An examination of the Swedish soul must begin, I’m afraid, with sex. Not Volvo, not IKEA, not Alfa Laval nor H&M. Not Strindberg nor Dagerman nor even Astrid Lindgren and Pippi Longstocking. Not the welfare state, not income equality nor criminal justice. Not the Lutheran Church nor collective bargaining. Not the Vikings nor 200 years without war. It’s that three letter word—and the half-myth about Swedish promiscuity—that is our starting point.
The town I live in, Lund, across the bridge from Copenhagen, hosts not only Scandinavia’s oldest university and cathedral, it is full of high-tech companies including some of the ones mentioned above and many computer technology, biotech and pharmaceutical start-ups. It is where I have lived for the last eight years. It hosts thousand of students and the weekends are notoriously wild. But the students are bright and after I’ve given a lecture I like to take those who want to out for a drink.
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From the article: [Sweden] was the only western nation to give significant funds to the African National Congress.
Not correct. Norway, Denmark and Finland also supported the ANC and other anti-apartheid organizations for years, directly and through NGOs.
http://www.metafilter.com/83120/In-Search-of-the-Swedish-Soul#2642406
Jonathan Power´s essay is a beauty. It only lacks to have written about the typical arrogance of the Swedes. For them, it does not matter what they do, say or think, they show their arrogance, specially if the other part is a foreigner. They treat others, their nationals included, with contempt and rudeness. I believe they still think of themselves as the conquerors of Europe and the only thing they have really accomplished well was to betray its neighbours by becoming an ally og Hitler for their own benefit. History is written and it has not been written wrong or changed. Swedes are arrogant, racists and discriminating because they still believe they live in the times of Nazi Germany.
But, did they ever had a soul? I wonder
Dear Jonathan,
I like the article for several reasons. I can see your point that Swedes in general (and Danes for that matter) are basically puritan-hedonists, a contradiction in terms, with a tendency towards binge drinking/sex/anything. At the same time they are rather uptight and then totally way out ‘orgaistic’ episodes which are accepted, without shame. But still.
Secondly, the role of women since the middle ages, because of extreme bilateral inheritance made sure that women never could be totally subjugated.
Thirdly, an irritating self-assurance that what ‘we’ do is always the right thing, to such an extent that it tolerates criticism and irony. Finally, the close ties between land (nature) and city (civilization) which can be extended to human biology, and perhap salso amszing equanimity in emotion and pragmatism. Denmark seems to be the same in so many respects.
I really liked this article.
Originally from southern country and living the most of time in southern Europe,I do not know at all this country and the article gave me a desire to discover it.
I am sure that we still can find a lot of positive things there.
I am living in Sweden for a while. Before I came here, I haven’t experienced racism or xenophobia (the latter as the fear meaning); and I’m not an afro-descendant person. If you are a foreigner, it is ‘expected’ that you must behave more Swedish than the Swedes; if not, you will never be accepted in their discriminatory society. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are just that, an exception.
jonathan, you are surrounded there by truely great artists…
Congratulations on your achieving a utopian society.
Men and women or Women and men; everything divided evenly down to the most minute detail of toilet use.
Maybe, just maybe a few problems.
Perfect sex, but a falling demographics.
Inviting in masses of Muslims with rising demographics. A culture that calls for submission to their religion and way of life. Submission? Yes, the Swedes are excellent in submitting! In 20 years or so; they will be able to submit to the Muslim culture. Sorry, but all that random sex will not be allowed. Neither will that kissing in public or drinking of alcoholic beverages.
Swedes have given up their Liberty in exchange for their perfect society.
They are the serfs of the government bureaucrats.
They have exchanged Freedom for comfort.
They need to have multiple partners to search for the perfect sex, because they are empty of achievement.
Not to worry, they can always escape to their little country homes.
They are a society in fear.
Fear of failing.
Fear of succeeding.
Fear of not being politically correct.
Fear that a man may have a millimeter of masculinity more then women.
Fear of whatever the government tells them to be fearful of; just fill in the blanks.
They have created the most perfect Medieval society.
At the bottom is the Swedish population.
Above them the servants of their liege lords; called bureaucrats.
Their liege lords; called elected government officials.
Finally, all can bow down to unknown and unelected bureaucrats of the European Union.
(The EU that was heavily influenced after WWII by the Nazi bureaucrats.)
Maybe, young Swedes want as much sex as possible, because they know that their society is nearing its end.
They now live in the “Brave New World.” Enjoy.
Dudes and Dudettes,
That place sucks: sanctimonious poseurs who can’t hold their alcohol, know sex but never romance, and languish under a royal family so retarded that headman Carl Gustaf 16–”which man wants to see his name in the papers?”—was implicated soliciting prostitution at an Atlanta Strip Club while officially “representing” at the 1996 Olympic Games–way to go, sport!
Holy! That was long article but very interesting! Thank you
Lund and Uppsala (often referred to wrongly as the Oxbridge of Sweden)
Dear Jon and readers,
Can you please explain the bit above? What is wrong with it?
