The
Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
By
Michael Booth
2014
Picador
New
York
Now
I know why we left the old country.
Michael
Booth’s new survey of the Nordic lands is a feisty, funny, trip that enlightens
as it entertains.
The
English travel and food writer has a long-standing connection to Denmark
through his wife, and the book originated in his chagrin at Denmark’s
consistent rating as the world’s happiest, most progressive society. “They don’t
look that happy to me,” he thought, and what results is Booth’s frank and
acerbic levering up of the great assumptions about these cultures’ superiority
to take a peek at what squirms about in the shadows beneath them.
As
he travels through Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, Booth does an
admirable job of blending reportage, anecdote, and historical contextualization
to present a balanced sketch of each society. This is a tricky business – Booth
plumbs the national stereotypes for validity, and confronts his own ingrained
generalizations, revealing a much bumpier, more complex reality.
Not
that this is an expose or stab job. Booth is keen to remind the reader that in
a world where poverty, conflict, disease, and injustice are par for the course,
the problems of the highly developed, affluent North are relatively minor.
Additionally, he espouses the virtues that makes these societies work – “trustworthiness,
accountability, openness, a strong civil society, long-termism, individual
self-control.” However, those of Scandinavian heritage raised with an
intimidating sense of where they came from will find this study a big fat
relief -- as some of these stereotypes are all too grounded in fact.
For
instance, it seems that Danes are not the most happy, they are simply the best
at pretending that everything is just fine. The Norwegians come off as not-too-bright,
right-wing tribalists rendered effete by their vast oil revenues. Iceland?
Vikings led astray into modern financial incoherence by their piratical
tendencies. Finland is portrayed as composed of tough, taciturn binge-drinkers.
And Sweden, the economic leader of them all, is a stultifyingly conformist
culture, the ultimate nanny state, with an enormous immigrant problem.
In
fact, the problems of multiculturalism crop up again and again in “Almost.” These
host cultures are incredibly homogenous, not just culturally but genetically. The
need for workers willing to do the mundane tasks that keep things running falls
more and more to refugees, and inclusive philosophies are being tested now up
North, with intermittent success. Enforcing tolerance and avoiding racial
stratification is the new challenge.
The
overall sense that Booth leaves the reader with is that, like a typical American
suburb, Scandinavia is a nice place to be from. The traits I thought were my
family’s alone are more broadly based. The aversion to conflict, the lack of emotionality, the stiff
politesse, the smugness, the non-specific gloominess, the nagging sense of personal unimportance, the shyness,
the yearning for universal approval, and wielding relentless, lethal niceness as a weapon all are found among the people Booth meets on his way.
Booth
quotes journalist Niels Lillelund --“In Denmark we do not raise the inventive,
the hardworking, the ones with initiative, the successful or the outstanding,
we create hopelessness, helplessness and the sacred, ordinary mediocrity,” and The Economist – “Scandinavia is a great
place in which to be born . . . but only if you are average. . . . if you are
extraordinary, if you have big dreams, great visions, or are just a bit
different, you will be crushed, if you do not emigrate first.” Why leave heaven? Well, if for you it's hell.
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