The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

by Anu Partanen

The phrase is “the Law of Jante,” and it is shorthand for a list of ten commandments created by the Danish-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose in his 1933 novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks. Sandemose’s ten commandments referred to the mentality of a fictional town called Jante, but the rules were immediately understood to capture the larger disposition of Scandinavians in general.

The commandments are: 1. You are not to think you are anything special. 2. You are not to think you are as good as we are.

3. You are not to think you are smarter than we are. 4. You are not to convince yourself that you are better than we are. 5. You are not to think you know more than we do. 6. You are not to think you are more important than we are. 7. You are not to think you are good at anything. 8. You are not to laugh at us. 9. You are not to think anyone cares about you. 10. You are not to think you can teach us anything.

What makes Nordic people uncomfortable is when “uniqueness” or “being special” includes the suggestion that certain people are more valuable than others.

By contrast Nordics tend to continue emphasizing the equal value of each individual regardless of his or her achievements, and thus Nordic people dislike such hierarchies and celebrations of success.

It’s not that Americans don’t realize that they need to relax, as Arianna Huffington seems to think. It’s that they can’t afford to.

“But social mobility without social investments is simply not possible. So if you start to give up on public schools and a collective system for enabling individual social mobility, you’re going to end up with inequality, gated communities, collapse of trust, a dysfunctional political system. All these things you see now in the United States.”