nationalist reunification while calling for the elimination of the legacy of the North Korean regime. This is distinguished from the more common anti-reunification view among those opposed to minjok.[60]

References

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  1. ↑ "Myers, B. R., 1963-". Lawrence Public Library Catalog. Retrieved February 1, 2010. Myers, B. R., 1963-{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  2. ↑ "Faculty>Faculty - DIS". uni.dongseo.ac.kr.
  3. ↑ "Dongseo 114". Dongseo University. Archived from the original on August 2, 2009. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
  4. 1 2 Rosett, Claudia (August 30, 2002). "How Dare He! Reviled Critic Gets the Last Word". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on January 20, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Propaganda in the age of Kim Jong-Un: A discussion with Professor B.R. Myers". freekorea.us. August 2017.
  6. ↑ "GLENN L. MYERS Obituary (2014) the Washington Post". Legacy.com.
  7. ↑ "Glenn Myers". mountcastle.net.
  8. ↑ "Franklin News Herald Archives, Jul 23, 1982, p. 3". newspaperarchive.com. July 23, 1982.
  9. ↑ Myers, B.R. (January 8, 2018). "A Response to Twitterati". Sthele Press. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  10. ↑ Patton, Benjamin; Scruby, Jennifer (March 6, 2012). Growing Up Patton. Penguin. pp. 236–237. ISBN 9781101560013. Retrieved June 13, 2019. Then, while driving in his jeep one night that winter, he came upon the Waegwan orphanage. 'There were over a hundred children there, and I couldn't believe how shabby they looked,' [Myers] remembers. 'They were barefoot — and it was cold outside. One kid had a belt made out of wire to keep his pants up. They didn't even have anywhere to take a bath — they just had helmets filled with water occasionally dumped over their heads. And, of course, most of them were GI babies who'd been fathered by soldiers and just left at the police station.' If was especially bad to be an orphan in Korea. 'If you can't trace your family back five or six generations, you're nobody,' Myers notes. So he decided to add some theater to his anti-VD campaign: to raise awareness about the orphans' plight in every crevice of the camp — and, true to his mission — use it as a reminder of sexual consequences. Myers raised money among the soldiers to buy clothes and shoes for the orphans. He enlisted Army engineers to build them a proper bathhouse. At the end of every month, Myers sat at the head of the pay line with a 'For the Orphans of Waegwan' donation can. Some of his in-your-face tactics hit too close. When Myers got permission from the mess sergeants to bring a group of children to the mess for Thanksgiving dinner, for instance, one of his commanders, a lieutenant colonel, lashed out. 'He pulled me aside and said, "This is our Thanksgiving, not theirs. What the hell are they doing here? You have no business doing this and you'll pay for it" — the implication being that he'd get me,' Myers remembers. 'And this is a guy who'd just come from church!'
  11. ↑ "Where Are the Seoul Watchers? — B.R. Myers – Sthele Press". sthelepress.com. Archived from the original on January 7, 2022. Retrieved May 15, 2022.
  12. ↑ "[Rebroadcast] The Cleanest Race: An Interview with Author B.R. Myers". KEI. Korea Economic Institute. Archived from the original on September 14, 2017.
  13. ↑ "Interview with Chad O'Carroll". 2012. Archived from the original on September 14, 2017. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  14. 1 2 "Korea Tour: Outsider Status with B.R. Myers". Notebook on Cities and Culture. February 5, 2015. Archived from the original (MP3) on April 5, 2016.
  15. ↑ Myers, Brian Reynolds (April 7, 2019). "South Korea's Nationalist-Left Front". Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved April 9, 2019.
  16. 1 2 3 4 Kim, Sun-jung (May 29, 2005). "The Remarkable B. R. Myers Revealed". Joong-Ang Daily. South Korea. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  17. ↑ "What North Korea wants" – via soundcloud.com.
  18. ↑ Karen K. Smith. “KS Contact Info for Brian Myers?” KoreaWeb.ws. 20 November 1998. Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  19. ↑ 북한학과 (Puk’an hakkwa; North Korean Studies Department). Korea University. Archived February 16, 2005, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  20. ↑ 2006학년도 1학기 강연내용 (2006 School Year First Semester Lecture Content). Korea University. (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  21. ↑ “The Constitution of Kim Jong Il.” Wall Street Journal. 1 October 2009. Archived September 23, 2013, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 Myers, Brian Reynolds (May 27, 2010). "South Korea's Collective Shrug". The New York Times. New York. Archived from the original on April 19, 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  23. ↑ “Mother of All Mothers: The Leadership Secrets of Kim Jong Il.” Atlantic. September 2004. Archived October 1, 2009, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  24. ↑ B.R. Myers. “Mercy!” Atlantic. January/February 2009.[link removed] (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  25. ↑ B. R. Myers. “A Bright Shining Lie.” Atlantic. December 2007 Archived August 20, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  26. ↑ B. R. Myers. “The Caged Bird Sings.” New York Times. 8 September 2008. Archived September 3, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  27. ↑ B. R. Myers. “Smaller Than Life Atlantic. October 2010 Archived January 1, 2011, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved October 15, 2011)
  28. ↑ “Han Sŏrya and North Korean Literature.” Bibliothekskatalog Tübingen. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.[link removed] (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  29. ↑ Myers, B. R. (July–August 2001). "A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose". Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 4, 2010.
  30. ↑ “Book Discussion with Author B. R. Myers.” North Korea International Documentation Project. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  31. ↑ "Immersion in propaganda, race-based nationalism and the un-figure-outable vortex of Juche Thought: Colin Marshall talks to B.R. Myers, author of The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters". April 12, 2010. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  32. ↑ Myers, Brian Reynolds; Bunch, Sonny (June 1, 2010). "North Korea's Cultural Shackes. The Cleanest Race". Policy Review (161 (June–July 2010)). Hoover Institution. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
  33. ↑ O'Carroll, Chad; Myers, B.R. (2013). Interview with B.R. Myers: pt. 1, "North Korea's Juche Myth". SoundCloud. NK News. Retrieved October 15, 2015.
  34. ↑ Silberstein, Benjamin Katzeff (July 1, 2016). "Book Review: 'North Korea's Juche Myth'". 38 North. Retrieved October 13, 2018.
  35. ↑ Charles K. Armstrong, "Trends in the Study of North Korea," Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 70, 2011; and Suzy Kim, "(Dis)orienting North Korea," Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, September 2010.
  36. ↑ Charles K. Armstrong, "Trends in the Study of North Korea," Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 70, 2011, p 360.
  37. ↑ Abt, Felix (2014). A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom. Tuttle Publishing. pp. 62–63. ISBN 9780804844390.
  38. ↑ Yearn Hong Choi. Review of Han Sŏrya and North Korean Literature. World Literature Today. Vol. 69. No. 1. Winter 1995. p. 230. JSTOR. (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  39. ↑ Gabroussenko, Tatiana (2010). Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-8248-3396-1.
  40. ↑ Andrei Lankov. Review of The Cleanest Race. Far Eastern Economic Review. 4 December 2010. Archived January 4, 2010, at the Wayback Machine (Retrieved February 1, 2010)
  41. ↑ Lankov, Andrei (2013). The Real North Korea. Oxford University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-19-996429-1.
  42. ↑ Andrei Lankov (November 30, 2017). От защиты к нападению. Может ли ядерная программа Северной Кореи стать наступательной. Carnegie Moscow Center (in Russian). Carnegie.ru. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
  43. ↑ 민족주의 (民族主義) [Nationalism]. Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (in Korean). Retrieved August 15, 2024. 'nation'과 'nationalism'의 번역어는 국민과 국민주의, 국가와 국가주의, 민족과 민족주의 등 다양할 수 있는데 이 중에서 민족과 민족주의가 지배적 번역어로 채택된 사정은 한국의 식민화 과정과 밀접하게 관련되는 것이었다. [The translations of 'nation' or 'nationalism' can be diverse, including 국가 or 국가주의, 국민 or 국민주의, and 민족 or 민족주의, the situation in which 민족 or 민족주의 were adopted as the dominant translation language was closely related to the colonization process of Korea.]
  44. ↑ 민족주의 (民族主義). National Institute of Korean Language's: Korean-English Learners' Dictionary (in Korean). Retrieved August 15, 2024. nationalism
  45. ↑ 민족 (民族). National Institute of Korean Language's: Korean-English Learners' Dictionary (in Korean). Retrieved February 14, 2024. people; ethnic group
  46. ↑ Kim, Suzy (September 2010). "(DIS)ORIENTING NORTH KOREA". Critical Asian Studies. 42 (3): 481–495. doi:10.1080/14672715.2010.507397. The overriding problem throughout Myers's book translation. For his race theory of ideology to work, Myers translates the term minjok as race, but these terms are not synonymous.
  47. ↑ Charles K. Armstrong (June 18, 2013). Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950–1992. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-6893-3. ... minjok, similar to the German Volk ...
  48. ↑ "인종 (人種)". National Institute of Korean Language's: Korean-English Learners' Dictionary (in Korean). Retrieved February 14, 2024. race
  49. ↑ Clark W. Sorensen; Donald Baker (2013). The Journal of Korean Studies, Volume 18, Number 1 (Spring 2013). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 47. ... injong (race) or minjok (ethnos) in the historical context.
