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Posted on 12/15/2006 2:07:00 PM PST by WesternCulture
There's a certain aspect of this issue that the article below fails to comment upon, therefore, please read my comments to the article.
"Sweden: the world's most modern country?
Is Sweden the most modern country in the world? And are Swedes the most insecure people on this planet? These two questions are central to a new series on SVT due to premiere on Wednesday.
The programme, 'Världen's modernaste land' (‘The most modern country in the world’), is a reflection on what it means to be a Swede. The presenter, television-friendly linguist Fredrik Lindström, has already notched up two major successes for the national broadcaster.
In his two earlier series he analysed the idiosyncrasies of the Swedish language and lent a curious ear to the nation’s most mysterious dialects.
But now Lindström has chosen to burrow into the deepest crevice of them all: the Swedish psyche.
Over seven episodes the timeless riddle that is Sweden will be broken down into its constituent parts and slowly unravelled.
The programme considers the theory that the Swedish mentality is premised on two opposites: complacency and insecurity.
According to Lindström and his historian sidekick Peter Englund, Swedes tend to trust in the notion that Sweden is one of the best and most modern countries in the world. But these same people also view themselves as tepid and boring when viewed in an international perspective.
Fredrik Lindström explains these generalisations held by Swedes about themselves and their country as “a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy”.
The programme offers answers to a whole catalogue of the type of questions posed by anybody who has spent any length of time in the country.
Wednesday’s first episode offers a dissection of the supposedly antisocial Swede.
Why is it not the done thing to talk to people on the bus, whereas when invited to somebody's home you are expected to babble incessantly? Is this not a burden for the famously reticent Swedes? Or is the shy Swede just another myth that needs deflating?
“There is a historical reason that is often mentioned to explain Swedes’ antisocial side: land partition reforms begun in the late 18th century, which destroyed village communities,” Lindström explains.
As a result, rather than preserving a strong sense of community, ”everybody had to look after themselves as much as possible. This becomes clear in sayings such as ‘alone is strong’ or ‘a good man looks after himself’.”
In another episode Lindström casts viewers back to the late 1960s, when plots were hatched to build a million flats, when politicians embraced the cardigan, formal titles were abandoned, the word "mysig" (nice and cosy) made its national breakthrough, and people started taking off their shoes at the door.
While shoe removal and cosiness might be viewed as intertwined, there is also a political sub-text, according to Lindström.
“It is a commonly held opinion in Sweden that it is bourgeois to keep your shoes on indoors. This is probably inherited from the 1960s when the radical left wished to distance itself from middle-class habits such as indoor shoes.”
All through the series the questions just keep on coming.
Why are 40 per cent of Swedish households inhabited by a single person (60 per cent in Stockholm), which is a higher proportion than anywhere else in the world. Is this a sign of modernity, atomization, independence, or something else entirely?
Why do Swedes have such a weakness for rational arguments, technology and standardisation?
Why did the pared down functional style prove such an architectural hit in Sweden?
Are Swedes cold-hearted engineers who always let their heads rule their hearts?
Is it true that the majority of ‘traditional’ Christmas dishes made their debut in the 1960s and 1970s?
Why is everybody just sitting there? Why is nobody doing anything?
So many questions! Could be worth tuning in to get some answers.
Världens Modernaste Land will be broadcast on SVT 2 on Wednesday at 8pm. Repeated on SVT24, Thursday, 10pm; SVT2, Saturday, 11:50pm; SVT2, Sunday, 12:40pm
Paul O'Mahony"
While many US citizens still view Sweden as a "Socialist" country, Sweden has in fact been more successful in capitalism than most industrialized nations around the Globe the last 15 years and have boasted substantially higher figures of GDP growth rates than the other, mostly zero-growth, economies of Europe.
Furthermore, Several Liberals in the US fancy making Sweden an example of what the future United States of America ought to look like while being unaware/ignorant/dishonest enough to recognize that:
1. North America and Northern Europe constitute two completely different cultural and political traditions. At best, We can learn from each other.
2. There is a very strong tendency among Scandinavian voters in general (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic) of turning to Conservatism presently. The old "Socialist" ideas of the 1960-1970's is something we sent down the drain 25 years ago. Today, Scandinavians believe in hard work and capitalist investment (while I must admit several of our taxes are very high - while in fact corporate taxes are lower than in the US).
Today, Many Scandinavians feel the tradition of strong unions and the idea of the welfare state have helped the Scandinavian countries become the richest part of the world per se, while there ALSO - even in a homogenous culture whith a inherited codex of honor like Scandinavia - exists a great risk of these factors strangling the development of an economy heavily dependent on competition with the world outside of its borders (which is the situation in all of these countries). This has been the case in several contexts and a lot of voters have got fed up with narrow-minded socialist policies.
Welfare is OK, but creating something using your very own hands is worth ten, if not hundred, times more. That is the spirit that gave birth to IKEA, Volvo, Nokia, Ericsson, Lego, SAAB and Electrolux.
What could American Liberals learn from the recent development of Scandinavia?
- That the values of Hard Work, Culture, Family, Education and Enterprise are intrinsic to restoring Civilization when under attack.
Ping to our 67-member Swedish Ping List, including our newest member, Dixie Yooper. (SPL members, please add Dixie Yooper to that list I sent you yesterday.)
Sweadish VOLVO makes most of the garbage trucks in the USA. They outlast any the US can build,
I recently watched a show about the Copenhagen-Malmo bridge/tunnel. Very impressive (Although the cost was never mentioned). Unfortunately, it appears that the roadway has facilitated the Muslim invasion of Malmo.
It looks like the pendulum is swinging the other way in the Scandanavian countries for many reasons. I hope the US is paying attention.
For Example...
I find the following quote from a female professor disturbing:
Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 2001 said that Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes; because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor's conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.
So, what again do we have to learn from Sweden?
"Swedes view ourselves as being more in touch with the phenomena of globalization (and especially that of the international political, scientific and technological development of our times) than any other nation. "
Really?
even in a homogenous culture whith a inherited codex of honor like Scandinavia...
Funny, I don't recall the Finns being particularly fond of the Swedes nor of the same language/cultural stock.
How's that influx of Muslims working out in Malmo and elswhere? Are there still students receiving government stipends while working on there 3 or 4th degree because of a lack of jobs?
Malmo...
"I recently watched a show about the Copenhagen-Malmo bridge/tunnel. Very impressive (Although the cost was never mentioned). Unfortunately, it appears that the roadway has facilitated the Muslim invasion of Malmo."
I heard the residents of Malmö financed it all in order to encourage muslim immigrants to emmigrate to Copenhagen, Malmö's twin city.
“It is a commonly held opinion in Sweden that it is bourgeois to keep your shoes on indoors. This is probably inherited from the 1960s when the radical left wished to distance itself from middle-class habits such as indoor shoes.”
No, they are not. We used to have a "Finnish" guy at our company who told me stories of the racism his wife and children experienced from the Finns in school. She and his children were red-heads. He also experienced some racism, as he was dark-haired. Yes, a "modern culture". I have no background to talk about how the Swedes behave, however.
I heard that Finns regard Swedes as their gay cousins.
“It is a commonly held opinion in Sweden that it is bourgeois to keep your shoes on indoors. This is probably inherited from the 1960s when the radical left wished to distance itself from middle-class habits such as indoor shoes.”
For once the radical left had a good idea ( borrowed from the Japanese ) . Nothing like stepping in a pile of dog poop in the dark and then walking through your plush carpeted living room ...
nothing good has come out of Sweden since the Krag Jorgensen.
I see this quote a lot, so I went looking for more information and found this, which makes me wonder just what the original context of the statement was:
For the last ten years, Unni Wikan has publicly campaigned to convince the Norwegian government to reform its welfare policies and multiculturalist practices directed at immigrant populations. (...) In 1995 she sent shock waves through polite Norwegian society by publishing a book-length study that concluded that the state's policies of cultural respect and financial generosity toward the country’s immigrant and refugee inhabitants were effectively betraying the latter, abetting ethnic ghettoization, creating welfare dependence, and destroying self-respect.(...)Unsympathetic readers might reasonably accuse Wikan of engaging in a racist polemic, of being an apologist for anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim politics. Overall, the book tends to portray immigrants as lazy, criminally inclined, mostly illiterate men who steal welfare benefits and violently repress their daughters' and sisters' life chances. To criticize the book in this way, however, would be, according to Wikan, to participate in a "conspiracy of silence" (p. 11 and passim) that victimizes young women and abets the creation of an ethnic underclass. Researchers’ fears of being accused of racism, Wikan recounts, have impeded the qualitative and quantitative studies necessary to evaluate and reform state policy.
We don't wear our shoes inside the house. And it isn't because we are trying to be pretentious -- the carpet, the floors, etc. all last a lot longer.
A thousand Swedes,
Run through the weeds,
Chased by one Norwegian!
women should pack heat, to protect themselves from Muslim (and other) thugs.
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