I live in Sweden. Interesting article but a bit of an apologetic article towards the Swedes. As the other comments stated, the Swedes tend to hypocritical, pontificating and judgemental. If you do not do it \their\ way then you are an outsider. Sweden, in my opinion, is the most conservative and least flexible country in Scandinavia.
[...] Jonathan Power at Prospect Magazine: An examination of the Swedish soul must begin, I’m afraid, with sex. Not Volvo, not IKEA, not Alfa Laval nor H&M. Not Strindberg nor Dagerman nor even Astrid Lindgren and Pippi Longstocking. Not the welfare state, not income equality nor criminal justice. Not the Lutheran Church nor collective bargaining. Not the Vikings nor 200 years without war. It’s that three letter word—and the half-myth about Swedish promiscuity—that is our starting point. This was written by ch. Posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009, at 4:41 am. Filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Comments are closed, but you can leave a trackback. ‹ NYT – Spoon-Fed at the Cineplex [...]
I find this article very much sweetened and dressed up. Contrary to popular belief, the Swedes are not as sexually liberated or \easy\ as foreigners make them out to be. In fact, I found Sweden tobe one of the most difficult places to \pick up\ a girl (and I live in the student town of Lund).
Generally Swedes are cold and devoid of passion and have a so-so approach to everything (there’s a word for it that the author forgot to mention: Lagom).
So the ranking of a man being good in bed, and no bitterness in divorce sounds like it was taken from watching too many episodes of Sex and the City rather than coming from the \Swedish soul\. Surely the ranking could not have been a Swedish invention, since Swedes are some of the most indecisvie people I have met.
[...] as Jonathan Power has argued, there is a belief in Sweden that a person shouldn’t prosper at the expense of the [...]
Lund isn’t the oldest university in Scandinavia: that’s Uppsala (1477), then Copenhagen (1478), then Dorpat (1632) and then Lund (1666). If the writer refers to the uncertain information about a group of students in Lund in the 1430s, it is unverifiable and Lunds Universitet don’t acknowledge it as a proto-institution. While we’re on the hisory lesson, Sweden’s time as a superpower ended in July 1709 at the Battle of Poltava in the Ukraine. From that momnet on, Sweden was eclipsed by Russia in the North.
“For Swedes, young and old, the world is a far away place about which they know little”. Well this is not actually really true. In rankings Swedes know more about the world than Americans, Germans and the French. Source: http://www.pisa.oecd.org/page/0,3417,en_32252351_32236225_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
And for José Luis Belmar: I am truly mortified over those words. Really. Once again racism is increasing all over Europe, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy said that islam was a threath to the european society and that mosques should not be allowed. In Sweden there are several mosques and people are open minded in comparison to other europeans.
There is a town called “Södertälje” nearby Stockholm with a population of 60.000 people, they greeted more iraqies than the whole United States did combined.
Helen, Helen. You must be a true Swede who does not see the forest because she has a littly tiny bush in fron of their eyes. Your mention about Södertälje is pathetic. This little town was forced to receive thousands and thousands of iraquies and your comment about that they receive more than the United States combined shows that you do not even know that the USA is one country and not a combination of States or countries. So if you are perfectly happy with the situation in your arrogant country, wait till Stockholm take over Rotterdam as the capital of Eurabia. Just wait in front of one of those mosques and pray for your future.
Sorry Helen. I should have understood that your data came from Wikipedia, but you forgot to add Canada in your comment. It should have read as follows: “Södertälje has taken in more Iraqi refugees than the United States and Canada combined”.
Great article in my opinion!
One point from a western Canadian’s perspective…… The article mentions the conformitism that exists in Sweden, stating that the “Swedes are the Japanese of Europe.” To explore this point, I think examples could be drawn between the other nordic countries and Sweden, to prove
this point.
There is also a significant amount of ageism that exists in Sweden – when I mention observations of ageism to young Swedes
and foreigners, they always say, “hey, you’re right, that is ageism!” I had never experienced ageism before I moved here, and I now witness it daily.
The word is “oriented” not “orientated”. Orientated is not a word. It might be one of the most commonly misused terms in the English language, dreadful as the English language is.
I enjoyed reading this article as it filled in a number of gaps. I have only visited Sweden once, as a naval cadet on a training cruise in 1966. Two things stood out: first feeling like a pauper in Stockholm on a day allowed ashore and not being able to afford the, seemingly, very expensive coffee and, second, an idyllic trip by Land Rover overland to Gothenburg with the ship’s padre (I was the first to respond to the invitation to take part). In 1998, In Santiago de Chile, a new Swedish Defence Attache turned up in order to assist with the Swedish sale of the Gripen fighter to Chile. He and his family and those from SAAB formed an update to my opinion of Swedes: they are nice but slightly naive in the world.
[...] sort of baggery is this? After reading this article on Sweden – written by an expat living there several years now – I have come to ask myself (and you) just [...]