Conducting Moral Equivalency in Pyongyang

The New York Philharmonic left Thursday, February 7 for a three week tour in Asia.  The orchestra will perform in Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong.  While orchestras and opera companies regularly tour Asia, this tour includes what the Philharmonic’s website simply identifies as “Korea.” In truth, the orchestra will be in Seoul, South Korea and in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.The music director of the Philharmonic, Lorin Mazeel is being criticized for the decision since performing in Pyongyang can be viewed as tacitly endorsing the oppressive Stalinist regime of North Korean president Kim Jong Il.

Mazeel defended the decision by arguing that the Philharmonic will be reaching out to the ordinary citizens of North Korea and by commenting that “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw bricks,” thus drawing a moral equivalence between justice imperfectly administered in the United States with North Korea’s systematic violation of human rights, concentration camps, and slave labor.

Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal originally raised concern about the trip in an article last October entitled, “Serenading a Tyrant: Why is the New York Philharmonic going to North Korea?”  On February 5, James Taranto returned to the controversy, taking on Mazeel’s bizarre moral equivalency argument in the Journal’s “Best of the Web” column.