Nordic Ideology

by Hanzi Freinacht

  This being said, it still does make sense to task the Ministry of Gemein­schaft with overviewing, evaluating, comparing and publicizing the results of different measures and programs, their cost-eff­ectiveness, their central­ity for explain­ing other factors, the quality of cer­tain programs—and so on—in order to direct resources and to inform decision makers and the public. This in turn would form a basis for the ongoing political debates, dialogues and deliberations of political leaders, parties, the media and the public.

  Do we want a program for conflict resolution and mediation bet­ween neighbors to reduce the great costs of eviction cases in courts? Are the end results preferable? Is it a better idea to support kids at age four from bad family conditions than to support them at fourteen as their criminal ca­reers begin? Are single-person targeting programs preferable to pro­­grams which work with whole populations, or vice versa? Which are the best strategies to get people to share living spaces more? How can the loneli­ness of old age be combated; does it work to pay teenagers pocket money to hang out with their elders? Which of these solutions work best with private-public part­nerships? You get the picture.

  There will be a myriad of such initiatives across a given society. Let us then make sure these are systematically evaluated and supported—and that best practices become part and parcel of the ongoing political dis­cour­se.

  A sociological sensitivity to the relations of everyday life must grow and become self-evident to the public; it must be incorporated into the very fabric of our institutions. Can authorities become better at commu­nicating with and listening to the citizens? Can the citizens acquire higher social, emo­tional and collective intelligence? Can trust and social capital prolifer­ate?

  Any political movement or party of the future will need to give their vision of how to systematically improve upon and develop the relations of society. Gemeinschaft Politics is being born. It is already being performed; I simply suggest it should be done more deliberately, transparently and systematically.

  Four Examples of Gemeinschaft Politics

  Let us now examine four examples of what Gemeinschaft Politics might look like in terms of concrete, implemented programs. Without taking a hard stance on how highly these suggestions should be prioritized—if, indeed, at all—I’d like to outline these ideas in order to get across the gen­eral mode of thinking that Gemeinschaft Politics entails. In order of app­earance, they are 1) measures to train emotional, social and collective intelligence, 2) organ­ized community housing for families and the elderly, 3) support for local citizen discussion clubs led by professional facilitators, and 4) making room for civil society projects in public spaces.

  Measures to train emotional, social and collective intelligence: The modern school system somehow expects that we figure out the most im­portant and difficult aspect of life all by ourselves: how to form produc­tive and loving relations to others. Schools put great efforts into teaching our children about chemistry and the correct use of grammar, but good social skills are more crucial to a happy and successful life as an adult. Sadly, how good we become at interacting with others is largely left to chance and many leave the education system as emotional and social illit­erates.

  Measures to increase the emotional, social and collective intelligence of children could include training sessions in school to successfully read fac­ial expressions and body language, guessing the hidden motivations of others, part­icipat­ing in games of perspective taking (in which you need to take others’ perspective of oneself in order to succeed), training team for­mations and task dele­ga­tion to compete against other groups in tasks of collective intelligence—and so forth. All of these interventions must first be tested in lab settings, then on populations with control groups, then in society, and then be com­paratively evaluated for benefits as compared to other meas­ures.

  Over time and as the expertise and implementation skills grow, there could be signi­ficant shifts in these qualities in a whole generation. Emo­tio­nal intelligence would mean more self-regulation of behaviors and less con­flict; social intel­ligence would mean people maneuver better in work and family envir­onments and have an easier time finding ways to help one another out; and collective intelligence would increase the ability of peo­ple to find their respective strengths and cooperate in more com­plex and dyn­amic patterns of teams, organizations and so forth. If such programs were succ­ess­ful, we would see an improvement of human rela­tions across the board—with gains untold.

  Organized community housing for families and the elderly : Housing in late-modern society remains sociologically, eco­nomically and ecologi­cally a deeply irra­tional endeavor. As things stand today, young families invest in buying expensive houses and hence drive up housing prices while amassing large debts throughout the economy, creating recur­ring price bubbles and plenty of leeway for system abuses of the kind revealed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. This also messes up economic incentives (spe­culation rather than work and save) and creates plenty of lev­erage for the already-rich and not-so-desperate; a huge lottery except the odds are rigged against the poor and needing. Even if villas, condos and apartments provide a basis of security and comfort in many people’s lives, there is indeed little reason to believe that the curr­ent system opti­mally meets personal and societal needs. Today’s “one-villa-one-family” housing syst­­em leads to unnecess­arily large reso­urce cons­umption, to loneliness and to social, economic and physical pre­c­arity in old age, to distance between the genera­tions, to psychological press­­ure on the nucle­ar family, to dis­tance between neigh­bors and dimin­ished local communi­ty, to smaller support networks more gener­ally—and of course to higher living costs, which in turn pressures people economi­cally.

