Butcher PAGE 2
Butcher PAGE 1
Chloe Butcher
Professor K. Koenig
English 1C
12 September 2013
What is the New Kid Thinking!
If the world was a playground, Kim Jong Un is the new kid on the block; and his confusing actions-threats of nuclear war-seem to be his way proving himself to the other countries. A few months ago North Korea (almost daily) declared nuclear war on the United States and South Korea (New York Times.com). The frequency of these threats while at first very alarming, made the American public dismissive of the threat. After listening to many one sided reports on the issue, I decided to look for what the world thought of North Korea's war threats and the North Korean and American conflict. This lead to psychological impediments such as: Self-deception, Denial, Rationalization, and Partisan Mindset.
To find America's point of view, you don't need to look further than the comment section on a CNN news story.
United States
United States
Satellite picture displaying the Korean peninsula ...After reading a couple comments, it becomes glaringly apparent that the American public has succumbed to a state of Self-deception and Denial. Commenter Weston Petersen says, "Boston's over 'And now we return to your regularly scheduled programming' North Korea!"(CNN.com). This comment just proves how far removed from reality American's can be. They have lived so long with the media reporting how close they were to crisis and war breaking out that the idea of a war or crisis actually affecting them feels outlandish. There is a very intense "boy who cried wolf" effect to it. By this I mean that the government has become the metaphorical boy crying wolf about war coming to America, and the public no longer believes that war will really come. While the threat of nuclear war is very real, U.S. Citizens have become so accustomed to...