I V N A A N VA I O N D T DU N N SE A E NA C M AN S O BY M ADE M
We’re having a real Scandinavian moment: Nordic thrillers piling up on the best-seller list and on TV. The Scream, by Norway’s Edvard Munch, fetching $120 million. H&M colonizing Western malls, alongside Ikea. Even global recession hasn’t dented the region’s smugness. So what’s the downside?
An androgynous figure stands on a bridge… At least this time they’re not killing monks and taking wenches from behind while wearing the sexually ambiguous combination of beard and braids. If ever there was an image of our time, this is it.
After the Vikings discovered America and couldn’t think of anything to do with it, they slipped back into the liberal margins of culture popping up occasionally with an open sandwich, open marriages, Abba, Legos, Swedish fish, cell phones, and Volvos, the dependable car for people who couldn’t bring themselves to buy German.
Copenhagen’s Noma is widely considered the best restaurant in the world, and H&M has colonized the shopping centers of the West. And don’t forget Ikea! Everything got better, easier, softer. The only thing that has ever reverted is home furnishing, thanks to Ikea, which has somehow succeeded by reversing comfort evolution, taking us back to the Dark Ages with its hard, disapproving chairs, as if sitting were a perversion or a sin, while forcing us to build it ourselves.
LAST YEAR MARKED THE CENTENARY OF THE NORWEGIAN EXPLORER ROALD AMUNDSEN’S WINNING THE RACE TO REACH THE SOUTH POLE. WHAT HAVE THEY DISCOVERED NOW, OR WHAT HAVE THE REST OF US TO DISCOVER IN THEM? WHY IS IT SCANDINAVIA’S MOMENT?
SCANDINAVIA IS EUROPE’S CANADA, GENTLE GIANT OF THE NORTH A collection of countries we can’t tell apart, whose flags are color variations of the same pattern. They’ve got interchangeable Lego royal families, and all their names end in “-son. ” Scandinavia has long been held up as the paragon of a decent, evolved society like the blue-eyed teacher’s pet at school, the kid your mother always told you to be more like. In every survey of enviable smugness, Scandinavia comes first.
SCANDINAVIANS HAVE MANAGED TO ATTAIN HIGH STANDARDS OF LIVING WHILE MAINTAINING A LOW DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN RICH AND POOR. AND IF THAT ISN’T ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU WANT TO THROW UP YOUR SMOKED SHEEP’S HEAD AND GIVE THE BLUE-EYED BLOND KID A WEDGIE, THEN CONSIDER THAT THEY ARE THE ONLY HUMANS IN HISTORY WHO HAVE BEEN COOL ENOUGH TO DIVORCE NUDITY FROM SEX! =)
But at least we can console ourselves with the thought that a great many of them will commit suicide. Though the Scandinavians dispute this, saying they’re just more diligent at collating their mortality statistics, the North does have its dark side. Scandinavians may charitably love the Third World, but they hate and despise one another. The nations share a pugnacious history of occupation, famine, murder.
The watchword of all Nordic people, their mantra, is “conformity” ! The worst social sin is to stand out, to appear even obliquely boastful or pleased with yourself. It is one thing to succeed, but you mustn’t ever be seen to be succeeding. Not belittling others with your success is a serious and constant obligation.
You can split Europe between the herring people and the sardine people. Herring Europe, in the North, is Protestant, liberal, conformist, and honest. The sardine South is Catholic, corrupt, vain, and mendacious. But ask 100 Europeans—or anyone, for that matter—if they’d rather live in deranged, derailed Italy or decent and efficient Denmark and 99 of them will say, “Give me Tuscany. ” Including the Danes ! =)
The attraction of Scandinavia’s renaissance is in its having managed to survive a humane and collectively responsible recession. This is not a time for thoughtless laughter and lies. It’s a time for hunkering round the fire, caring for each other, diligent toil, and eating mushrooms. The appetite for murder and terse detectives always grows in popularity during depressions. The grim darkness of crime fiction reflects hard times. These tales aren’t an escape to a nice world—they are about facing up to a grimly Gothic life where stuff happens and you need to man up to make it right!
THE NORDICS HAVE A TRICK, A USEFUL MIND GAME They keep two sets of ethical accounts, like the New Testament and the Old. They are never judgmental about social stumbles, abortion, or illegitimacy. They throw confetti over gay and inter-racial marriages. You could probably set up home with a willing reindeer. But privately, behind the shutters, they are moral sticklers, silently unyielding and stern about impropriety and licentiousness. They are formal and easily shocked.
THAT’S VERY SCANDI, VERY HERRING They manage to live with this dichotomy, without suffering its contradictions, because it is practical ! Society must work, and it works best if it’s fair and compassionate. Families work best when there are rules and stout boundaries. The Scream may seem to be very us, very now, but you need to look at it through Scandinavian eyes, without our self-reverential solipsism. We assume that the scream is coming from the figure. We identify with its terror. But Munch described this moment, and the cry is coming from the outside. It’s not all about you. You’re not the victim. It’s out there, all around us.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION !