One of my Swedish readers has volunteered to answer some frequently asked questions about Sweden and Swedes. So, just ask away in the comments and he may answer them. (Or not -- it's just voluntary on his part.)
Sweden is an interesting country, in part because its doom has been widely forecasted on the Right for, roughly, ever. I started reading National Review in my high school library in 9th grade in 1972. At the end of the school year in June 1973, the librarian told me they were tossing out all the issues of National Review from 1969-1971 to free up space, and did I want them? So, I read two or three years worth of back issues over the summer. I came away convinced -- among much else (14 is an impressionable age) -- that Sweden was about to collapse at any moment.
Sweden tends to represent one extreme pole of Northern Europeanishness. But, there's also much that's idiosyncratic to Sweden that distinguishes it even from other Nordic countries. Even for bookish Americans, its history -- like that of most countries besides England and France -- is kind of a blur. Although I probably know more isolated facts about Sweden than most other countries -- Vikings, Gustavus Adolphus, that other king who was like Gustavus Adolphus, the playwright Strindsen (Ibsberg?), Pippi Longstocking, and that furniture that comes in really heavy cardboard boxes -- I have little idea how it fits together.
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144 comments:
If the Swedes keep holding the door to their house open for the Middle East your prediction could still yet hold water.
Gee, I bet in 1972 there weren't a whole lot of Somalians, Iranians, Afghans and similar rabble in Sweden, and nobody back then would have been insane enough to think there ever would be.
Push the limits of insanity long enough, and even Sweden will collapse.
Although I probably know more isolated facts about Sweden than most other countries -- Vikings, Gustavus Adolphus, that other king who was like Gustavus Adolphus, the playwright Strindsen (Ibsberg?), Pippi Longstocking, and that furniture that comes in really heavy cardboard boxes -- I have little idea how it fits together.
OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!
Why did Sweden stick with socialism? Why didn't any Swedish government take a Reagan/Thatcher approach? Wouldn't Sweden benefit from someone like Ron Paul in power?
Do people listen to Abba in English or only in Swedish?
Are Slania and Transtromer famous?
Do you meet many missionaries?
Which of the following is true:
http://global3.memecdn.com/swedish-women_o_314131.jpg
What are or have been traditional problems (if any) between the Sami and Swedes generally?
I guess what I mean to ask is whether or not there has historically been a damaging cultural rift in Sweden between the two populations. I'd appreciate it if you'd discuss any such problems with regard to the latter-day importation of immigrants from elsewhere--if indeed there were any such problems to begin with.
Thanks.
Want to bet they didn't throw away copies of the Nation from the same time period?
1. Is Sweden a de facto Matriarhy?
2. A cartoonish image of Sweden that comes to my mind is that it's populated by "Care Bears" and yet Death Metal music seems really big in Sweden. Why? An exutory?
Swedes have a reputation for not frowning on the prevalence of white, Swedish children being born out of wedlock.
Is that true?
If so, why do Swedish folk have that attitude?
I suppose it would be interesting to know how the filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (not Ingrid, but the male director who was Woody Allen's hero) is reflective of Swedish culture; or more specifically, the plots and characters in his films. Are Swedes really that melancholic, intense, philosphical? Or conversely, is he seen as kind of an anamoly, sort of how Woody Allen himself is not really indicative of American culture - other than for intellectuals and for some middlebrow folks like Mr. Sailer(I should say here that I rather like Bergman's films, especially his Persona which might not be everybody's cup of tea. I've also always had a thing for Liv Ullmann - the star of many of Bergman's films - although from what I understand she is actually Norweigen).
What's the deal with pols who want men to sit down when they piss? Is that for real?
Also, my son and I went to see this Swedish Viking Death Metal band. It was corny as fuck, though he loved it. A last gasp? What's up?
Why have Swedes chosen to destroy themselves with their immigration policy?
1) Why are Swedish people so introverted?
2) Do Swedish people know that they are introverted?
3) Does Nordic culture promote introvertedness? Or maybe attempt to counter extroversion by giving shy people an edge in social interaction, etc?
What is it with young Swedish hotties spamming my girlfriend's Instagram acct with their undie shots and stupid political slogans plastered somewhere in the frame?
Dear Swede:
1) How doomed is your country relative to other white countries (which are also doomed, of course)?
2) What are the private opinions of normal Swedes about your middle-eastern immigrants?
How and why has Sweden managed to stay out of the Euro?
(Any Danes out there can feel free to answer this question too)
Also, why did Sweden stay out of the EU for so long?
Nordic Euroscepticism is a mystery to me. I cannot understand how such politically correct people in every other sphere have managed to be so devilishly Bad Europeans.
About how many Swedes feel neutral or proud about the global influence of Ikea, and how many feel awkward or embarrassed? Or do they not think about it much, one way or the other?
A good number of Americans are embarrassed by McDonalds' global reach, for example. And if anything comes close to "junk food" in design, Ikea would be it.
*Do people listen to Abba in English or only in Swedish?*
My god, I can't believe someone else asked this. I would refine it though and say, "Is ABBA better in Swedish?" It sure doesn't seem like it.
In a country with so many blondes, what are the stereotypes about people with brown or black hair? Or red hair?
From what I've seen of the rock bands and dance music groups who have been popular in America, they appear to be much darker-haired than I expected for Swedes. Is that accurate?
Are there any music groups that Swedes think of as national "hidden treasures"? Ones that were big in Sweden, and that you wished more people outside the country knew about?
In America, I'd say the really popular ones were ABBA, Roxette, and Ace of Base. (The Cardigans and The Hives got some airplay too.)
Do Swedes get passionate about anything? (Other than sex...that is, I am assuming you are passionate about sex.)
Put another way, is there something about which Sweden as a nation is passionate?
Two questions:
1) A decade from now, which young Swedish defenseman in the NHL do you think will be looked at as being the best: Erik Karlsson, Oliver Ekman-Larsson or Jonas Brodin?
2) Do Swedes look down on Norwegians in Scandanavia as much as they look down on them here in the US? And are Norwegians as resentful of Swedes in Scandanvia as they are of them in the US? Here in the US Swedes look on Norwegians as their dim-witted relations and Norwegians seethe with resentment at being treated as such. The hostilities are carried out in a very passive-aggresive manner so on the surface it's not really obvious but they complain bitterly about the other to neutral third parties (i.e. Germans).
How do Swedish conservatives behave in debates, at demonstrations, in interviews, and so on? Are they more polite and non-confrontational, or more assertive and dominant?
It seems that Sweden is much further down the road to the Feminist Utopia than the US. Is it all it's cracked up to be? Are the women happy and fulfilled? Are the men happy? Are the children?
I ask because I hear crazy stories about raising genderless children, or schools trying to stamp out gendered play or more workplace rules regarding gender and I wonder how it appears on the inside. Is there any sort of counter-movement? A sort of "get in touch with your inner viking"?
I guess my basic question is: do Swedish feminists feel that they have achieved everything they have set out to achieve and, if so, are they happy with the results?
The Swedish media is also controlled by the "scotch-irish"?
What are parenting styles like these days? Let's say the children are from ages 6 to 12. Do parents allow their children to play outside and away from home without adult supervision, or do they closely monitor and manage their lives?
Hitch-hiking in Sweden is difficult these days, according to people who have hitch-hiked in many countries:
http://hitchwiki.org/en/Sweden
Do you know if it was more common during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s?
Have the Swedes had any success in eliminating gender roles? Or are they basically the same as in the US, despite the more extreme rhetoric and policies?
Also, is the average Swede on the street really concerned about getting little boys to play with dolls?
Swedes are known for being mostly peaceful and non-confrontational. Are there regions in the country where the local people are different -- more rambunctious, concerned about their honor, and inclined to revenge if somebody disrespects them?
Isn't Sweden dark for 1/2 year?
Isn't that black enough for ya?
Do Swedes avoid drinking with Finnish people because they don't want to have friendly knife fights, or are they afraid that a knife fight between Finns and Swedes can never be friendly? Take this as literally or figuratively as you wish.
Do Swedish liberals threaten to move to another country, one that's more liberal, when they talk about some conservative policy or feature of life?
American liberals threaten to move to Canada, but is there an even more liberal country than Sweden that your leftists threaten to move to?
Men of many countries are drawn to Swedish women. It's almost mythological.
What about the other way around? What foreign country's women appeal the most to Swedish men?
Feminist influence in daily life seems to be very strong in Sweden. What role do men play in that? Are they generally supportive, or are they generally against it but prefer not to be confrontational about it?
Swedish chef?
What's with you guys and the Finns?
Just an example of Freud's "narcissism of petty differences"?
Or are the Finns truly a horrible people?
I suspect the latter.
What does the average Swede gain from mass immigration? A sense of togetherness and superiority that they may never have felt when there was no 'other'? Zlatan Ibrahimovic? Kebabs? Cheap cokes and other junk at Turkish shops? Rising property prices?
"What are the private opinions of normal Swedes about your middle-eastern immigrants?"
Yes. This is a good question. I lived in Sweden and speak the language, but I still don't know how Swedes really think about the rapidly changing demographics of their country.
Swedish reader here
(Although another one, not the one Steve has in mind).
Basic demographic info:
Young, white(duh), male, currently student at a top3 university doing math-y things.
Here are all the questions I bothered to answer, but I tried to be as truthful as possible:
"Why did Sweden stick with socialism? Why didn't any Swedish government take a Reagan/Thatcher approach? Wouldn't Sweden benefit from someone like Ron Paul in power?"
There was a wave of deregulation in Sweden in the 1980s and 1990s, the irony was that this was carried out by the left-wing parties. To give one example: Sweden's charter school system is the most free school system in the Western world, more so than it is in America or even in the UK. Again, pushed by the left. You had the deregulation of the TV industry, telecom industry, energy industry and the list goes on.