  50. ↑ Jan Blinka, "Brian R. Myers, North Korea's Juche Myth," Czech Journal of Political Science, No. 1 (2017), pp. 74-76; Balazs Szalontai, "North Korea’s Juche Myth," Chugoku 21, No. 46 (2017), pp. 163–168.
  51. 1 2 Pak Noja (February 4, 2016). 역사왜곡의 기술. 레디앙 (in Korean). Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  52. ↑ Rosett, Claudia (August 30, 2002). "How Dare He! Reviled Critic Gets the Last Word". Wall Street Journal.
  53. ↑ "Pyongyang's Familiars — B.R. Myers". Sthele Press. April 2023. By the way, I used to live in New Mexico too, in the small town of Los Lunas, which is now less famous for having had Bo Diddley as deputy sheriff than for being the site of the hardware store in Breaking Bad. I took the 2-hour drive up to Los Alamos circa 2000, when I delivered an abandoned husky to the state's only husky rescue service.
  54. ↑ A 2015 interview with B.R. Myers on Notebook on Cities and Culture
  55. ↑ "Getroffen: Brian Myers, Uni Busan / Südkorea; Korea wohin? (2. Teil)". www.alf-tv.ch.
  56. ↑ Myers, Brian Reynolds (April 7, 2019). "South Korea's Nationalist-Left Front". Sthele Press. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
  57. ↑ Myers, Brian Reynolds (May 30, 2019). "On Foreign Coverage of Moon Jae-in — B.R. Myers". Sthele Press. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. In any case we are not dealing here with a principled, absolute peace-mindedness. Moon seems keen on pounding the racial tom-tom, rehearsing the defense of Dokdo (that kind of military exercise is always all right), and letting close associates dispense belligerent anti-Japanese rhetoric at times of tension — like Cho Kuk's invocation of the "Bamboo-Spear Song" in August 2019. I repeat: What actuates Moon Jae-in's preoccupation with the North is Korean nationalism and not humanitarianism or pacifism, let alone exceptional niceness.
  58. 1 2 Myers, Brian Reynolds (January 3, 2024). "No, Kim Hasn't Given Up on Unification". Sthele Press. Busan, South Korea. Archived from the original on January 8, 2024. The People Power Party currently ruling the country isn't even center-right by American standards; I'd put it on a par with Labour under Tony Blair. Not to mention that President Yoon, according to his wife, is well to the left of the PPP. [The] Minjoo Party, [is] a nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-Chinese, Ukraine-indifferent, none-too-LGBT-friendly party of a sort those papers would rage against if it were in Europe. But the Council on Foreign Relations works in mysterious ways.
  59. 1 2 “北도발에도 조용… 한국인엔 ‘민족’만 있고 ‘국가’는 없다”. 문화일보 (2014. 12. 19).
  60. ↑ Chad O'Carroll (September 27, 2012). "Kim Il Sung Statues Will Stay Up After Unification". NK News. Retrieved August 30, 2026.
  61. 1 2 “한국엔 ‘국가 자부심’이, 북한엔 ‘공산주의’가 없다”. 세계일보 (2024. 08. 03).
  62. 1 2 Myers, Brian Reynolds (September 14, 2010). "South Korea: The Unloved Republic?". Archived from the original on May 19, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2013. In his talk, "The Unloved Republic? On the Lack of State-Nationalism in South Korea," Myers argued that a tradition of state "blood-based" or ethnic nationalism on a divided peninsula runs the risk of undermining loyalty to one republic and promoting loyalty to the other, competing, state. [...] The political left and right need to join together to move away from a focus on the 1940s and post-colonial heritage and shape a healthy loyalty to the Republic of Korea.
  63. ↑ James Constant (November 14, 2024). "These Bloody Ties: A Review of "The Unloved Republic" by Brian Myers". Sino NK. Retrieved August 11, 2026. South Korea's reliance on blood nationalism may indeed have been well-suited to the demands of the early years of the Republic, but Myers insists that love of the new state alone should have taken precedence. He leaves unexamined South Korea's early leaders' motivation for choosing ethnic nationalism over civic nationalism, which he refers to as national spirit (국가정신).
  64. 1 2 “북한은 극단적 민족주의…극좌보다 극우”. 한겨레 (2011. 12. 06).
  65. ↑ Myers, Brian Reynolds (August 11, 2017). "Low-Level Confederation and the Nuclear Crisis (in 2 parts)". Sthele Press. Archived from the original on December 1, 2024. Retrieved August 15, 2024. Yi Hae-sŏng, a young podcaster, was one of many conservatives who lamented Moon's reference to 1919 as the year in which the Republic of Korea was established. With those and other words, the president declared himself the heir to a nationalist and not a constitutional-democratic tradition, a man who will rule more in the spirit of the exile government that strove to liberate the minjok than of the republic that joined America in resisting North Korean aggression.
