Michael Malice

If it's not working in reality, given the perfection of the ideology, someone must be intentionally undermining it and causing the disconnect between thought and reality.

And in the Soviet Union, there were, I think it was the kulaks at one point, then it was the wreckers, the doctors, it was just different.

There was always someone, and Trotsky was called a fascist and was accused of plotting with Hitler and all this other stuff.

Yeah.

So I saw that in North Korea, right?

Wherever you went in North Korea, something was wrong.

So if you have four buttons for the elevator, one would be mismatched.

Every wall had a crack.

Every floor had a stain.

The bathroom would be rusted through when you wanted to flush the urinal.

But if you are someone who points this out, you're a troublemaker.

Oh, you're saying something's wrong.

You're criticizing the operation.

First of all, you're threatening the person who's in charge because now they're incompetent and now that's a big red flag for them.

But second, if you're just going around saying this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, even if it's objectively true, you're a troublemaker and you're a counter-revolutionary.

So at a certain point, everyone just has to put on blinders.

and pretend that everything is fine.

One example I used in the book, an extreme example, was there was a photography professor and he pointed out to his class, and he was an older man, that before the revolution, the quality of photographic paper was better.

And he was, I think, executed for this heresy.

So yeah, you have to pretend.