  It would make more sense to have housing systems which are hybrids between private homes and shared spaces. These would form medium-sized communities with a variety of different apartments. Eld­erly citizens could move to shared spaces that are safe for frail and weak bodies, letting families with children move into their houses rather than the seniors hol­d­ing on to them, partaking in shared gard­ening projects, sharing some burd­ens of cooking, baby-sitting and so forth. There would be a facilitated framework for democratic decision-making and partly shared ownership—with relevant training offered to key people.

  Social isolation would drop, psychological health would improve, social skills and intelligence would go up, and people would live more sus­tain­ably. The economy would be stabilized. People would retain personal free­dom but still have a communal context.

  The degree to which such housing projects are possible does not only depend upon the knowledge and perspectives of the people who create them, but also—and perhaps primarily—upon the average emotional and social intelligence of the population. If people generally are nicer and more pleas­ant to have around, there is also less incentives for “private islands” to protect and shelter us from one another. Rem­ember: The high costs we spend on social work, policing and sec­urity are derived from people displaying anti-social and dysfunctional behaviors. On a more gen­e­ral level, the average sociality of people—their mental health, per­sonal develop­ment and social skills—sets the limits for how the econ­omy itself functions, including core issues such as housing. One kind of Gemein­schaft Politics thus builds upon another.

  Support for local citizen discussion clubs led by professional facilita­tors : Modern parliamentarism and the traditional civil organizations of class and special interests are severely underequipped for meeting the demand for democratic participation in today’s society. New arenas for public deliberation are needed and more people should be trained and equipped to become local leaders and facilitators of such meeting places.

  I have worked in such civil society organizations myself, facilitating citizen discussions at libraries and local club houses, and I can only say that the demand is huge for spaces in which people can be “general citi­zens” and speak th
eir minds on current events and pressing topics and listen to the perspectives of others. When well facilitated, such initia­tives seem to be able to cross boundaries of class, age, ethnicity and poli­tical persuasion.

  If such initiatives for small-scale co-development and citizen engage­ment were present across society as a nor­mal part of life, the gains could be immense: People would hear more per­spectives, develop their own opin­ions and quite generally be more robust in their roles as citizens. It would also offer a platform for friendships and acquaintances to be for­med on a civic basis, away from the pressures of family and profes­sional life. If citizens could sign up for a professional facilitation training and could be afforded small budgets or just meeting venues, this could impro­ve society’s overall social capital (interpersonal connection and trust) and its collective intelligence in many ways. Again, this feeds into the two earlier suggestions for Gemeinschaft Politics. And, of course, it creates a much stronger basis for Demo­cratization Politics.

  Making room for civil society projects in public spaces: It is some­how taken for granted that most of the public spaces of a modern con­sumer society should be reserved for commercial activities. Busy shops in the center of town have long been considered the yardstick of a thriving com­munity, and local municipalities make great efforts to encourage people to go shopping when businesses close down. Yet, such priorities simply don’t make sense in today’s affluent societies. Idle store clerks are hardly a grea­ter concern than ecological collapse caused by overconsump­tion.

  I believe it is a sign of modernity’s lacking imagination when we strug­gle to come up with any better uses for the natural meeting points in our city centers. Couldn’t we use the spaces for something more useful than idle con­sumption? Most of our public space has been claimed by com­mercial inter­ests, but at least some of these spaces can and should be taken from the market forces and be brought into the service of the Gemein­schaft . People and organizations should be able to book public areas that are fre­quen­ted by many fellow citizens and use them as meeting places and platforms for artistic, cultural or social ends. This would enrich socie­ty in a myriad of ways and work against the over-instrumentalization and com­mercial­iza­tion of the public space. And, again, it would work in tan­dem with all of the above-mentioned suggestions.

  The point isn’t to stare ourselves blind at these particular suggestions. I’m sure you can come up with better ones, or challenge and improve upon the ones I’ve mentioned. I am simply trying to put some flesh on the bones of this skeletal structure. I am trying to get across a feeling for what Gemeinschaft Politics could look like and how it would work in practice.

  But you can come up with more ideas. A corps of professional “listen­ers” in public service institutions and in healthcare? A concerted effort to improve the conflict management and mediation skills in work-life? Pro­grams for intergenerational mentorships?

  The heart’s the limit.

  Chapter 12:

  TRANSFORMATIONS OF EVERYDAY LIFE

  Now it is time to dig deeper into some of the core issues of Gemein­schaft Politics: key insights on ethnicity, gender, and the transfor­ma­tion of every­day life.

  As the metamodern ideas spread and take hold in society’s institutions, political parties from across the political spectrum will adopt different forms of Gemeinschaft Poli­tics, just as they will different forms of Demo­cratization Politics. But, of course, some political movements and per­spec­tives are more lik­ely to be complex and powerful—and more in tune with political meta­mod­ern­­ism—than others.