  66. ↑ Brian Reynolds Myers - "사랑받지 못하는 공화국" [The Unloved Republic] (2024-02-08). p. 59–66. "유신정권에 전체주의라는 딱지를 가져다 붙이는 것에 대해서는 논의할 가치도 없지만 사실 나는 국가주의라는 딱지도 그리 정확하지 않다고 본다. ... [그들이] 북한이 끈임없이 전복시키려는 대한민국을 지키기에 가장 적합한 방법이 민족주의를 부추기는 것이라고 생각했다는 점이다. 그 이유로 일본과의 관계 정상화를 위해 노력하는 와중에도 전국 곳곳에 이순신장군 동상을 세웠고 건국 대통령 이승만의 명예를 회복시키는 대신 독립 운동가 김구를 민족의 지도자로 내세웠다." [There is no point in debating labeling the Yushin regime as totalitarian, but in fact, I also do not think the label 'state-nationalism' is entirely accurate. ... [They] believed that the most suitable way to protect South Korea, which North Korea was relentlessly trying to overthrow, was to incite minjok-nationalism. For that reason, even while striving to normalize relations with Japan, statues of Admiral Yi Sun-sin were erected across the country, and instead of restoring the honor of Syngman Rhee, the founding great leader, independence activist Kim Gu was presented as the leader of the minjok.]
  67. ↑ Schmid, Andre (February 1997). "Rediscovering Manchuria: Sin Ch'aeho and the Politics of Territorial History in Korea". The Journal of Asian Studies. 56 (1): 26–46. doi:10.2307/2646342. JSTOR 2646342.
  68. ↑ B.R. Myers (August 11, 2016). "The Juche Myth: A Response to Haggard". Peterson Institute for International Economics. Retrieved July 26, 2026.
  69. ↑ Myers, Brian Reynolds (May 20, 2018). "North Korea's state-loyalty advantage". Free Online Library. Archived from the original on February 22, 2026. Retrieved August 3, 2026. The pledge to the flag was amended in 2007; schoolchildren now declare loyalty not to the homeland and the race but to a "free and just Republic of Korea." Although the change was inspired by the increase in multiethnic households, not by the drive to bolster state-patriotism per se, the left-wing media objected that the new oath "runs the high risk of calling forth violent and exclusive state-ism [kukkajuui]." (30) [...] (30) "Pyollo naulge omnun 'Kukki ui taehan maengse'" [A hardly improved "Pledge to the flag"], Hankyoreh, 6 July 2007
  70. ↑ "별로 나을 게 없는 '국기에 대한 맹세' 수정안" [A hardly improved "Pledge to the flag"]. Hankyoreh (in Korean). Retrieved July 25, 2026. 근본적으로 볼 때, 모든 국민에게 국가에 충성하겠다는 맹세를 강요하는 것은 양심을 침해하는 행위다. 또 집단 최면 같은 맹세로 애국심을 고취시키자는 생각은 폭력적이거나 배타적인 국가주의를 부를 위험이 높다. 애국심이나 충성은 진심으로 우러날 때나 의미가 있을 것이다. [Fundamentally, forcing all citizens to swear an oath of loyalty to the state is a violation of conscience. Furthermore, the idea of fostering patriotism through oaths that resemble collective hypnosis carries a high risk of calling for violant and exclusive statism. [State] patriotism and loyalty are meaningful only when they spring from the heart.]
  71. ↑ James Constant (November 14, 2024). "These Bloody Ties: A Review of "The Unloved Republic" by Brian Myers". Sino NK. Retrieved August 11, 2026. Indeed, Myers' central belief that South Koreans need to develop pride in their own republic is a now-orthodox view among many influential conservatives, having been pushed to prominence by the New Right movement that started in the late 1990s.
  72. ↑ Myers, Brian Reynolds (September 14, 2010). "South Korea: The Unloved Republic?". Archived from the original on May 19, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2013. The New Right in South Korea believes at last that an official state patriotism is needed. They are trying to revise history textbooks and to change August 15 into a national "founding day," not a liberation day anymore. In Myers's opinion, this is the worst way to instill patriotism in the populace.
  73. ↑ B.R. Myers (February 13, 2016). "Taking North Korea at its Word". NK News. Archived from the original on February 13, 2016. Retrieved July 26, 2026. There is a wider range of opinion in the ROK, but it would be a brave historian indeed who would discuss the North's infiltration of certain parties, unions and church groups. A few veterans of the protest movement who are now in the so-called New Right have told me they fear the social repercussions of speaking out. The very least they could expect would be a libel suit.

Further reading

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