I was published in Liberty Unbound with an article about my visit to North Korea and what that trip revealed not only about totalitarianism but also about myself and the West.

In the article, I explain why I went to North Korea: not to laugh at others or to feel superior, but to challenge my own conditioning and observe human nature under extreme conditions. North Korea is the worst country I have visited. Its tyranny is nearly perfect. Its people have been stripped of private property, freedom of movement, outside information, and independent thought. A citizen can exist only by subverting his humanity to the state.

But the article is also a warning against easy self-congratulation. Western people laugh at North Korea, but often fail to see their own forms of obedience, hysteria, statism, propaganda, and mental submission. North Korea is a mirror. The question is whether we have the courage to look into it.

Read the archived article at Liberty Unbound via the Wayback Machine →