Also, taxes on the richest has come down, a lot. Sweden is still a welfare state, but it is a highly functioning one. The employment ratio of Swedes in the relevant 25-54 age demographic is 85%. America's is 75%. So we're working harder than you guys and our fertility rate is as high(if you look at the white American one) if not slightly higher. I'll get to immigration later on.
"Is Sweden a de facto Matriarhy?"
No, but highly equal. In Viking history, there's plenty of anecdotes and stories of very equal relationships between men and women. That is why I believe that we never needed feminism, equality between the genders tend to be strong in Northern European countries, but it does explain why feminism has gone to the maximum extreme here. Yet, we have still never had a single female prime minister, I think I read a statistic that there are more female CEOs in America than there are in Sweden(in the private sector). So there's a duality here. Sweden is very keen on equality between the sexes but we don't see the need to appoint many women to elite positions in the private sector(the government is different but the men tend to get the tob jobs of treasury sec, foreign sec, etc)
"A cartoonish image of Sweden that comes to my mind is that it's populated by "Care Bears" and yet Death Metal music seems really big in Sweden. Why? An exutory?"
Again, Sweden is a complicated place. We've went from the most masculine country in the Western world (Vikings) to arguably the biggest pussies. This duality is yet unresolved and the future is unclear. View that observation you made as a sign of that struggle.
S"wedes have a reputation for not frowning on the prevalence of white, Swedish children being born out of wedlock.
Is that true?
If so, why do Swedish folk have that attitude?"
Yes, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in Sweden among white women is huge. I think actually a majority of white women have children with white men without marrying.
This is for two reasons. First, we have something called 'sambo'. This is basically a relationship but it's viewed as more serious, it tends to be longterm and many view it as a good replacement for getting married. Now, many do end up getting married but often after the first child has been born.
Second, the welfare state policies also ensues that there's a lot less economical pressure to get married right away, making it more of a cultural choice. But Swedish men don't run away, they are very responsible fathers, married or not. Possibly the most involved fathers in the Western world. You could say that they are our equivalent of East Asian men when it comes to family.(Although family ties tend to be weak once you enter the teen years, but that's usually to the extended family, the inner core remains very strong). Should also mentioned that the divorce rate in Sweden has been trending down. We're quite conservative when it comes to families, but open to how fast you get married. (More dualities!)
(Part 1 done)
Part 2!
"Why have Swedes chosen to destroy themselves with their immigration policy?"
We haven't. The first time you had a public poll on immigration, back in the 1990s(a full 20 years after the policy was initiatied) a stunning 70% oppossed getting ANY immigrants who weren't of a Western origin. This has come down to about 50% today. But bear in mind this includes lots of non-whites in the numbers.
So why did we get along with it? Sweden was ruled for 40 years by a single party and even when the other team got a (very brief) shot at power, they essentially ruled in very similar terms in pure fear of getting booted out(didn't help).
This is what happens in a high-trust society. Surely the government can do nothing wrong! Well, this trust is breaking down as I write this, but bear in mind that while 15% of our population is foreign-born, a large fraction of that is coming from Europe. So our non-white population is about 10%(more on this later).
1) Why are Swedish people so introverted?
My theory: because Sweden is a huge place, for one. So in most of Swedish history you had scattered villages with little contact with much of the outside world. Second, Sweden isn't merely a big place with relativeley few people, it's also very cold. So you don't exactly get out and go 2 kilometers to your neighbour in the woods for a spontaeous chat when it's still only October but snowing like crazy, windy, cold as fuck and it's dark as hell. Tends to work against socializing.
This culture is slowly, slowly changing in the big cities, especially among the younger people, as Sweden is very urbanized these days. But culture is hard to change after hundreds, thousands of years.
2) Do Swedish people know that they are introverted?
It's part of our conversation. It's sort of like we giggle about it, and a minority of us actually try to change that but they're getting laughed at for the most part, in large part because we're not as introverted as many think. We're hard to know, but Swedes have surprisingly deep friendships with each other while Americans tend to be very shallow(this is the first thing we notice in America how you get invited to dinner parties right away and everyone is your 'friend' but we know it's cheap and false).
So the rep Americans have in Sweden are basically "people who are friendly, but have a lot of fake relationships".
So there's two ways of looking at this! ;)
Part 3.
"Does Nordic culture promote introvertedness? Or maybe attempt to counter extroversion by giving shy people an edge in social interaction, etc?"
I already answered my theory on the origins of Nordic, and especially Swedish culture. Danes tend to be more extroverted(by Nordic standards) and a lot less politically correct. This is why they can have a major party saying that they only want white immigrants and get away with it, sometimes even with getting subtle support by the major parties.
There's definitely a price to be paid against being an individualist. We call this 'jante lagen'. We hate it as we grow up, as we're teens and we rebel. But then we grow older and realize that there are good things with everything. For example, a highly functioning society needs a cohesive core.
Let's take a soccer(*shudders* for using that word) example: African football teams are known to be very technically skilled. But they're full of self-confident individualists. Hence, they all fight amongst themselves, there's no concept of self-sacrifice and they just generally tend to flounder in the international world cups. In fact, there hasn't been a single African country that has passed the quarter finals in the FIFA world cup. Sweden does pretty well considering that it has a climate not suited at all for football, and in sports like hockey we crush countries that have a much larger pool of players than we do, like America and we go toe-to-toe with countries like Canada.
This is also a point generally why European countries have tended to dominate football as the game as gotten harder and more organized(for example, Spain's national team). Latin America still do well, but countries like Argentina and Brazil have large white populations. Brazil for example usually have very good defensive players who tend to be white ethnics('Dunga' is one guy who's actually ethnially German but grew up in Brazil, became a defensive maestro and later a coach winning major titles).
Jante lagen has it's downsides and upsides. Again, Swedes love to whine about our faults but when we think about our society, the fact that we have one of the highest HDI scores in the world isn't a coincidence.
We tend to be self-deprecating a lot, but at the same time we think we're superior to all other untermenchen out there. I never promised this would make sense!
Part 4.
"How doomed is your country relative to other white countries (which are also doomed, of course)?"
Not as doomed. But getting there. America is way far ahead of the curve if you look at the actual stats.
Also, the Swedish net migration rate is around only 20% of Canada's or Australia's net-migration rate. Our largest immigrant group are returning Swedes(typically from work in Norway or London or being au pairs in America, which is also common). And then we got a lot of European immigrants.
Our trouble is that we have the largest per-capita asylum immigration in the Western world. Consider that we took in more Iraqis during the aftermath of the Iraq war than the entire continent of North America. A single town, Södertälje, took in more Iraqis than America as a country.
Most of the non-Western immigrants today are either East/South-East Asians(about 20% of the non-Western pie) or they are from places like Afghanistan, Somalia or now increasingly Syria.
The unemployment rate among non-Westerners is 20% in total and if you exclude the East/South-East Asian part, you probably get to above 30%. Somali immigrants have an unemployment rate of 80%.
Immigrants are 60% of the source of social welfare, despite being 15% of the population. And again, this counts all immigrants. Take immigrants from only Africa/Middle East and Afghanistan and you probably get like a population of 10% or so responsible for about the same amount.
But they're not really integrating at all. I'm of two minds. If there was an internal riot of a large order, we're talking about a Syrian civil-war scenario here, I'm much more bearish about America where 50% of the under-18 population is non-white and where there is a LOT more anti-white rhetoric in the media.
This sounds weird to many who think of America as this very patriotic place, and Sweden isn'. But I read lots of stuff and the level of incitement against whites you today get away with in America in amazing. The Swedish equivalent is mostly self-hate, but most immigrants know that the line is drawn at concern-trolling for them. They can't outright demonize whites because then they'd be creamed. This isn't the case across the Atlantic in land of the free.
Swedes basically control every single institution in society. There's no intellectual, cultural or similar threat from these people. The threat is our own suicide impulse, but in some ways I'd prefer to be in a position where the major challenge is the apathy of our own people rather than a serious (potential) threat down the road from people who are not us, like in America.
Part 5.
"What are the private opinions of normal Swedes about your middle-eastern immigrants?"
Depends who you're talking about. Iranians are a big group and have done very well, they also intermarry at high rates. In fact it's probably more common to see Swedish man/Iranian woman than the other way around but from what I've heard from people in Canada, UK and America they tend to do well in all Western countries.
As for the rest, Turks have done pretty well, and integrated a lot more than they have in Germany. Lebanese immigrants are usually doing quite well.
The big groups that are difficult to integrate are the more recent arrivals(last 20 years) from Iraq, mainly, but from other middle eastern countries too. The biggest group that is doing the worst on every count are the Africans. We have pure-bred Africans, no 20% admixture here. Eritreans, Somalis, Ethiopians and so on. Strangely, however, it seems they are less violent than the Middle Easterners, mostly because they live in closed-off ghettoes. Some of them have never even seen the city core.
But for the most part, Swedes don't really pay attention to them. One Asian diplomat, quoted in a recent Reuters article, summed it up well when asked about the recent riots:
'They have all these immigrants but they seem to be invisible to society. You rarely see them do more than selling hot dogs. Swedes have no contact with them'.
This is a truth with a modification, among younger people there is some contact, especially Lebanese/Iranians/Turks who tend to be quite westernized, but otherwise it's a pretty correct statement. For most Swedes, they are invisible people. People we try to be nice to, but ultimateley who we treat as non-Swedes. They feel this.
