Nordic Ideology

by Hanzi Freinacht

  These norms are not “ethical” per se , i.e. they don’t necessarily have any­thing to do with a reasoned account of what is right and wrong. They are—with the words of the classical anthropologist Margaret Mead—that which divides the “pure” from the “impure”. As such, the norms of diff­erent soc­ieties can seem quite arbitrary or even silly to members of other societies or cultures. Some norms are more specific to cultures; in China it’s consid­ered good behavior to (gently) burp at the dinner table, for in­stance. Others are almost universal, such as the incest taboo. And they arise, of course, as a result of many interrelated factors that shape our everyday inter­actions: power rela­tions, beliefs, biological dispositions, economic systems and interests, and so forth.

  Much could be said about different types of norms, these types arising and functioning by different logics: fashion is different from morals, which is different from eating habits, which is different from greeting rit­uals. But for the sake of the argument in this book, let’s keep it simple and treat the system of norms as a single entity.

  Examples of norms from contemporary Western societies entail such things as: don’t talk about too personal or “private” things in professional settings, don’t be racist, don’t be a pedophile, don’t have sexual relations with ani­mals, say hello to acquaintances but not urban strangers, shave your legs if you’re a woman, don’t be obese, and so on. The kinds of sanctions one might expect from violating these dif­fer greatly—one may have you labeled as a weirdo, while another can have you end up in jail—but they are all part of the same overarching norm system.

  From a critical and social-scientific perspective, it is obvious that diff­erent norm systems can be more or less compatible with different socie­tal and economic systems. For instance, democratic norms of free speech and tolerance are generally very useful to large, com­plex soc­ieties that need to process large amounts of information and coord­inate the actions of many millions of people. Strong family norms and loy­alty to one’s parents can be useful in traditional agrarian soc­ieties—for increa­sing chan­ces of individual and collective sur­vival—but the same norms can be emo­tionally suffocating and econ­om­ically constr­ain­ing in large, liberal market democracies.

  Hence, there is always good reason to critically evaluate the norms of ourselves and one another. But such a critique must necessarily be an end­eavour pursued with great patience as the norms aren’t rational, deliberate choices; norms are lived, felt and embodied, part and parcel of who we consider ourselves to be and how we see the world. Only on rare occasi­ons, and under very favorable circumstances, can you “talk somebody out of it”. And the norms exercise great power when they are followed by many. For a vegan like myself, for example, it just isn’t worth it if I were to disdain and condemn everyone who contributes to the har­m­ing of ani­mals for rea­sons of idle consumption and trite habit. I would simply be so out­num­bered that it would cost me too much and make little if any posi­tive difference.

  All norms come with calibrated rewards and penalties of diffe­rent kinds. If you cheat on your husband in the wrong culture you get disown­ed by your family and perhaps even stoned to death. It might even count as cheating if you were raped. In modern Western societies you’re fined or sent to prison if you beat someone, but you “only” get lower social status if you display “lacking manners” or fail to present yourself as pos­itively masc­uline or feminine.

  But the norm systems of course change over time, and this can happen either through unconscious processes as we reflexively adapt to changing circumstances, or through consciously organized and deliberate struggles on behalf of soc­ial movements and what sociologists call “moral entrepre­neurs” (folks who invest their lives into changing norms).

  The simplest and clearest example of such norm development is per­haps the major shift in Western societies from homophobia to accep­tance of LGBTQ+ rights. Very recently, only a few decades ago, it was viewed as em­barr­assing, disgusting, unnatural and even immoral to be gay. Some time around the 1990s—after decades of struggle on the behalf of social move­ments and moral entrepreneurs—this strangely and abruptly shift­ed to a situation in which homophobia , rather than homophilia, is viewed as deviant: as hate­ful, big­oted, judgmental, narrow-minded and down­­right evil. The norms shifted from punishing people for being gay, to punish­ing people for being homophobic.

  This shift occurred across large parts of the Western world, in some places a little quicker than in others, but more or less everyone follo­wed suit with astounding obedience. State bureau­cracies form­erly concer­ned with “treating perversions” suddenly became engaged with combating “dis­cri­mination against sexual minorities” and defen­ding gay rights.

  It is, from an ethical and critical perspective, not difficult to argue this was a “good” development, that it represents an expansion towards more functional and universally justifiable norms. This “development of the norm system” may in part be explained by the general shift to higher average effec­tive value meme in the population, with more people at the modern and post­modern stages.

  But the fact that almost everyone shifted so dramatically, from one pol­arity to another, whereas the average effective value meme demo­graphics, after all, do not change as rapidly (there are still only about 20-25% post­modernists, from where the concern with gay rights is primarily derived, in these societies), reveals that something else must have occ­urred: There must have been a major shift in the norm system itself .

