Swedish paradoxes: Swedes are secretly soft
Part 3 in a mini-series about weird/normal Sweden
There’s a saying that Americans are like peaches, while Russians are like watermelons. Emotionally, I mean.
The saying means that you may think you’re under the skin of an American, and that you really know them, but deep inside them there’s still a hard core; and your contact has mostly been soft stuff. The saying goes on to say that, for Russians, their hardness is on the outside, but once you’re through the shell, you’re in and you’re in deep. I’m no expert on Americans or Russians, I just wanted to lay this model out at the start of today’s newsletter about Swedish paradoxes.
Happy Friday! This is the third of my explanations of the five paradoxes that define Sweden. I’ve been living here and studying the place for 15 years now, so these are my insider/outsider views. You can read the previous paradoxes of trust and individualism and this is the introduction to the whole series.
Today we’re going to explore what kinds of fruit Swedes are! Because our third paradox is how Swedes are both cool and aloof and also utterly bloodily vulnerable with their (our) emotions. And in a very real way, the social distance is precisely because of just how open Swedes are when you do get close. We don’t ask each other how we’re doing – because we might find out far too much.
Wearing our fruit on our sleeves
In many countries you may ask ‘how are you doing’ as you pass an acquaintance. You don’t really expect much of an answer. In fact, in British English, the correct response to ‘how do you do’ is to repeat: ‘how do you do.’ But if you ask a Swede how they’re doing you may get a pause, followed by ‘...well things have been really tough, you know…?’ Ok, not in all circumstances, and not with all greetings. There’s a big difference between asking a Swede ‘hur är läget?’ (‘how’s it going?’) and ‘hur är det?’ (‘how are things?’) or, if you want to bring out the big guns, ‘hur mår du?’ (‘how are you feeling?’) and yes, superficial brief encounters and greetings happen every day in Sweden. But even though small talk does exist here, I think there’s always a lurking deep blue ocean of Big Talk that the careless international small-talker may swim into.
That’s why this paradox is about how Swedes’ aloofness and vulnerability are not a contradiction, but actually the same thing.
If you ask someone who’s moved to Sweden whether Swedes are more like the peach or the watermelon in the saying I mentioned earlier, they might tell you that Swedes are watermelons for sure – just ones that have a titanium shell instead of wood, and which are usually on the highest shelf in the Ikea warehouse and you need your Person number and Bank ID just to even book a meeting with them... This is, of course, very true as regards many people’s experiences of meeting Swedes, or trying to become part of Swedish society and culture. There’s a feeling that it’s all very hard to reach. But after some years of observation, I’d say that Swedes are more like (are you ready for this?) strawberries — with forcefields. How’s that for a mental image?
What I mean to say, is that Swedes are extremely open and direct about their feelings.
The philosophical bit
This is a culture that, comparitively, prizes rationality and the open-eyed investigation of the soul and the realities of the world.
For example, most British people live in a constant state of irony, never saying what they really mean, and only making serious points via jokes, so that no one needs really feel they are exposing their true self. This also leads to something of a distant relationship even with intimate friends and family, and even for the English human’s own self-relationship, which is experienced as a series of wry comments on the ongoing situation (where it’s probably raining).
I’d say that the Swedish experience of existence is by comparison a shockingly direct contact with reality. This is what leads to the classics of Swedish performances ranging from the haunting works of Ingmar Bergman, utterly brutal family dramas of Lars Norlén and also various films where sex and nudity and bodily functions are discussed or even shown openly. This is because of the lack of irony – and lack of cultural guilt – in Swedish society.
So the Swedes both lack the layers of irony of the English, and also the layers of religious and anti-religious struggles of France and Spain and Italy (and the USA). The Swede stands before the universe peculiarly naked, and is not ashamed. What we are, however, is terrified and in pain. It’s cold to be naked, and the bare soul risks getting hurt so easily. A comment made in Swedish cannot be passed off as ‘only a joke’ in the same way it can in both American and British English.
Hence the forcefield and hence the aloofness. Because there’s a lot that needs to be protected, if the Swede is to be able to keep having this kind of authentic, unmediated and raw experience with the universe and with themselves.
Strawberries are not the only fruit?
Of course, I am exaggerating to a huge extent, in order to make a general point. I am trying to say that this kind of situation and this tendency to how the world is experienced exists in Sweden to a significant extent, and it lays the ground for so many other forms of seemingly contradictory behaviour.
For example, why do we see the phenomena of ‘California Swedes’ (and New York Swedes) who seem to behave so differently while they’re enjoying their gap year, gap decade, or life in a start-up over there? I’d argue that when a Swede is in another country they are no longer risking that direct and intimate contact any more, and so they are ‘freed’ by a layer of foreignness around them, since Swedish norms and culture don’t apply and so they do not risk getting hurt in the same way. In a related issue we see that Swedish business figures have surprisingly often participated in corrupt practises while getting contracts in other countries. Same thing. Outside of Sweden, Swedish rules don’t apply, and you’re no longer risking meeting a fellow Swede who can collapse your forcefield and steal your strawberries.
A while ago I got the question ‘are Swedes xenophobic?’ I think today’s post explains why I say that, yes, in a technical sense we are. We are indeed afraid of the alien, when it gets close to us in the place where we live; precisely because it is so easy to hurt us here. Although many Swedes enjoy travelling, and are excited by the idea of meeting people from other places, there is a certain basic vulnerability in Swedish culture that means people can react with defensiveness and even aggression when they feel ‘their space’ is being infringed upon. Maybe now that Sweden is becoming a country of immigration this will change. What we will need to see is whether layers of irony and other forms of cultural mediation can help us Swedes to not be so hurt, and not be so afraid, of that which is different. Even while we strive to maintain the honest and direct relationship with the universe and with ourselves.
Before you ask, yes thank you, I’m doing fine (a slight cold and some anxiety about studying and some basic existential dread and…)
Yours,
Loukas Christodoulou