Even someone like Tino Samandji(did I get his name right?), the Kurdish-Swedish PhD in economics from Chicago, and a frequent writer(one of the good guys) on these issues acknowledged that he felt much more American a lot faster when he came over than he ever did as a Swede, even if he said he had a mixed friendship circle.
So in a way, we're very tolerant of strangers in our lands, but our sense of whiteness, if you will, is probably very, very strong but always unstated. Again, paradox!
Nordic Euroscepticism is a mystery to me. I cannot understand how such politically correct people in every other sphere have managed to be so devilishly Bad Europeans.
One reason may be that the EU isn't PC enough for them. At least half of all anti-EU activism among its member states is from the Left.
Part 6!
"How and why has Sweden managed to stay out of the Euro?"
Because we rock, basically. Also, the campaign to join was marred by the big capitalists joining together with the "left-wing" parties, not an uncommon sight in the pragmatic Sweden. So a lot of us just went "eh, I dunno". Also, Norway had been out and still is not even inside the European Union, even if they have special deals on the side, and they did fine so we thought "if them, why not us?".
"Also, why did Sweden stay out of the EU for so long?"
See previous answer.
"Nordic Euroscepticism is a mystery to me. I cannot understand how such politically correct people in every other sphere have managed to be so devilishly Bad Europeans."
We're politically correct because everyone is, and Sweden has long had a "broder duktig" complex, basically, we want to excel in class. We're the studious, disiciplined and nerdy person in class. We look up to the cool people but at the same time we view them in contempt because we secretley know we're so much better than they are.
Euroskepticism is a good example of this. Read anything about Europe and you'll see Sweden being an examplar nation. We're net contributors to the union(meaning we pay out more than we get back), we're always very quick to co-operate etc. But we do this because it's part of who we are, rather than a sign of our passion for the project. Again: we're disciplined and studious people. We do things right, we come on time and make a damn good job even when that job isn't exactly what we want. We joined the European Union because we felt and still feel that isolating ourselves totally wasn't ideal, but we were never French about the project. We have subtle contempt for most of our European neighbours, especially the Southern Europeans, basically the hispanics of Europe. We view them as lazy, undisciplined people. We all know the history of WWII. Look at how well it went for Germany to be allied with the useless Italians. The French gave up right away. It was basically a war between Northern European countries.
Now, Sweden is too small to matter in warfare(and too clever to get involved), but we have a basic culture very similar to Germany, but more introverted due to climate and sparse population. How do you think the average German view most other Europeans? The Germans are also studious, disciplined people doing their part but they view the others are useless, lazy people. This isn't far away from how we view the others. We basically like Anglos, Irish, Dutch and German people. Most Swedes have more positive things to say about America(which is really white America, but a Swede would never admit that, neither to himself or to others), Canada or Australia than we would about, say, France or Italy.
I hope that makes sense.
Last part, number 7.
This is just some genreal observations/statements from my side.
I hope you could get a better understanding of Swedes and Sweden. It's a very hard country to pigeonhole and stereotype, precisely because so many of our social codes and norms are never spoken. This is one of the many reasons why it's much easier, at least for a willing, pro-social(as in behaviour) and smart immigrant, to assimilate in America than it is in Sweden.
One of these many unstated norms is just how tied Swedishness is to whiteness, but there are many, many other examples that bedevils even other white ethnics. I read one guy's blog(notice the social distance here) who said that even as a white American living in Norway for over 15 years most Swedes hesitated to call him a Swede or even say hello to him on the their equivalent to the 4th of July, still seeing him as a foreigner. He said that this wasn't done with hostility, just with a reticence. There was an inseperable line between him and them. They were friendly towards him, very polite, but there was still a space between them that couldn't be exaplained away. A lot of tourists do think this is introversion and to some extent it is, but it's more than this.
We take pride in being nice to you, but don't mistake our natural introversion for interest in you but inability to get to know you, sometimes we're just not that into you to begin with!
'Friendly, but distant' is how one Anglo(as in British) observer wrote in the English press in the early 1970s, still holds true today. There's even a book about Sweden which is probably as close to Sweden's Tocqueville as you could get, although in this case it was a British journalist who lived in Sweden and made careful notes about what he deemed the most complicated and maddening culture he had ever been to with a myriad of unstated norms and rules that were invisible to the outsider(and nobody ever bothering to tell him).
I don't remember it right now, but I'd wager most people here wouldn't be interested in it unless you're were a deeply pro-Europhile who love to learn all the quirks about all European people(and you'll most likely need to live in Europe to have that interest) so I'll leave it at that.
Well, thanks to Steve for publishing all these Q&A parts. It was generous of you, even if I wasn't the original reader in mind!
Also, well done if you read all that and managed to stay concentrated and focused.
I hope it helped and some mystery is shed on this plain-looking but deeply complicated place called Sweden.
(P.S. about that question on Swedish girls. They're not as good-looking as in the upper picture but definitely closer to that picture than to the lower picture. Do we have the most beatiful women in the world? Well, I'd say we're certainly top3, but then again I'm biased, but many do seem to agree with me. Just like many agree that British women are very ugly(this is true)).
"This is also a point generally why European countries have tended to dominate football as the game as gotten harder and more organized(for example, Spain's national team)."
This European (and in particular, Spanish) dominance is remarkable. Spain played Uruguay Sunday and Spain was just dominating. The Uruguayans got a nice goal in garbage time, but they were never really in it. Spain just kept possession of the ball most of the game with brilliant passing.
It's almost like other countries are in the heroic age of warfare by comparison, but top European soccer is mechanized warfare.
Just one question.
"How did Sweden get to be the most feminized, pussy-whipped nation on earth? - What about the criminalization of prostitute's clients? (ie sex between consenting heterosexual adults is, in fact, a criminal offence in Sweden). How did Swedish men allow this situation to develope? Is this connected with the abject surrender to hostile, alien, third world predators?".
If Sweden were invaded by a foreign country and faced overwhelming odds, do you think it would put up much of a fight?
Does "sambo" function well across all economic classes? Or does it tend to fall apart quickly among the lower classes?
What percentage of men really pee sitting down?
Swedes basically control every single institution in society. There's no intellectual, cultural or similar threat from these people. The threat is our own suicide impulse
This sentence is going to cause a lot of grief for some folks
Another Swedish Reader, thanks for all those answers!
If you remember the name of that book by Sweden's Tocqueville, please tell us what it is.
Jag vill gärna läsa den.
I'm an American who has lived in Sweden for the past three years and I thought I'd share my opinions on a few things. I'm not Swedish, but I have learned the language.
So here's an outsider's opinion:
First I want to say, that what I've seen here is in general agreement with nearly everything that "Another Swedish Reader" wrote.
1)"What are the private opinions of normal Swedes about your middle-eastern immigrants?"
You need to keep in mind that the "normal" Swede can vary a lot on these issues. And it is very difficult to get a Swede's opinion, as the issue is a taboo here. A very large fraction of the population (possibly the largest or among the largest in the world) is for completely open borders. At the same time there is a quickly growing anti-immigrant party, polling around 10% or so. To specifically look at how people view middle-eastern immigrants is difficult because what people say and how they act is often contradictory. On the one hand, Swedes will often say that they want open borders, or at the least that they are anti-discriminatory, but studies have shown, contrary to that, there is a general hesitancy to hire non-Swedes (just going by last-name). Which is the true reflection of Swedish belief?
2) Related to this issue is of course how well the immigrants themselves are integrating. Again, I want to point out that while people tend to view it as the job of the immigrant, one has to also recognize that Swedish society sets up barriers. As the Swedish reader wrote, it is very hard (impossible?) to become Swedish - even for a white American moving here. I've heard countless stories from other immigrants (including Americans and Germans, for example) about how quickly they get brushed off for what basically amounts to not being born here. Even for highly educated Americans with great work experience, finding work (particularly a first job) in Sweden can be very, very difficult, even if you're fluent in the language. Now, that isn't to say that problems of integration are solely on the shoulders of Swedes. As the reader pointed out, there are huge group differences. Iranians have in the past (and continue today with new immigrants) integrated (i.e. get educations, get jobs) very quickly. Whereas Somalis basically haven't at all.
Part two:
3) I also wanted to reiterate the marriage/sambo thing. It's hard for people to really understand it. But basically, when you look at statistics of Swedes born out of wedlock, you can't trust the numbers. Nearly all Swedes are born into traditional two-person families. The parents just don't get married. While Swedes have by and large left the church and become secular, the traditions are still in force. And the culture is actually fairly conservative when it comes to these things. Sambo means "live together", and it should just be viewed as a sort of common-law marriage or something, which goes into effect as soon as you live with your partner. And even legally there isn't much of a difference between being in a sambo relationship and being married.
4) The Swedish reader mentioned "Broder Duktig", and this is actually the one thing which I would really disagree with him about. Maybe it is different for people studying math, but I'm currently studying a social science here, which is far more common, and I have noticed that Swedes are actually among the least serious students in my program. Now, I should mention, my program is an "international" program, in English, so perhaps the more serious Swedes have chosen to study in Swedish. That's possible. But I know a lot of other Swedes studying in Swedish and my comments seem to apply to them too. In general Swedes do not strive for excellence. They strive for "good enough" (lagom). All of the best students in this program are non-Swedes. The whole culture of the university seems to be about just getting by. Instructions we get from professors are for how to pass, not for how to do really well. And that is what most seem to care about, just passing. And if you fail, you are allowed several re-examinations. At the same time, it is incredibly hard to get an 'A'. It is almost as though excellence is punished, or perhaps more accurately, rarely rewarded. You see this beyond the university as well. Companies here almost seem to not want your money. And don't get me started on the medical system...
