Reciprocity in Action: North Korean Style

This photograph appeared in The Korea Herald on Tuesday this week.  It shows   North Korean ‘party cell’ secretaries of the ruling Workers’ party arriving at Pyongyang station for a national conference. These are the men (and a few women) who cement North Korean society together. They are the great mediators who ensure that the web of reciprocal relationships that unites the DPRK remains firm.

My first thought was ‘zombies’.  Of course, the face masks helped to create the dehumanizing impression. But I think even without them this would have exemplified the hive mind in an especially dispiriting way.  The fact that the photograph is an official North Korean press agency stock photo intended to communicate a positive message is telling, however. For them, this extraordinary level of anonymous and servile social conformity is actually a preeminent source of the DPRK’s self-esteem. 

In Intimacy and Integrity  (2002) Thomas P. Kasulis notes that within the recursive social  model  that has dominated East Asia via Confucianism, which is based on what he terms a heightened sense of the individual as being closely bound to others according to  ‘intimacy’ or ‘holism’. This he opposes to the dominantly Western model of individual autonomy or  ‘integrity’. In the former, there is can be a tendency towards placing excessive power in the hands of a selected member or members of the ‘intimate’ cohort, and when this is applied to the nation state it may incline towards authoritarianism. The deviant example of North Korea obviously suggests itself.  Mindless obedience to authority, and conformity to the ‘official’ line, even by the so-called ‘intelligentsia’, and even in the face of abundant evidence that this ‘line’ has little basis in testable facts,  are clearly negative consequences of ‘intimate’ or  ‘holistic’ thinking.   More generally, Kasulis also notes that the holism of yinyang thinking can actually bifurcate into a form of dualism of a far more inflexible kind than even that of our Western-style binary thinking. 

At the moment, I’m reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis  (2006), and some of his observations seem relevant to the photograph.  Chapter 3 is about ‘reciprocity’, in which Haidt discusses the  ‘ultrasociability’ of humans, and how it has helped ensure our success in terms of evolutionary struggle. He begins the chapter with a quotation from the Analects of Confucius: “Zigong asked: ‘Is there any single word that could guide one’s entire life?’ The master said: ‘Should it not be reciprocity? What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.”’ This is what is often called the ‘golden mean’, and, Haidt argues, is reall a strategy: play tit for tat, or I will do to you what I want you to do to me. '“Specifically, the tit-for-tat strategy is to be nice on the first round of interaction; but after that, do to your partner whatever your partner did to you on the previous round.” This is a strategy that creates a scenario characterized by phases of gratitude on the one hand and the desire for vengeance on the other, and within human societies these phases take on vast proportion spanning millennia and the entire globe.

You might be wondering how the photograph exemplifies the ‘golden rule’. Couldn’t it a be  pretty good visual image of ultrasociability, of humans living in large cooperative society where millions of individuals reap the benefits of an extensive division of labour? As Haidt notes, ultrasocial animals like ants and bees “evolved into a state of ultrakinship, which led automatically to ultracooperation (as in building and defending large nest or hive), which allowed the massive division of labour (ants have castes such as soldier, forager, nursery worker, and food storage bag), which created hives overflowing with milk and honey, or whatever other substance they use to store surplus food. We humans also try to extend the reach of kin altruism by using fictitious kinship names for nonrelatives”. 

The ‘party cell secretaries’ are one such division of the ultrasocial labour collective of the human animal as it has evolved in North Korea. On the far left you can see a welcoming musical band of blue uniformed women.  These constitute another division.. Note how important the distinguishing role of uniforms are in consolidating such social distinctions and roles on a basic visual level.  But these uniforms do not simply designate specific roles, they also signal, exploit, and celebrate the natural inclination of humans to copy each other, or to mimic - one of the most fundamental channels through which reciprocity is achieved within a society. “Mimicry is a kind of social glue, a way of saying ‘we are one’”, writes Haidt. “The unifying pleasures of mimicry are particularly clear in synchronized activities such as line dances, group cheers, and some religious rituals, in which people try to do the same thing at the same time.”  North Korea seems to have perfected the art of social mimicry, and thus to have created a surprisingly durable ‘glue.’ But as the synchronized dancing of K-pop bands like BTS and Blackpink show, mimicry is an especially appealing activity, and can manifest itself within the very different social context of the Republic of Korea. 

K-Pop sensation Blackpink give us a tutorial in reciprocity via mimicry.

Why did the North Korean leadership call all these loyal ant-secretaries to Pyongyang for a national conference?  In part it must be to ensure allegiance or fealty. But another reason is suggested to me by reading Haidt’s book: it provides an occasion for gossip. The leadership has an instinctual grasp of the role played by language in ensuring ultrasociability, because of what language enables:  the sharing of social information, aka gossip.  As Haidt writes: “what we gossip about is the value of other people as partners for reciprocal relationships. Using these tools, we create an ultrasocial world, a world in which we refrain from nearly all the ways we could take advantage of those weaker than us, a world in which we often help those who are unlikely ever to be able to return the favour.….Gossip and reputation make sure that what goes around comes around – a person who is cruel will find that others are cruel back to him, and a person who is kind will find that others are kind in return."