The Almost Nearly Perfect People

by Michael Booth

  Unlike the Danes, who will proclaim themselves the happiest people in the world to any passing academic, journalist or bemused Chinese tourist who is only trying to get an ice cream on Nyhavn, the Swedes don’t hold themselves in terribly high regard. A few years ago the Swedish Institute of Public Opinion Research asked young Swedes to describe their compatriots. The top eight adjectives they chose, in descending order of relevance, were: envious, stiff, industrious, nature-loving, quiet, honest, dishonest and xenophobic

  The bottom three (out of thirty) characteristics, i.e. those least exhibited by the Swedes, were: masculine, sexy and artistic.

  A book written by the founder of Stockholm’s Cross Cultural Relations Centre, Jean Phillips-Martinsson’s Swedes as Others See Them, adds a few more Swedish descriptors: taciturn, serious, stiff, boring, superficially friendly, unsociable, punctual, inflexible, arrogant and overcautious. Another word that crops up regularly in analyses of the Swedes is ‘shy’. One US psychiatrist who spent time observing the Swedes in the 1960s reported that they blushed more often than other nationalities. What were they so embarrassed about, I wondered.

  One explanation is their often-cited, unusually heightened fear of appearing foolish. My first reaction on reading this was, well, you might want to rethink naming your children ‘Hans Hansen’, ‘Jens Jensen’, ‘Sven Svensson’, and so on (and, while we are at it, we need to talk about that whole business with your soldiers and their hair nets), but, as leading Swedish ethnologist Åke Daun put it in his book Swedish Mentality: ‘Before expressing one’s views on a controversial issue, one tries to detect the position of the opposite party . . . Swedes seem to reflect a great deal on what they would like to say, how to say it and when, how other people might react, etc., before they actually say it – if they decide to do so at all.’

  This fear of being ridiculed is reflected in one of the key words by which the Swedes define themselves: duktig. It literally translates as ‘clever’, but this is a specific type of Swedish cleverness: it is a diligent, responsible kind of clever; punctual, law-abiding, industrious clever. We’re talking Japanese-style responsible competence, rather than show-offy clever; not clever like knowing who won Strictly Come Dancing two years ago, more filing-in-your-tax-forms-on-time-without-any-rubbings-out-clever.

  Of course shyness goes hand in hand with the familiar Nordic aversion to conversation. In Fishing in Utopia, a melancholic memoir of the Sweden he lived in during the seventies, British journalist Andrew Brown writes: ‘I have never lived in, nor could imagine a place where people talked less to each other.’ My first thought on reading this was that clearly he has never spent time in a Finnish sauna, but, as with their former eastern territory, a possible explanation for Swedish taciturnity is the familiar ‘high-context society’ theory: each Swede knows what the other is thinking and this similarity in outlook, expectation and aspiration means that, though communication might be easier, they are also able to judge each other to within an inch of their lives. Åke Daun again:

  ‘Swedish homogeneity provides little of the security felt with good friends. On the contrary, homogeneity can easily lead one to overestimate one’s ability to interpret, to understand the behaviour of others. This makes it risky to give off the “wrong” signal: for example, by wearing expensive, elegant clothes when one holds socialist values.’

  Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the Norwegian anthropologist, said something similar to me when we talked about the relationship between the Norwegians and the Swedes: ‘They have much more of a culture of conflict-avoidance in public life. They pull back, you know, they try to avoid controversy, to avoid strong disagreements, and there’s a lot of understatement. There are a lot of cultural problems when Norwegians deal with Swedes. We always make fun of the Swedes because they are so formal, and stiff, and never really say what is on their minds because they want to keep a nice polite ambience.’