----
Now I just want to say, despite these criticisms, I don't want to seem like the ungrateful immigrant. Swedes are very good people, even if they can be very frustrating for us outsiders. But in general, in my personal life, I've been very accepted here. My girlfriend is Swedish (the reason I came here) and her family has been extremely accepting of me. I've been accepted into a good university program here, which I am even being paid to attend, even as a non-Swede.
Last comment: in general the public sphere is very accepting and helpful, while the private sphere is not. Swedes are very group oriented, and in order to be accepted privately, you need a connection. For example, almost all my Swedish friends are through my girlfriend. And almost all of my own friends are non-Swedes. And keep in mind, this is generally the case here for 1st generation immigrants - and not necessarily for their children.
Dave Pinsen said...
"This is also a point generally why European countries have tended to dominate football as the game as gotten harder and more organized(for example, Spain's national team)."
This European (and in particular, Spanish) dominance is remarkable. Spain played Uruguay Sunday and Spain was just dominating. The Uruguayans got a nice goal in garbage time, but they were never really in it. Spain just kept possession of the ball most of the game with brilliant passing.
It's almost like other countries are in the heroic age of warfare by comparison, but top European soccer is mechanized warfare.
6/16/13, 11:58 PM
Spain have not played Brazil with their current team. You're not the best team until you've beaten Brazil in my book.
What I'm getting from a few of the commenters who are based in Sweden is that the Swedes are supremely confident. They seem to believe that they're in control and that the dark-skinned foreigners are just not that important. They feel so confident that they're ok with giving asylum to all kinds of trash because they can handle it, easily.
I'd heard that the Danes were extremely arrogant but it seems that the swedes are a bit like that. Interesting.
A question for the Swedes :
What about black immigrants not from the horn of Africa ? I mean west/central-africans and their derived people like caribbeans and african americans.
One of the ways I interface with Sweden and the other northern countries is through my strong interest in underground metal music.
Is metal an important youth subculture in Sweden or does it just appear that way to some outsiders ?
What are the metal people like, politically ? Do they tend to vote sweden democrats or do they just not care at all ? Or are they just too small a group to count for anything ?
Re the sambo phenomenon, there no strong status distinction between being married and cohabiting.
My experience is that Sweden is facing a bifurcation in marriage success like the one Murray describes in Coming Apart. I had my kids in good private schools through sixth grade, and the rate of parents being together seemed to be about 80%. According to the son who is at a public middle school (in a good city neighborhood), divorced parents are much more prevalent there.
More proof that being a sambo is treated the same as being married: if you leave either covenant, you're considered skild, or divorced.
I guess this might be a case of be careful what you wish for.
Leaving aside immigration, and the success of their economy which seems to explode the heads of some, it doesn't seem too appealing a place to live.
Cloying actually.
This isn't a culture that is going to bring the Promethean Fire.
I've thought for a long time that the fixation of Republicans on all this unworkable economic crap has been a mistake on their part.
I still believe that. The support the Republicans get has very little to do with their economic positions, or limited government. The people that this appeals to are a small portion of even the Republican Party. If for example there were some party that opposed immigration and affirmative action that had a view of how a society should function akin to the 1960 Democratic Party it would siphon off Republicans like nobody's business, at least as far as votes go.
But if you need lemming people (that's what I think when I read this) to make a socialistic society work... well maybe I need to rethink things. This culture sounds almost repulsive.
If I had to flee to another country to avoid death, and Sweden was my only choice I might pick death. My body might physically live on for years, but my psyche would be akin to one of those mummies you find dessicated at altitude off the Pacific coast of South America.
After reading these recent blog posts on Sweden and the comments, I have a negative impression of this country.
" There's even a book about Sweden which is probably as close to Sweden's Tocqueville as you could get, although in this case it was a British journalist who lived in Sweden and made careful notes about what he deemed the most complicated and maddening culture he had ever been to with a myriad of unstated norms and rules that were invisible to the outsider(and nobody ever bothering to tell him"
I read that book when I was living in Sweden. Devoured it just as I was losing my English.
http://www.amazon.com/Fishing-Utopia-Sweden-Future-Disappeared/dp/1847080812
Australian who lived in Sweden here. Miss the place. Love the place.
Yet another Swedish reader commenting on another Swedish reader,
"Swedes basically control every single institution in society. There's no intellectual, cultural or similar threat from these people."
This is just crazy. Importing low-IQ people will destroy all these institutions in time. Look at the PISA surveys and you'll find that Muslim free but poorer countries like Poland and Estonia are outcompeting us.
There is no such thing as a hihgly civilized society with a low-IQ population. Must we find that out the hard way?
My question is:
Is there any official Thirty Years' War guilt?
I know this is an odd idea but the current governing classes seem to love using collective historical guilt as a "teaching tool". Are Swedes made to feel bad about being so nasty back then?
Based on my impression from hanging out with a lot of exchange students in college, Swedes are the most into hookup culture. Maybe the majority of girls are down with casual sex? Does it get even better in the mid-20s? (Your answers will help me determine whether to get a Master's at a Swedish university.)
Hey, I'd like to send a sincere thank you to Another Swedish Reader. Those are things that I simply did not know, and its always nice to learn new things.
Reading the comments to the previous article I was surprised how closed Swedish society is to non-Swedes even of European stock, let alone African. The chance that these asylum seekers are going to be welcomed into Swedish society anytime soon seems remote.
Thank you for the extensive posting.
Please, what is the name of the book about Sweden?
Thanks.
Swedes basically control every single institution in society
what is the ethnicity of the family that controls most TV and newspapers in sweden.
(hint, not swedish)
Was the Swedish immigration policy really about real estate? If immigration were restricted places like Husby, where the riots were, would be empty or at least partially unoccupied.
explain jantelagen. (~_^)
what i'm interested to know is: how strong is it in sweden? and any ideas why you've got it in the first place?
thanks! (^_^)
All these things that are supposedly unique to Swedish culture are simply the common features of all ethnocentric societies (Being aware that you are inferior to other groups but thinking you are somehow superior, being polite to outsiders without that implying any wish to know them better or be friends with them, lack of deep curiosity about outsiders etc, etc)
I am quite sure that Italians and French appreciate the industrious Swedes but regard them with faint contempt as rustic unsophisticates with little history of art or high culture, and who are so industrious because they don't know how to make life interesting.
These things might seem novel and interesting to an American, but they are basically the default attitudes of all cohesive groups. Most Europeans think this way - emphasizing your particular positive attributes as the ones that really count (industriousness and efficiency matter more than high culture or art), keeping outsiders at arms length, having a strong sense that your group is in some mysterious way, maybe despite appearances, superior in essence, etc, etc.
It's all quite common all over the world, from Europe to Asia to Africa.
It is only America that is weird.
Anyone from Iran or Turkey or China or France or Italy will immediately understand the social environment of Sweden. He may not like it, and he may still run afoul of the invisible rules, but he will be very familiar with the basic structure of society.
I see this a lot with American expatriates in Asian countries where I do business - they are the ones who freak out the most about the local ethnocentrism and just can't seem to gracefully accept it. Europeans calmly shrug it off as natural, one of the natural features of life you would be a fool to complain about, but the Americans are always seething with outrage. It's quite amusing. Americans are so unprepared mentally to understand/deal with the rest of the world. American exceptionalism indeed.
"This sentence is going to cause a lot of grief for some folks."
I think the major newspapers in Scandinavia ARE controlled by Jewish families. IHTG's wishful thinking and the Swedish commenter's naivite are working together here to produce a misleading impression.
How do Swedes feel about Russians? Are they considered "Northern Europeans" by Swedes?
Ditto for Poles - Poland and Sweden are geographically actually very close - just a (10 hour) ferry ride apart, and of course Sweden controlled large territories in what is now Poland in the 16-17th centuries. Is there any latent urge for Sweden to reassert itself as a Baltic regional power or are Swedes simply Western focused these days?
This is the family that owns Sweden's largest morning newspaper and one of its two largest evening tabloids.
Swedes basically control every single institution in society. There's no intellectual, cultural or similar threat from these people. The threat is our own suicide impulse.
Imported from Berkeley,CA in 1965.
You forgot Abba and Yigvie Malstein
What about Angeles Bermudez-Svanqvist? Is she Spanish or Chilean? I understand there´s a sizable Chilean community in Sweden, former refugees from Pinochet´s purges. Left-wing supporters of Allende, which would explain her lunacy.
Judging from her christian name, I bet she´s from Spain, though.
Ot. Tiger Woods didn't have a very good Open. I can't remember when he joined the PGA. He is obviously a gifted golfer and we may never see a player like this again. But after so many years of First Tee, public service messages, he is still the only black golfer ( besides Vejay) on the tour. Why haven't colleges recruited more people of color for the golf team? On the other side of Tiger, his mother is Asian. Have we seen an increase of Asians on college golf teams and on the tour?
How come swedes share in 'white guilt' even though swedes never invaded non-white nations?
Is it 'white guilt' or moral narcissism among the Swedes? Do they feel like they are morally better than other whites cuz they're so full of love for Africans and the like--whereas other whites invaded and 'exploited' them?
Why don't Swedes feel viking guilt for all the havoc they wreaked on other Europeans?
What's with the GIRL WITH DRAGON TATTOO phenom?
Are Swedes really dumb enough to believe any of that crap?
Native Swedes’ skin-tones/general colorations run the gamut from ice pale to almost Mediterranean brown (though they don’t really get olive).
Is this something that Swedes notice and talk about? Are there any popular ideas about why?
Do Swedes feel loathing for their Nordicness since Nazism was pro-Nordic?