  The norm system functions by doling out rewards to followers and con­ferring penalties to delinquents. It’s a delicate power balance. If you are an open homophobe in present-day Western societies, you will be punished and held back in a large variety of ways. People will argue against you, win arguments and score points on you as you are embarr­assed and demeaned in front of your peers. You won’t get hired, you will get fired, you won’t have as many friends, you probably won’t get laid. And if you speak out too openly and aggressively, you can even be fined and go to prison. Talk about penalties.

  How did this situation come about? Certain groups simply managed to win a long series of symbolic struggles, and thus started pun­ish­­ing those who violated the new norms. More and more people quickly found greater rewards in being anti-homo­phobic, and started mining this new gold mine for personal gain. And the disgruntled and outmaneuvered con­servatives on this issue learned to keep quiet.

  And before you know it, people changed not only their behaviors, but also their honest opinions and values. New norms took hold, and they began to shape not only the postmodern populations (many of whom were already pro-gay rights), but seeped deep into the modern main­stream and even found grudging compliance among many religious tradi­tionalists. The game had shifted, and the conservatives lost the symbolic struggle as more and more people switched sides.

  It’s not that people suddenly became “more enlightened”, or that they all advanced to a higher effective value meme, or that society itself became so much freer and equal (as we have seen, economic inequal­ity has even grown within affluent countries during the same period). It’s just that the norm system changed, and thus changed the behavioral incentives. And when incentives changed, people unconsciously changed their own deeply held values in less than a generation. When it comes to gradual and honest inner growth, humans are slowly awakening gods. When it comes to the shifting of norms, we are lemmings.

  This account may strike some readers as cynical, but it’s really just basic sociology and psychology. We know that when there are strong in­centives to feel a certain way, to adopt certain values, our minds generally follow suit. You may have heard of the “Stockholm syn­drome”, which is when captives in a hostage situation suddenly adopt a strong affi­nity for their captors. Or you may bring to mind countries like the USSR or North Korea where people will worship and adore the most monstrous leaders because they live under the constant threat of being severely pun­is
hed. Hell, even the detainees at concentration camps can become eager follow­ers of their oppressors’ ideology. Destructive cult lea­ders can rise by means of the same dynamic, using extreme peer press­ure to shift people’s norms and worldviews.

  On a more mun­dane level, people will hold on to beliefs that serve their economic interests, and which procure social rewards and avoid social penalties (consider climate deniers within the fossil fuel industry). Norms follow in­terests and incentives.

  I’m not saying that everyone is Machiavellian. People will honestly bel­ieve that the norms that serve their (perceived) incen­tives are their own , deeply held, values. And from there on, they (or we ) will eagerly and sin­cerely defend and justify these norms. The structure of social penalties and re­wards really does become our lived, felt and embodied norms.

  This is how the norm syst­em funct­ions, for better or worse. The norm system itself follows no morality and no norms, only a cold logic of pen­alty and reward. But as such it can bring about norms that are more or less univeralistic, more or less functional and lead to more or less sust­ain­able consequences under the current historical circumstances.

  That is what happened as norms shifted towards anti-homophobia, to­wards women’s suffrage and feminism, towards environmental concern, towards the abolishment of slavery, towards anti-racism and against other forms of discrimination.

  As our suspicious friends on the Left like to point out, none of this was achieved by the goodness of people’s hearts, but rather by the results of long and exhausting social and political struggles. Norms often shift be­cause groups of people led by moral entrepreneurs put in lifetimes of hard work and struggle. Even­tually the lemming tide can shift and we all start running in a new dir­ection. Rats after the Pied Piper.

  And the historical circumstances of course determine which norms are more likely to take hold and be victorious in the long run. Why did the gay movement eventually win out? Because it simply made more sense given all other social, political and economic structures of liberal, demo­cratic societies. The right for adults to freely engage in consensual same-sex rela­tionships follows from the secular and liberal foundation of democratic society. Hence, denying this right either puts you in a position of rejecting modern democratic values alltogether, or, one of self-con­tradiction—both of which increase the likelihood of losing the debate in the end.

  This is a good example of how the Realdialektik (a concept discus­sed in Book One) present within the structure of lan­guage itself leads to log­ical outcomes: Once you have said that love is free, and you can marry whom­ever you like, it also follows that gay people should be allowed to love freely. It naturally follows from the same state­ment. It just took a hundred years or so to successfully unravel that logical sequence on a wide, collec­tive level.

  And today, even the far Right is often not against gays; criticising Islam for being homophobic and rallying around the quite flamboyant­ly homo­sexual YouTube-star Milo Yianno­poulos. A few de­cades ago, on the other hand, even hum­an­ist, progressive Leftwing philosophers, such as Erich Fromm, were still homopho­bic. Accordingly, it’s not that today’s far Right is of “higher effective value meme” than was Erich Fromm—it’s just that the norm system has changed. This simple fact speaks volumes for the tre­mendous power of the norm system.

  The Norm System as Cultural Struggle

  For all its power and influence, the norm system is never complete. There are always cracks, loopholes and exceptions: people who don’t run with the lemming tide. And there is, moreover, al­ways an ongoing struggle over which norms should apply (and what penalties or rewards should be deemed suitable). Most no­rms we simply have to follow in order to func­tion within society, but there is often room for challenging at least some norms, trying to honor new values and con­demn some currently common practices.

  There is, of course, no reason to believe that the norm system of today is final or that it has stopped evolving. If anything, it mutates even more rapidly in today’s hyperconnected, complex world, not least as the result of an increasing interaction between conflicting norm systems.

  Here are some examples of norms likely to be struggled over in the coming period:

  1. Animal rights and veganism as we are no longer de facto dependent on animal exploitation for food and work and as the scientific worldview holds that humans are animals like any other. So if we have solidarity with all humans, because they’re sentient, feeling beings, it’s difficult to maintain that such solidarity should not be exten­ded to other animals—but the impediments of habit and vested inter­ests make the transition a difficult one.

  2. Pedophilia , since we can probably prevent more kids from being molested if people aren’t judged for having unwanted sexual urges and if these can be openly dealt with. Besides, it’s also more humane to the circa 1% of the population who suffer from pedophile inclinations. Controversial as it is.

  3. Professional identity and work ethics. People should have other means of acquiring social value as the profess­ional “work” becomes more arbitrary and difficult to achieve in a postindustrial economy.

  And there are of course many more, such as the rise of “post-­materia­list” norms, where it becomes embarr­assing rather than cool to own a sports car and where displays of cultural capital and self-actualization confer prestige. Preventive and “harm reduction” stances on drugs and prostitu­tion also come to mind.

  Norm systems develop through changed historical circumstances and as the result of protracted struggles between different groups for social and moral dominance. This means that different groups and value memes can be dominant during different periods.

  Casual observers sometimes think Scandinavian countries are “post­­­­­modern”. The truth is, however, that only a minority can be said to func­tion at the postmodern stage. What has really happened is that post­modern groups and alliances have successfully managed to influence the media and the political discourses in ways that have shaped the norm systems in these countries. Postmoderns have won the symbolic struggles. Hence, you have the rise of “political correctness” and anti-discrimination laws and the like. [73]

  In the US, the struggle to define which norms should apply for society as a whole even has a name: the “culture wars”. On one side we have the progressive liberals (postmodern), usually found in the big cit­ies, and on the other we have the religious conservatives (traditionalist), who mostly reside in rural areas and small towns. This has come to define American politics to a degree where party affiliation now depends more on effective value meme than class distinctions. It cuts across all in­come groups with poor (mostly white) rural inhabitants and wealthy con­servatives rallying behind the Republican Party, while wealthy edu­cated urbanites along with hipsters, intellectuals and various minority groups vow for the Dem­ocrats.

  And despite the fact that the majority of the American population gra­vitate towards the modern value meme, it is the traditionals and the post­moderns who dominate the political discourse: gay rights vs. “traditional family values”, multiculturalism vs. white Chri­st­ian majority culture, env­ironmentalism vs. cli­mate denial, feminism vs. traditional gender roles, etc.

  This struggle is just as much a cultural battle as a political one, with each side seeking to establish their respective values as normative for soci­ety as a whole, and to denigrate those of their opponents. These cult­ure wars play out in so many arenas: When liberals find support in estab­lished media houses such as CNN and The New York Times, con­serv­atives build strong­holds around rightwing upshots like Fox News and Breit­bart News. And when conservatives mobilize the churches to con­demn the decadence and perverted agenda of the liberals in Holly­wood, popular talkshow hosts and comedians of liberal bent don’t shy away from mocking the unedu­cated and less cosmopolitan conservatives and their elected leaders on national tele­vision.

  And the result of this cultural struggle: ebbs and flows of changes
to the norm system—which in turn affects how society functions as whole.

  The Map of Cultural Game Change

  We are now approaching a more comprehensive model of “cultural game change”. There is the development of:

  higher effective value memes within the population,

  the major shifts of gear between differ­ent orders of state emergence and the intimacy of control, emo­tional regimes (degrees of freedom), and the struggle for deeper equality, encom­passing an increasing portion of the six dimen­sions of equality, and

  cultural changes to the system of norms.

  More “prog­ressive” norms are the ones better suited for larger and more com­plex societies. These norms aren’t “better” in some cosmic sen­se—there is no God out there who loves us more if we believe in political meta­modernism rather than Christian conservatism. The norms of the former are simply better adapted to how society is currently org­ani­zed.

  Naturally, all of these factors interact:

  the system of norms affects the formation of people’s effective value me­mes,

  the aver­age effective value meme affects which emotional regime is instituted, and

  the degrees of equality and freedom shape how fiercely and bitterly the penalties and rewards of norm systems are distributed.

  Of course, societies develop through other mechanisms than these, such as the establishment of institutions, growth of the economy and ad­van­ce­ment of technology and science. I am here focusing on the cult­ural game change that steers everyday life and determines our degree of equ­ality and freedom.