  Before we go on to Existential Politics, then, let us take a good look at some general metamodern stances on how to create a friendlier society.

  Hello? Trans­formation central, please.

  Reducing Ethnic Tensions

  Ethnic tensions are almost unavoidable in societies containing groups of people with different cultural, linguistic and religious identities. Reducing such tensions has become an ever more delicate task as societal complex­ity has increased, and the guiding principles to address the issue of ethni­city must be properly reexamined.

  Throughout history, we can see a clear progression: from the nationa­lism of the 19th century, which sought to erase ethnic differences and pro­mote a shared national identity in order to avoid political disintegration; to the non-nationalism of the 20th century, which sought to downplay ethnic differences and promote civic identities in order to prevent sectar­ian affiliations from overruling the degree to which societal participation was aligned according to wider civic categories; to the multicultural­ism, or, with a more suitable term, inter-culturalism, of the present, which seeks to respect and embrace all identities and promote diversity in order to elim­inate racism and ensure that everyone feels included. To, what I believe will be the only way of productively handling and develop­ing ethnic iden­tities in a transnational world order of increased global inter­connec­ted­ness, trans-culturalism.

  The intelligent reader may already have noticed how each of the four positions seem to correlate with effective value meme: postfaustianists , or traditional conservatives, usually favor nationalism; modernists , the main­stream in most Western societies, tend to gravitate towards the more civic stance of non-nationalism; postmodernists , the “politically correct” elite, are almost always devoted multiculturalists who unanimously de­fend the pos­ition of inter-culturalism. And if you agree with most of the section below on trans-culturalism, then it’s a good indication that you’re meta­modern . But before you test your metamodern inclinations, let’s go thr­ough each of the positions in a bit more detail.

  NATIONALISM

  Nationalism is the position that defends what is perceived as one’s “own” nationality, state and ethnicity from the perceived threat of other cultural units. To the extent that immigrants are seen as acceptable, they should only be welcomed if they show allegiance to the majority cult­ure and if they make real efforts to be assimilated. This position does make sense in historical phases when nation states are being formed and an ethnos— “the people”—is being constructed as a shared imagined idea in tandem with the birth of the nation. For instance, it is to be expected from the birthing Kurdish nation, or even the Catalonians, to display rather far-reaching forms of nationalist sentiment.

  Unfortunately, however, this pro­cess of national cohesion can also be reactivated in existing national pop­ulations when these feel threatened or shamed—contemporary examples of which we see not only in European right populism and American Trump­ism, but also in countries like Russ­ia, Turkey, Brazil and India. Conserv­atism tends to have a perpetual flirt with nationalism, saying stuff like “we have to learn to stand up for our values”. I say “unfortunately” because nat­ionalism as a reactionary move­ment does not really offer any credible paths to creating a regulated and func­tional trans­national order, and it tends to feed conflicts and mis­under­standings.

  NON-NATIONALISM

  Non-nationalism is what I call the reliance upon the modernist project—in its capitalist or communist forms—to simply supersede and eventually efface the ethnic differences between people. If immigrants only get a job, if people are respected as individuals, if people are free to make money and buy stuff and trade freely—the libertarians tell us—they will soon get over their petty parochial quarrels and live in peace. Maybe not everyone will love everyone else, but that’s okay, as long as people show each other a min­i­mum level of tolerance and respect. Enlightened self-interest: You won’t go after people whose goods, services and capital you rely upon. And the free market can make that happen.

  Commu­nists will tend towards a corresponding vision: If people see their shared class interests, ethic differences will dissolve as ethnicity is and remains an epi­phenomenon, ultimately reducible to class. A fair soci­ety in which material gains are fairly distributed will have fewer ethnic con­flicts.

  This idea of course fails to take ethnicity,
identity and culture nearly as seriously as they should. It fails to see and take into account that cult­ure matters, and that culture is a real, behavioral force with real exp­lanatory value—which has shown itself time and again, historically speak­ing. Eth­nicity (based on any combination of race, language, nation­ality, cultural cust­oms, or religious and sometimes even political affiliations) is a force that can at times topple states and govern­ments, and thereby efface what­ever free markets or planned eco­nomies that exist under their rule.

  INTER-CULTURALISM

  Inter-culturalism (or multiculturalism) comes in different forms. You have multicultural state ideologies, which emphasize the importance of in­clusion and diversity, claiming that the more diverse cultures you have, the better. You have corresponding anti-discrimination and pro-diversity poli­cies in companies. You have “inter-faith dialogue” movements, which seek to find common ground and mutual respect among believers of diffe­rent faiths. You have “affirmative act­ion” programs, international child­ren’s summer camps, the peace move­ment, political correctness seeking to ban whatever words have become racist slurs—and so forth. Among theo­rists you find such think­ers as the philosopher Charles Taylor, who em­phasizes the importance of ethnic minority groups having “rights” to the preservation of their culture.