  It was becoming clear that Malmö’s crayfish festival was an aberration. Sweden was beginning to sound like some kind of sci-fi dystopia where everyone could read each other’s minds and people no longer had the privilege of private thoughts, compelling them to suppress any emotion, opinion or urge which might run counter to the prevailing ethos. As Indian anthropologist H. S. Dhillon wrote: ‘Anyone who gets heated in a discussion is taken to be an anxious and neurotic figure.’ The result, according to Daun, was that ‘Swedes seem not to “feel as strongly” as certain other people.’

  If Daun was to be believed, Swedish shyness and self-effacement even extended to the country’s maternity wards and funeral parlours, in what have to be the most extreme examples of Nordic inhibition I have yet encountered. During childbirth, Daun says ‘Swedish women try to moan as little as possible, and they often ask, when it is all over, whether they screamed very much. They are very pleased to be told they did not.’ He quotes a midwife as saying that in Swedish society ‘it is forbidden to express strong feelings, and giving birth is a situation in which it is natural to give vent to strong feelings.’ At funerals, meanwhile, Daun warns that, while mild sniffling is just about acceptable ‘cries of despair are embarrassing and are remembered long afterwards’. This doesn’t mean the Swedes are unaffected by or unsympathetic to bereavement, he stresses: ‘Rather, they lack the skills to deal with strong feelings and are afraid of doing the wrong thing, of behaving clumsily.’

  This desire to avoid causing friction extends from Swedish politics (to the extent that dissenting voices can be undemocratically silenced, as we will discover), to the corporate world, famously characterised by its consensus culture. Swedish companies tend to have a flat structure with little overt hierarchy. Everyone can have their say; management and workers consider each other equals; democracy and equality rule. This can have problematic side effects, particularly when it comes to decision-making. A Danish friend of mine is the CEO of a Swedish company and their overriding instinct to get everybody on board with all decisions drives him mad. ‘If we want to change the board members, we have to check that it’s okay with the receptionist,’ he says, exaggerating only slightly. Hiring Danes to kick butt is quite common practice in Swedish companies, apparently. Swedish managers are just too consensus-orientated to push through unpopular decisions.

  ‘We have this ritual of making employees come together, asking what they think,’ one Swede told me. ‘You can’t just change something, it has to be prepared and discussed. Swedes don’t get annoyed, or disappointed, if they don’t get their way: it is part of the game to compromise.’

  This sounds like a recipe for procrastination and stagnation, doesn’t it? So how come Swedish companies have had such huge, global success in recent decades? Because these kind of organisations require large numbers of people to move in the same direction over the long term, they do not tend to benefit from headstrong management. In contrast, the Danes excel at small-to-medium-scale businesses which need to be more agile and reactive; apart from a handful of examples, Danish companies struggle to achieve a truly international scale.

  When they are not striving to be perceived by their fellow countrymen as duktig, the Swedes will seek to impress each other with how lagom they are. Lagom is another key Swedish watchword. It means ‘moderate’, ‘reasonable’, ‘fair’, ‘acting in a common-sense way’, ‘rational’. Though it clearly resonates with Lutheran doctrines, its etymology is said to go much further back, to the Vikings. Legend has it that when they shared a horn of mead around the campfire, those gentle, caring-sharing Vikings would always remember to take care not to drink too much before passing the cup on to their neighbour (before going out and ripping a monk’s head from his neck). Laget om loosely translates as ‘pass around’; over time this is thought to have transformed into lagom, which has today come to imply a kind of self-imposed, collective restraint.

  Lagom defines many behavioural aspects of Swedish society, from consumption patterns, which are resolutely inconspicuous (at least outside certain pockets of central Stockholm where Swarovski crys
tal-covered iPhone covers and pastel sweaters are de rigeur), to their system of government, which has tended to rely on compromise, moderation and consensus. Lagom is clearly related to Jante Law, the fictional Danish social manifesto that defines Swedish society (where they call it Jantelag) as much as, if not more than, in Denmark. The Swedes are even more afraid to pop their heads above the parapet, even less likely to boast or brag of their achievements, even more prone to understatement and modesty.1

  Though, as I discovered in Malmö, the Swedes have by far the best drinking songs in the region, it takes a fair bit of alcohol before they show their more gregarious side, and you usually have to wade through a good deal of strictly observed social protocol to reach that point. Swedish dinner parties are especially stressful affairs for the uninitiated – something women’s rights pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft appears to have spotted back in 1796 when she observed:

  The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from being the polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of tiresome forms and ceremonies. So far, indeed, from entering immediately into your character, and making you feel instantly at your ease, like the well-bred French, their over-acted civility is a continual restraint on all your actions.