Another Swedish Reader wrote:
"But they're not really integrating at all. I'm of two minds. If there was an internal riot of a large order, we're talking about a Syrian civil-war scenario here, I'm much more bearish about America where 50% of the under-18 population is non-white and where there is a LOT more anti-white rhetoric in the media. "
If one is speculating irresponsibly about Syria-style (or 1990s-Balkans-style) ethnic civil wars, I might as well ask:
[1] What are the laws / reality on gun ownership in Sweden?
[2] How much of a "far-right" street presence is there in Sweden?
[3] How much of a "hostile ethnic" presence is there, really, outside certain (what I presume to be) ghetto-cities/neighborhoods that occasionally come up in the world news for riots and so on?
[4] How active are the political-police in Sweden in targetting the "far-right"? (In Germany, an extreme case, I understand \tens of thousands of "far-rightists" have served jail time for their politics in the past 20 years).
[5] Imagine a Bosnia/Syria-style "ethnic" conflict of "far-right" Swedish Racialists [like National-Democrat supporters] vs. Nonwhite Ethnic Gangs. [5a] Would White-Swedes in the police or army follow orders to kill the "neo-Nazis" if/when the government decided to actively take the side of the Nonwhite ethnic gangs? (this presumes [5b] that if the govt had to take one side in that scenario, they'd decide to try to suppress the "far-right"; would you agree?).
Another Swedish Reader:
Thank you for comments.
I'd really like to know what the situation is regarding religion, particularly Christianity.
1. Are there pockets of Christian conservatism/fundamentalism?
2. Are there "Bible belt" areas?
3. How do these Christian conservatives/fundamentalists relate to the state church? Are they largely outside it? Does the state church have much control over these congregations?
4. Who actually goes to church?
5. Do people still identify as Christian?
6. How do Christian conservatives relate to other right wing groups?
7. What is the stance of the state church towards immigrants? What about the rank and file attenders? Christian conservatives?
8. What are the birth rates of conservative Christians like?
9. How free are churches to take stands against homosexuality etc.? Would anyone get prosecuted or disciplined for preaching against it? How much does the official state church discipline conservatives on issues like this?
10. How large/important are neo-pagans? How do they relate to the political right?
What is the drinking culture like? Has this changed over the past few years/decades?
How does this relate to sex?
Is it a generally promiscuous culture or does this only happen when people are drinking?
Swedish women have a reputation for promiscuity, but only when they go out and get wasted. Is this true?
The reason I ask about sex and drink is that Sweden's reputation for cold blooded calculation and rationality would seem to conflict with it's other reputation for sexual liberation. Has the latter been overstated?
The roots of 20th Swedish prosperity seem to be early electrification using hydropower.
One of the most interesting museums I saw in my visit to Sweden about 5 years ago was to the National Museum of Science and Technology. Swedes were early adapters of electricity powered by their substantial hydroelectric resources. Once hydro was largely tapped out, they quickly and efficiently embraced nuclear power.
Of course, they started with the rule of law and an educated technical class. Coming through WWI and WWII unscathed was a big help as they could then sell into a rebuilding Europe, much like the US did, but with relatively local presence.
One setback of late was their decision to open their electric markets to foreign sales. Exports resulted in a big increase in electric rates and their economy suffered.
I did have one Swedish co-worker who opened up to me about politics. He was considerably more conservative than the PC talk one usually gets - almost a Swedish Tea Partier!
As another American who has also lived in Sweden, I'll offer a few random observations:
1) I've heard that Swedes who live in America for a considerable length of time, and then move back to Sweden, often experience (to their surprise) a strong desire to return to the United States. Being back in Sweden can feel stifling.
2) I've also heard that foreigners who move to Sweden from other Western countries go through three stages: First, they love it; it's the greatest place on earth. Next, they hate it; the bureaucracy and social norms seem maddeningly stupid. Finally, they come to terms with the fact that Sweden is like any other place; it has its good points and its bad points.
3) Swedes love Australia and Australians love Sweden. Maybe the warm and relaxed Aussies and the cool and orderly Swedes balance each other out.
4) Swedes are extremely capable people. They're good at what they do. They're excellent at managing their time so that they can both accomplish things and relish their free time. They know how to work hard and enjoy life, which is a rare combination.
5) Swedes have surprisingly prole tastes. The Eurovision Song Contest is wildly popular in Sweden. There are monster truck rallies in Sweden. Swedes are avid readers and writers of (often very bad) crime fiction.
6) Swedes are extremely conformist. Like a school of fish, they all change direction together. To me, this is their most disappointing quality. They follow the crowd in strange directions. The brutal Viking society that later produced the most infamous soldiers of the Thirty Years War evolved into a staid Lutheran society where it was illegal to skip church too many times per year, and now into one where spanking children is treated as a supreme evil and sorting trash as a supreme virtue.
7) There may be an alt-right presence in Sweden (as an earlier commenter noted) but there is very little *mainstream* opposition to (or even questioning of) major social trends.
So, it's 2:25 PM here on the east coast. Where is this mysterious Swede expert? Is he just building the suspense?
Good showmanship, I guess.
Swedes basically control every single institution in society. There's no intellectual, cultural or similar threat from these people. The threat is our own suicide impulse
This sentence is going to cause a lot of grief for some folks
No. Have you ever run a real experiment in school or something? You need very strong experimental controls to ensure that the various factors you're examining aren't contaminated. The Swedes in Sweden don't live in a vacuum. They are exposed to non-Swedish influence, particularly American influence, since American cultural, political, social, academic influence has been so dominant throughout the entire world after WW2.
John: I see this a lot with American expatriates in Asian countries where I do business - they are the ones who freak out the most about the local ethnocentrism and just can't seem to gracefully accept it. Europeans calmly shrug it off as natural, one of the natural features of life you would be a fool to complain about, but the Americans are always seething with outrage. It's quite amusing. Americans are so unprepared mentally to understand/deal with the rest of the world. American exceptionalism indeed.
I noticed that myself, and it can, indeed, be amusing. I admit that in my early days I did a bit of "seething with outrage" myself, though I like to think even then I succeeded in keeping the reaction to myself, recognizing it for the parochial response that it was. Those early experiences pushed me farther along the "hbd" or "anti-universalist", or whatever you want to call it, path, and killed off any residue of the typical right-thinking American view of humanity I possessed.
I did see a split in the reaction of white American expats I knew: some like me, had their eyes opened and put away childish things. (The one black American I worked with didn't have any blinkers to start with.) Others seemed to double-down on the progressive dogma and unconscious condescension. No matter how in-your-face the ethnocentrism or racism was, they pretended not to see it: whites, evil racists; non-whites...well, just because it looked like they were being ethnocentrist or racist it was really something else that you didn't understand, you ignorant Other-hater.*
*One particularly egregious Nice White Lady of my acquaintance once expressed eye-rolling distaste at my taking a holiday in New Zealand, as it was "just a bunch of white people" (well, it was mostly that back then), and hopelessly boring and morally suspect on that account. (I found it gorgeous and highly enjoyable.) I lost track of her, but I like to think she ended up being eaten by South Sea cannibals.
I speculate the Scandinavian introversion is an evolved trait, as is N. Asian introversion, as a result of brutal long winters.
During long periods of darkness during the cold winter when people stayed indoors and communicated with a limited number of people, introversion was likely selected for. More extroverted people probably experienced a great deal of cabin fever which made them less likely to pass on their genes.
OK, 5 questions:
1. Setting aside any impact from immigration, what is your opinion of Sweden's state health care and it's other social services? Also, have you lived in any other countries and how do they compare?
2. Factoring immigration back in, do you think SD will be brought into next governing coalition after the 2014 elections?
3. Do you know anyone in your personal social circle that holds un-PC views, a likely SD or PoS voter?
4. How much ideological content is there in primary and secondary schools (i.e. how much indoctrination)? Any interesting anecdotes?
5. What is the craziest, most over the top feminist thing you've ever seen?
Also, good questions from Hail and Thursday.
Is it true that if one of your Danish colleagues aggravates you as they are wont to , you overreact by dashing off to Haiti where you hire the best witch doctors to place a curse on your aformentioned colleagues while shaking your fist at the sky and yelling "Danska Skum"?
Thursday,
AFAIK, Scandinavians are pretty conservative at home about sex, thus their reputation as libertines developed because they are able to let loose during holidays (when they're most likely to encounter the rest of the world).
All these things that are supposedly unique to Swedish culture are simply the common features of all ethnocentric societies
Yes, Austria is very similar, so is Poland, France, etc. etc. American expats in Europe, just like expats in Asia, will typically complain at length about how parochial and closed the society is in whichever European country they are living in. European elites have to push "multiculti" and "diversity" even harder than American elites do because the European populations by and large are very resistant, passively, to the whole idea.
Winter evokes major differences between genetically identical natives of Sweden & Norway. The Norwegians spend the Winter months skiing & doing other outdoor activities, while the sad, morose Swedes spend their time indoors, drinking & feeling so sorry for themselves they doom & gloom until they suicide. Meanwhile next door under the same conditions the Norwegians are frolicking under the Midnight Sun. So Sweden has one of the highest suicide rates in the World while Norway has one of the lowest. Weird, huh?
and we may never see a player like this again. But after so many years of First Tee, public service messages, he is still the only black golfer ( besides Vejay) on the tour"
Vijay(not Vejay) Singh is a Fijian of Indian origin you idiot. He is dark skinned but not "black"
All these things that are supposedly unique to Swedish culture are simply the common features of all ethnocentric societies
I think the Britain, Ireland, Spain and Portugal are pretty much non-ethnocentric societies, I mean on a personal level as opposed to a political one. I theorise it could be because we really are just parts of larger global societies with our co-linguists; the Anglosphere, the Hispanosphere and the Lusosphere. Another factor in making more welcoming societies might be the lack of extreme cold. I really think people are on to something when they talk about the cold making Swedish people introverted. You love the rain after you experience the cold.
And, to be frank, most people from cold Europe really are miseries.
fact it's probably more common to see Swedish man/Iranian woman than the other way around but from what I've heard from people in Canada, UK and America they tend to do well in all Western countries."
Thank you mentioning this,our resident Jeremiah wailing about the sordid race mixing propensity of white women-Whiskey needs to know this.
For some mysterious reason he never gets his panties in a knot when geeky white men date hot Asian women.
I dont think many manosphere men realize that blonde ,blue eyed men are considered attractive by women in the Middle East as well as Pakistan and India.
Its why Brad Pitt and Leonardo Dicaprio pulls them in the theaters while Tom Cruise,Johnny Depp and George Clooney dont as much.
Thanks to "Other Swedish Reader" for giving such lengthy and thorough explanation of the modern Swedish character.
The possible historic background to it, before the advent of the present welfare state, I suspect arises from centuries of Lutheranism, with its dour and penitential approach to Christianity, together with a secular society that foreign travellers remarked on even a century or more ago as being stiff and rigidly conformist.
Santayana quipped that the Boston liberalism of his day was merely the old New England Puritanism stripped of its Christianity, so that only Puritanism's smugness and fanaticism remained. Even today the Harvard faculty is replete with examples illustrating the truth of his observation.
Perhaps something similar has happened in Sweden. The Christianity went out of its Lutheranism, so that today only Lutheranism's rigid orthodoxy and self-critical attitude remain, and manifest themselves in a secular socialist society as political correctness. The stiffness of manners once characteristic of a society once centered around a royal court and its rank-ordered nobility now manifests itself with equal force in a society run by a bureaucracy.
O'Rourke, in "Eat The Rich", visited Sweden ("Good Socialism" - bad was Cuba):
"What does Norway have that Sweden doesn't?"
"Good neighbors".
Here's some Swedish Gregorian trip-hop-folk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0s0I_1bQA
This sentence is going to cause a lot of grief for some folks
It makes sense to me. The only threat they face is their own insanity, and consequently, that threat is much smaller than the one we face here in America. It's entirely consistent AFAICT.
I think the major newspapers in Scandinavia ARE controlled by Jewish families. IHTG's wishful thinking and the Swedish commenter's naivite are working together here to produce a misleading impression.
Okay, but it does seem obvious that there's an "to the extent that's true" argument to be made; even if Jewish families own the Swedish media, Jews don't seem to be anywhere near as in charge of Sweden as they are of America. And Sweden has fewer of the problems we ANTI-SEMITES!!! associate with Jewish influence.
While Swedes have by and large left the church and become secular, the traditions are still in force. And the culture is actually fairly conservative when it comes to these things. Sambo means "live together", and it should just be viewed as a sort of common-law marriage or something, which goes into effect as soon as you live with your partner. And even legally there isn't much of a difference between being in a sambo relationship and being married.
This paragraph is going to cause a lot of grief for some folks...
Norway is a Scandinavian petro-state. It's a lot richer than Sweden and the population has to grind less to have the same wealth production.
A lot of Swedishness can be cured with an 85 watt CFL with a black body temperature of 6500K.
Swedes like many circumpolar peoples suffer from SAD. This causes them to have high suicide rates and admire directors like Ingmar Bergman.
Albertosaurus
Quite the response from your readers, Steve. Perhaps you should make this a regular feature, at least with countries you know you have readers from -- "ask someone from country X" -- and if we're fortunate people from X will educate us all.
"Winter evokes major differences between genetically identical natives of Sweden & Norway."
Swedes and Norwegians may both be Nordic but that doesn't make them genetically identical any more than genetically similar (non indetical twin) siblings.
"I dont think many manosphere men realize that blonde ,blue eyed men are considered attractive by women in the Middle East as well as Pakistan and India."
They are also considered attractive to white women all over the globe. In my experience women are more concerned with a man's skin tone than hair color. While I've met many white women who don't like red headed men I have only met one white woman who didn't like blonds. If a man has very fair, milk maiden skin most white women don't find that attractive unless they are goths. The idea that women don't like blond men is just another one of the manosphere's self-evidently stupid canards.
Thanks to Steve and the Swedish readers for this post. I sometimes laugh at the irony that the Sailersphere has, between its diverse (vibrant?) readers, as much knowledge as a major intelligence organization, although practically no power whatsoever.
It's interesting that Denmark is probably one of the most anti-immigrationist states in Europe. I wonder whether this is happenstance or a product of the people.
I say this because I have a good amount of Danish blood, and I wonder if the reason why I have gravitated in an HBD/anti-immivasion direction that direction (after reading iSteve etc.) is in part because of that. On the grandparent side that was 100% Danish, they were all hot tempered, inclined to fight if push came to shove, and held grudges for long periods of time (e.g. for life, IIRC).
If this sort of thing is more Danish than just their own idiosyncrasies, then this could easily explain why the Danish country is the way it is. I was reading up on Danish history, and it is obvious that the Danes as a nation nurse grudges for a long, long time. They bided their time and launched several wars it seems to regain territory/islands lost to the Swedes. Those evil, shifty, island-stealing f***ers that they are.
The Swedish media is also controlled by the "scotch-irish"?
yes, the bonner family
I sometimes laugh at the irony that the Sailersphere has, between its diverse (vibrant?) readers, as much knowledge as a major intelligence organization, although practically no power whatsoever.
They probably said similar things about Felix Weil and his friends back in the 1920s, even as they started the Institute for Social Research.
There are that many smart people who comment here (let alone the lurkers - hi there, Ann!) that it's a very good bet that some of them either have family fortunes coming to them, or they will make their fortune in their own lifetime. There are so many things that can be done for our struggle that have a huge bang/buck ratio and haven't been done yet. Movies, education libraries and syllabi, books, etc. Once these things are created, the ideas and emotions will spread even faster due to the internet.
Public opinion is already turning in our direction. There is a noticeable element in MSM comments that looks like it comes from the Sailersphere. And it's persuasive.
Can we do something similar with Norwegians? From this story, they seem pretty strange
http://tinyurl.com/krlwbgy
'A lot of Swedishness can be cured with an 85 watt CFL with a black body temperature of 6500K.
Swedes like many circumpolar peoples suffer from SAD. This causes them to have high suicide rates and admire directors like Ingmar Bergman.'
I take your point. Sweden is cold and dark in the winter months but can be surprisingly pleasant in the summer, particularly in the south. I'm from Australia. In Australia I go out of my way to avoid the harsh sun. While in Sweden, with its milder sunlight, I'm outdoors from early morning until late into the evening. I get better tan in Sweden. When the sun comes out Swedes strip off their clothes. Best make a lot of noise when you go visit the mother-in-law lest you see a little too much.
My question is about crime and rape in particular.
Is violent rape a largely arab-african immigrant on Swedish girl phenomenon?
If so, is there an awareness among the general population of this and what is the attitude about it? Apathy? Sadness? Anger?
Brits have a problem with immigrant rape gangs targeting white British girls but also seem uncomfortable talking about it as a specific phenomenon. Is it the same in Sweden?
>[W]e never needed feminism, [because] equality between the genders tend[s] to be strong in Northern European countries, but it does explain why feminism has gone to the maximum extreme here.<
Feminism is an active movement pushing against perceived barriers. So, in a society of strong sex equality, wouldn't feminism, being unneeded, be less extreme? (I may be making the mistake of trying to rationalize something that isn't exactly rational.)
>American expatriates[...]are the ones who freak out the most about the local ethnocentrism and just can't seem to gracefully accept it. Europeans calmly shrug it off as natural[...], but the Americans are always seething with outrage. It's quite amusing. Americans are so unprepared mentally to understand/deal with the rest of the world.<
Well, here's a German schoolmarm making a stink about Jantelagen. (Found this from the wiki page jodi linked.)
"It's interesting that Denmark is probably one of the most anti-immigrationist states in Europe. I wonder whether this is happenstance or a product of the people."
The difference is really that Danes have less problems being open about stuff. They are not as politically correct as the Swedes, who in my opinion rank alongside America and Germany as being the worst countries for free speech.
I remember seeing a clip in the news where they interviewed an older Swedish lady who complained that you just can't be open like in Denmark even though she agreed with anti-immigration rhetoric from Denmark. Our anti-immigration party(Dansk Folkeparti) is now the second biggest party according to the latest poll. But the Swedish counterpart is doing well for themselves despite being completely excluded/opposed by the establishment.
Are there any music groups that Swedes think of as national "hidden treasures"? Ones that were big in Sweden, and that you wished more people outside the country knew about?
There was a folk-pop movement in the 1990s and early 2000s that produced some quite awesome music, something like an updated version of Fairport Convention et al., but colder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t__nMPUTLsY
The difference is really that Danes have less problems being open about stuff. They are not as politically correct as the Swedes, who in my opinion rank alongside America and Germany as being the worst countries for free speech.
Thanks for the commentary. I think back to how my grandfather was, and he certainly wasn't one to hold back on his opinions (and neither were his brothers and sisters). This combined with his hot temper would lead to arguments within his family and with others.
It's interesting how tiny the Scandinavian countries are, Sweden the largest but still less than 10 million people. Denmark and Norway are both around 5 million. I wonder how much of their DNA made its way into the British and Norman populations through the Viking incursions.
Reading up on the Danske Folkeparti, aka Danish People's Party (DPP)
Throughout the history of the Danish People's Party, its leaders have sought popularity through controversial and polarising stances. The changes to Denmark's immigration laws drew criticism from the former social democratic government of Sweden, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner. In a response to the criticism from the Swedish government, Pia Kjærsgaard said: "If they want to turn Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö into a Scandinavian Beirut, with clan wars, honour killings and gang rapes, let them do it. We can always put a barrier on the Øresund Bridge."[25]
That's awesome! The rest of the wikipedia article is good too. I remember the days when you couldn't read about a rightist party on the internet from official sources without reading some sniveling Marxist droning on about neo-NazisKKK6millionjews. How things have changed.
"Yes, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in Sweden among white women is huge. I think actually a majority of white women have children with white men without marrying.
This is for two reasons. First, we have something called 'sambo'. This is basically a relationship but it's viewed as more serious, it tends to be longterm and many view it as a good replacement for getting married. Now, many do end up getting married but often after the first child has been born. "
- That's AMAZING, Swedish Dude! We also have plenty of "Sambos" here who also promise a serious relationship, but rarely get married.
Mine is pretty big, and to me seems to be a crucial question to put all the pieces together.
Anyways, is Sweden's high standard of living a result of the Welfare State and Democratic Socialism, or does it simply come down more to a factor of Swedish culture? Meaning is the Welfare State the source of Sweden's success, or is it only slightly related.
Also, with Sweden and the US both being feminist, is Sweden sexually egalitarian or is it more like the US, being heavily stratified?
"as much knowledge as a major intelligence organization, although practically no power whatsoever."
I think a better image of the daily crowd at isteve is to imagine a Wikipedia picnic. You have a lot of intellectually curious people who like hanging out at an encyclopedia. But the people are repulsively ugly/dokry/asocial and the website is their main form of social interaction.
"I think a better image of the daily crowd at isteve is to imagine a Wikipedia picnic. You have a lot of intellectually curious people who like hanging out at an encyclopedia. But the people are repulsively ugly/dokry/asocial and the website is their main form of social interaction"
and you came to that conclusion based on? I used to write at Wikipedia but I'm also a sexy mofo. You have no idea boyo.
I think a better image of the daily crowd at isteve is to imagine a Wikipedia picnic. You have a lot of intellectually curious people who like hanging out at an encyclopedia. But the people are repulsively ugly/dokry/asocial and the website is their main form of social interaction."
Speak for yourself! I get out often and am well travelled.
To be sure you have weirdos like Whiskey who thinks popular culture represents a higher reality while being completely oblivious of the fact that it isnt.OTOH, you have basement dwellings neonazis who are so thoroughly ignorant of both the theoretical and flesh and blood worlds that one can only feel sorry for them.
But on the whole ,from the content of the posters, most of them seem to be older,married and gainfully employed.I suspect if now they seem more introverted is that they choose to be(been there,done that)
"This European (and in particular, Spanish) dominance is remarkable. Spain played Uruguay Sunday and Spain was just dominating. The Uruguayans got a nice goal in garbage time, but they were never really in it. Spain just kept possession of the ball most of the game with brilliant passing. "
lol brilliant passing, tiki-taka based on the tic-toc of the clock. Perhaps the most boring way of winning at soccer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZeeg-u-vgI
The spanish club barcelona midgets got their comeuppance by bayern munich ubermensch who smoked them 7-0 in this year's champions league.
A few more thoughts, if anyone is still reading.
1. Whoever said that Sweden has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and Norway one of the lowest is completely wrong. They're both almost exactly the same. While Norwegians may go skiing and snowboarding, Swedes go on long vacations to Thailand.
2. While my perspective is colored by the fact that I'm American, it's almost been spooky how the complaints I've had about Sweden (bureaucracy, difficulty getting things done, hypocrisy, health-care) have been exactly mirrored by immigrants of other nationalities, whether they're German or Iranian or Lebanese or Finnish.
3. Sweden is very pro-immigrant and Denmark is very anti-immigrant, okay. That's not some genetic difference. Both countries have shifted their views strongly. Sweden, despite its proclaimed neutrality, had many Nazis during the war. And during the early 1900s it was terrified of German immigrants! Sweden also had an extremely extensive sterilization policy. Aside from Germany, I think per capita more people were sterilized in Sweden than anywhere else in the world. The included a large number of Sami people. Until just a year or two ago, if you wanted to get a sex-change operation, you had to be sterilized. And even any eggs or sperm you had stored had to be destroyed.
4. While Sweden may be the most gender equal country in the world, the genders are extremely segregated. People here only have friends with other people of the same gender. Whereas in the US you'll see groups of guys and girls hanging out together, in Sweden you tend to see only groups of girls and separate groups of guys. I can't think of a single Swede I know who has good friends of the opposite gender.
Has it yet been decided who "really" wrote the Millennium Trilogy, Stieg Larsson, or his partner?
>100 posts and no one has brought up the most famous song to come out of the swedish parentland,
blanda upp?
"Swedes go on long vacations to Thailand."
they also bring back lots of thai waifus. Highest percentage of thai wives and the highest number of tourists killed in the tsunami.
One more thought:
One person asked: "Anyways, is Sweden's high standard of living a result of the Welfare State and Democratic Socialism, or does it simply come down more to a factor of Swedish culture? Meaning is the Welfare State the source of Sweden's success, or is it only slightly related."
The welfare state probably helps in some ways, but I'd bet it's more the culture. Especially if one is to consider its position at the end of the war. Sweden has a lot of natural resources as well as a well-educated and hard-working/capable population. It was also completely untouched by the war. So it ended up as a very successful economy due to its ability to export resources and machinery to the rest of Europe. Its advantages have begun to disappear, however. And now the economy isn't nearly in as good a shape as it was in before.
Also, the welfare state is definitely good at keeping people at some minimum level of quality of life, but its quality and extensiveness have definitely been exaggerated. Though it should be mentioned that in the past it was far more generous than it is today. It simply hasn't been able to stay as generous as it was before. I haven't been on welfare or anything here, but I do study at a university, and I have used the medical system. While it's amazing the education is free here and that they even pay me to go, the amount I am paid is far less than the previous generation. Most Swedish students still have to get loans to study (albeit for far lesser amounts than students in the US), whereas 20-30 years ago they rarely would get loans. And I'd say the quality of education at universities here is lower than in the US. At times it's shockingly bad.
Also, while the healthcare is almost free (still have to pay small amounts for doctor visits and medicine), the quality seems far lower than in the US. And my friends from Canada and Germany and even Iran, complain about how bad the medical system is here compared to their home countries. Supposedly it was far better about 20 years ago or so.
Are there any smart immigrants in Sweden? The US, for example, receives a number of high IQ immigrants from various countries - this tends to skew the debate on immigration and makes it appear that immigration is not net negative (the cost of low IQ immigration cancelled out by the benefits of high IQ immigration).
Are all the immigrants in Sweden mostly low performing immigrants (in economic terms)?
It is actually quite stupid for a small homogenous country to receive any immigration. The smart ones that could generate wealth will move to the centers of big money (New York/Silicon Valley/London/Dubai/Singapore/Hong Kong) and the dumb ones to a cold, miserable North European country which seems like paradise only if you are born in Africa or some hell-hole in the Middle East. If you were, for example, Lebanese Christian, why wouldn't you move to the US or Brazil where there is big money to be made (1 million Lebanese Christians in Sao Paulo alone)? Sweden would be a waste of time.
I came away convinced -- among much else (14 is an impressionable age) -- that Sweden was about to collapse at any moment.
I remember that myself, though in hindsight it may have been some sort of cold-war era self defense ("socialism cannot work because that would mean that the cold war is an exercise in futility") and part of it was defense of American free market capitalism. Lordy knows that if (as?) Americans ran a socialist system on the scale of the Swedes that it would be a failure of epic proportions.
Pippi Longstocking stood out, when it came out, because of its empowered and powerful heroine. I remember as a child that it baffled me no end to see a girl prove stronger than everyone else on a tv show.
Little did I know that it was but a prelude to a wave of feminist propaganda aiming to castrate boys with media portrayals of strong and wise feminine characters and weak and stupid male characters.
The butt-kicking babe could turn out to be the submissive fantasy of a generation grown under the stiletto heel of feminism.
"and you came to that conclusion based on?"
A lot of the regulars like whiskey, svigor, hunsdon, etc. seem like huge oddballs.
"So, it's 2:25 PM here on the east coast. Where is this mysterious Swede expert? Is he just building the suspense?"
It may take someone working a hundred hours to answer the deluge of questions in this thread. And the Swede is not a native English speaker, which would add to the time. Even if he were being paid for this, it'd take a few days to provide reasoned answers to every question. Or maybe he will just address a few.
"I'd really like to know what the situation is regarding religion, particularly Christianity.
1. Are there pockets of Christian conservatism/fundamentalism?
2. Are there "Bible belt" areas?
3. How do these Christian conservatives/fundamentalists relate to the state church? Are they largely outside it? Does the state church have much control over these congregations?
4. Who actually goes to church?
5. Do people still identify as Christian?
6. How do Christian conservatives relate to other right wing groups?
7. What is the stance of the state church towards immigrants? What about the rank and file attenders? Christian conservatives?
8. What are the birth rates of conservative Christians like?
9. How free are churches to take stands against homosexuality etc.? Would anyone get prosecuted or disciplined for preaching against it? How much does the official state church discipline conservatives on issues like this?
10. How large/important are neo-pagans? How do they relate to the political right?"
I haven't seen these questions answered, and would like to, so I'm flagging them again.
Yet another Swede here.
Health care: Sweden has the worlds second lowest infant mortality, one of the world's highest life expectancies, etc.
If I call my doctor's office and want to visit outside her normal daily open office hours, I usually get an appointment the same day, and always within two or three days. The doctor visit costs under 20 dollars, no matter what is done: referrals, prescriptions, etc.
See www.gapminder.org and have fun comparing countries on all sorts of dimensions. Sweden is really quite a good place to live.
Religion:
In Sweden, the general attitude toward someone who actually believes in God is that person is either brainwashed or stupid or both. The percentage of people who profess a belief in a personal God, one who listens to prayer, is about 11%.
However, it is very common to attend a four week "confirmation" camp the summer you're 15. My nephew said at hisconfirmation ceremony that he believed in treating other people as you would like to be treated. That was it. I asked my niece at her confirmation ceremony about God creating species, etc. She snorted derisively and said that not even the *priest* believed that gumpf. That is the (low) level of religious belief at the *confirmation ceremony*.
Yes, there are fringe religious groups. There is a bible belt, Småland. Religious leaders who refuse to marry homosexuals are at least ostracized and sometimes their permit to perform any legal marriage is revoked.
Then again, lots of Swedes marry in beautiful churches, baptise our children, and attend church at Christmas. They're pretty traditions. Why not?
Sex:
Here, there is no God who punishes people for having sex or sexual thoughts. Neither men and women are much bothered about people having sex, including their own teenage children.
Virgin women as about as highly valued as virgin men. They're assumed to be inept lovers.
The American preoccupation with controlling other people's sexuality seems a bit bizarre from over here.
Free contraceptives are given to kids in school and everywhere else too. The idea is go ahead, have sex, have lots and lots of excellent sex, don't get STDs and don't get pregnant unless you want to.
If you do get STDs, go to the doctor but fast. If you do get pregnant and you don't want to keep the baby, have an abortion. They are close to free, legal, and do not carry much stigma. Remember, we have no religion to proscribe that oocytes are PEOPLE and abortion is MURDER. The pregnant woman decides whether to have an abortion or not.
So yes, consensual sex is probably more common than it is in places where it is believed that God will punish people who have sex.
Immigrants from countries where sexuality is controlled by a punishing God and strict conventions have trouble with these issues if and when their children grow up to be Swedes.
But don't come here expecting that people are promiscuous. We're not. We are, in general, in committed relationships and we do not cheat on our partners.
We're introverts, say commenters here. I think it's more that we have enough friends. We made friends when we were very young, we keep those close friends, and we don't often move. With so many old friends that it's hard to keep up with them all while working and parenting, new people have to be pretty wonderful to be welcomed into the social circle.
Since we keep our old friends, and our ex spouses are part of that same social circle, we are generally civil to ex spouses. We expect our old friends to be good parents, even if they divorce. We don't tolerate cheating within the social circle; it would disrupt that circle. There is a lot of power in strong expectations; they are often fulfilled.
I think that the role of religion in the states is related to the fact that Americans move a lot. If you're new in town in the states, go to church and you'll find a community.
My grandfather was Norwegian and my grandmother was half Swedish, so this made for some fun during my childhood. Being an old-fashioned family, the rivalry resulted in a net family position of pro-Norway.
When I was growing up, my dad had a book of Scandinavian jokes, most of which were quite funny. Unfortunately, I remember only one:
"Ole (a Norwegian) and Sven (a Swede) went to the beach together. Much to Sven's chagrin, the girls flocked around Ole. Finally, Sven asked Ole, 'Ole, what do I need to do to attract the girls like you.'
"Ole replied, 'I'll tell you my secret. You need to put a potato in your swimming trunks.'
"A few hours later, Sven returned. 'Ole. I did what you said. I put a potato in my swimming trunks, but the girls are staying even farther away than before. Why?'
"'Sven," said Ole, 'you need to put the potato in the front of your trunks.'"
Much of the Norwegian-on-Swedish humor is about how dumb Swedes are--those pretty, blond, big, dumb Swedes. I always thought it was strange until they started letting lots of immigrants ruin their country.
Are there regions in the country where the local people are different -- more rambunctious, concerned about their honor, and inclined to revenge if somebody disrespects them?
Are you meaning to ask if they have black ghettos? Despite emasculation's existence, one of the high points of western civilization was getting rid of barbarism. Even among Vikings.
Yet another Swede wrote: "In Sweden, the general attitude toward someone who actually believes in God is that person is either brainwashed or stupid or both. The percentage of people who profess a belief in a personal God, one who listens to prayer, is about 11%."
This is not so much evidence of the enlightened state of Swedish society as another example of Swedes' monolithic thought. A few short generations ago, just about everyone in Sweden went along with a completely different way of seeing the world.
Believe it or not, Sweden did not recognize full religious freedom until the 1950s. The traditional tensions within Swedish Lutheranism were those between the so-called orthodox and what we today might call evangelicals. They were both conservative factions, just conservative in different ways.
The society changed breathtakingly fast, to the point that there are now very few conservative members of the clergy and they come under intense pressure when they express their opinions openly.
Whether they're observant Lutherans or liberal secularists, Swedes more or less expect everyone to be on the same page, which makes their large-scale importation of observant Muslim immigrants all the more baffling (except insofar as an outwardly welcoming attitude toward immigrants is, for the moment, expected of everyone).
"If you do get pregnant and you don't want to keep the baby, have an abortion. They are close to free, legal, and do not carry much stigma. Remember, we have no religion to proscribe that oocytes are PEOPLE and abortion is MURDER. The pregnant woman decides whether to have an abortion or not."
On the other, abortions are prettyh close to banned after 22 weeks, a far stricter regime than in the US.
"A very large fraction of the population (possibly the largest or among the largest in the world) is for completely open borders."
Don't mistake a circle of urban white liberals you intermingle with together with the collective known as the Swedish people.
A few notes about the media and the Scotch-Irish.
You guys make a few good points, but it's also important to state that in the scenario I drew up, basically a Syria-style crisis, the media would not really be able to do much scaremongering.
Second, Sweden has by far the most successful alt-right presence on the internet.
Take a site like friatider.se or avpixlat.se.
The former had broken through unique visitors in the range of 700,000.
If you look at the population who can read proficently(meaning: newspaper level) and are not too old to use the internet we're looking at maybe 7 million or so. So we're talking 10% of the entire reading population(which I define as from age 14 to age 70 or so, since from 70 onwards the useage of internet drops very rapidly).
Do you think Amren.com would reach these numbers? I think not.
So, Sweden is the most PC place in the world yet it has the most successful alt right presence in the new media of all Western countries that I've seen anyway. And we're seeing new sites pop up each year, and they're not niche sites. They aim towards a general audience.
I wrote previously that Swedes had gone from the most masculine to the biggest pussies and that this conflict is yet unresolved. See the previous point I made as another argument of this position.
(P.S. Amazed at the level of engagement from your readers, Steve. Wouldn't have guessed. Apparently Sweden is more interesting than I thought.)
"Whether they're observant Lutherans or liberal secularists, Swedes more or less expect everyone to be on the same page, which makes their large-scale importation of observant Muslim immigrants all the more baffling (except insofar as an outwardly welcoming attitude toward immigrants is, for the moment, expected of everyone)."
This is what HBD cannot account for. Did the Swedes/Europeans of the past all just pretend to believe in Christianity, for all those centuries? That seems at least a little implausible. (I can tell you that my own ancestors coming out of Scandinavia in the mid and late 1800s were, by all accounts, God-believing Lutherans.)
No, HBD is not all. Socialization and propaganda-reinforcement matter, of course. Maybe this is the real lesson of Sweden. Although their WhiteSwedish-dominated society still functions well, they have been socialized to be zealous ethnomasochists.
What of "Sweden" in 2113?
Yet another Swede wrote:
"The American preoccupation with controlling other people's sexuality seems a bit bizarre from over here."
He then wrote:
1) "Religious leaders who refuse to marry homosexuals are at least ostracized and sometimes their permit to perform any legal marriage is revoked."
2)"Virgin women as about as highly valued as virgin men. They're assumed to be inept lovers."
3) "But don't come here expecting that people are promiscuous. We're not. We are, in general, in committed relationships and we do not cheat on our partners."
4) "We don't tolerate cheating within the social circle; it would disrupt that circle. There is a lot of power in strong expectations; they are often fulfilled."
5) "Free contraceptives are given to kids in school and everywhere else too. The idea is go ahead, have sex, have lots and lots of excellent sex, don't get STDs and don't get pregnant unless you want to."
This all sounds not only rather judgmental, but very controlling of sexuality, but all in a contradictory, confused sort of way.
From this post and the others it seems like the Swedes like to think of themselves as sexually liberated, but actually have an ingrained tendency towards monogamy and family, and a prejudice against infidelity, that balance out the moral decline. They just don't notice the fact, because when they gave up religion they decided that they had become too sophisticated to think of sex in moral terms. But the fact that sex is probably more important to human happiness and flourishing than almost any other aspect of human existence means that in reality of course, they have not stopped being judgmental about sex. Instead they've developed this contradictory moral code, which scoffs at virgins, ostracizes ministers who won't marry homosexuals, and pushes birth control on teens, while at the same time it looks down on people who actually carry the Swedish views on sex to their logical conclusion by being promiscuous and unfaithful. Who needs God to punish you when you've got your Swedish "social circle" to do it for you instead?
"But don't come here expecting that people are promiscuous. We're not. We are, in general, in committed relationships and we do not cheat on our partners."
You answers sound reasonable and you seem observant but I wonder if you are of another generation. Someone in their late 30s?
I've never been to Sweden but I've had interactions with Swedes in college. I hooked up with a Swedish girl who had a boyfriend of 6 years. She said it was the second time she cheated. There was another girl in her clique who I knew had a bf back in Sweden but hooked up early on with another guy.
I definitely think Swedes when education levels on taken into account are more promiscuous than Americans.
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