  So here’s a primer, just in case you ever find yourself having to deal with Swedish over-acted civility.

  Firstly, to remove, or not to remove is the question all foreigners must ask themselves on arriving at the threshold of a Swedish home. To ask your hosts whether you should take off your shoes is to imply a reluctance to do so; the polite host might not want to impose, but will then secretly despise you for sullying their floors. Discard them automatically, though, and you could find yourself circling a soirée in your socks while everyone else is in shoes, which would be embarrassing. One Swedish etiquette guide advises: ‘Never, ever wear shoes inside another person’s home. Unless, of course, others are doing so,’ adding that Swedes simply know when to remove their shoes and when not to. ‘Look directly at your host, shake his hand, then look down at everyone’s feet. Do not leave the entrance hall before ensuring that your feet are in the same state of dress or undress as everyone else’s.’ But what if you arrive alone and the party is out of sight? Simple: you are doomed.

  In truth, Swedes will likely cut foreigners some slack in the footwear department, but there is one golden rule which you will not be forgiven for breaking: be on time. You should not be too early – no one appreciates that – but equally you should absolutely never arrive later than five minutes after the time you were invited. In Sweden, the concept of ‘fashionably late’ is akin to ‘fashionably flatulent’.

  Assuming you survive the entrance-hall trial, when you arrive at the party proper make sure to circumnavigate the room, shaking hands with each of the other guests in turn, introducing yourself in the manner of the Queen at a post-Royal Command Performance line-up. (They do the same in Denmark, except in Sweden they are more likely to announce both of their names instead of just their Christian names.) Actually, I rather like this formality, even though I instantly forget the other guests’ names. My advice: when you meet them later during the course of the evening it is always worth risking ‘Erik’ for men, or ‘Maria’ for women. Most Swedes seem to be called one or the other. (In Denmark, try ‘Sebastian’ or ‘Helle’.)

  As you mingle before being called to the table, feel free to ask how much people earn, how long they were in education for, and make very clear your stance on how racist the Danes are, an attitude that will instantly endear you to your Swedish hosts. If you find yourself seated to the right of the hostess, bad luck. The other assembled guests will now be rubbing their hands in anticipation of the short toast you are expected to give, greatly relieved that it is not they who must stand up and be modest and witty in complimenting the hostess without provoking her husband. Following your toast, each guest must raise their glass and make, and hold, eye contact with the other diners in turn, all the while keeping one eye on the hostess. When she sips from her glass, the rest of the guests are free to do likewise.

  This is merely the preamble to the meal. I could fill a book with what is expected of you during and after your meatballs and Jansons frestelse (potato gratin with anchovies – a great Swedish invention), but you get the idea. Just one more warning: I made this grotesque error just the once, but after the bewildered looks and nervous mimicking of my misstep by compassionate hosts keen to make sure I didn’t feel humiliated, I learned my lesson. Never touch glasses when you toast. Despite what you might have been led to believe from the various carousing scenes in Hollywood Viking movies over the years, in Scandinavia this is considered unforgivably proletarian.

  If you suspect my primer is not quite comprehensive enough (and you are right, but truly it would take a lifetime of pain to fill in the gaps), the best source on how to navigate the frigid depths of the Swedish psyche is Åke Daun’s book Swedish Mentality. Formerly head of Stockholm’s Nordic Museum and the Ethnology Department at the University of Stockholm, Daun is considered to be one of the greatest Nordic ethnologists of his time. He has been called the ‘guru’ of Swedishness, and his book is a masterpiece of character analysis: never have I read a text which so perfectly – or, indeed, so brutally – skewers a nation.

  Daun describes the Swedes as a race of wallflowers wracked with insecurities; they would rather take the stairs than share a lift, he writes. Their more scintillating habits including visiting the countryside, eating crispbread, speaking in a low voice, and avoiding controversial subjects in conversation. ‘What is remarkable is the weight Swedish culture attaches to “orderliness”,’ he continues, adding that punctuality and thorough organisation are among the characteristics Swedes value most highly. Mmm, sexy.

  Swedish Mentality was written in 1985, and I wondered whether things might have changed since then. Fearing that Daun might no longer be with us, I held little hope of tracking him down for an update but, happily, I was wrong. Daun, who is in his late seventies (and will be played by Max von Sydow when this book is made into a movie), is very much alive and well and living in a well-to-do part of central Stockholm. Indeed, when I contacted him via email, he had just won the prestigious Gad Rausing Prize worth SEK800,000 (about £73,000), awarded by a fund bequeathed by the Tetra Pak billionaire for outstanding work in humanistic research. Very kindly he invited me to his home to talk further.

  Do the Swedes really avoid getting into lifts with people? It sounds so extreme.

  ‘Yes, it’s true. We don’t know how to talk to people we don’t know,’ Daun chuckled. ‘That’s really interesting, because most people like to talk. In southern Europe it’s the best thing in life. I have a French colleague and when she came to Sweden she was convinced it was forbidden to talk on buses. She couldn’t find any other explanation.

  ‘We do tend to give a “special” impression to foreigners,’ Daun continued as we sat in the dimly lit drawing room of his large, high-ceilinged apartment. ‘We are not so talkative, but in Sweden that is something good, you are being polite: “I am going to listen to you.” But after a while the American, or whoever, will start to wonder, “Doesn’t he have his own opinion, something to offer to make it a conversation?” because in America, they think that shy people are stupid.’

  Daun traces the Swedes’ preference for isolation back to their pre-industrial past. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, Sweden was very sparsely populated. The late-nineteenth-century agricultural reforms, which merged farms together into larger units, only exacerbated the isolation of farming families and communities: ‘You didn’t meet many people at all, mainly your own family and neighbours, and everything was equal. They had problems, but similar problems. There was no need to talk about it. You could visit your neighbour without saying anything, knock on the door, and sit down for a while. You might say, “It’s rainy today,” but everything you could have said had been said so many times before.’

  I found this image of Swedish farmers sitting in compani
onable silence strangely touching, but presumably the industrial revolution must have altered things. Not so, said Daun. By that stage the Swedes were highly adept at insulating themselves from others, and remained able to do so even in urban environments. ‘That’s why, in Sweden you might have observed that they just walk into people as if they don’t exist,’ he added.

  At last, an explanation for the breathtaking rudeness I had routinely experienced while visiting Sweden: the unapologetic barging, the oblivious blocking, the complete absence of common courtesies that had left me impotent with rage on so many occasions. When waiting for trains to Copenhagen Airport at the city-centre station, for instance, you could always tell the Swedish passengers who were continuing across the Øresund Bridge towards home because they would barge into the carriage while passengers were still disembarking as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I had experienced many similar instances of this kind of civil discourtesy in Denmark, but the Swedes rivalled the Hong Kong Chinese as the rudest people on earth, and their rudeness was all the more confusing as it ran so very counter to their otherwise respectful, orderly, timid image. Someone once described Scandinavian manners to me as a manifestation of a kind of perverse equality: I have just as much right to walk/drive/cycle here as you. I think there is something to this – either that or perhaps for most of the time it’s simply too cold to hang around being polite.