Norwegian attitudes and values.1. A critical review.
Yours, ours or mine values?
This article will focus on some basic values that the Norwegian people and society almost take for granted. At least until today. I write to you about these attitudes and values so you can compare with your own people and country’s values and attitudes. Then I hope you can reflect what is good and less good or even bad with these norwegian practices compared to you own country’s. So in the following I’ll try to give an overview of so-called typical Norwegian values that most researchers and people in our country will recognize.
Who are we?
But who are we Norwegians, really? Aren’t we just farmers, fishermen, clerks IT people, academics, industrial workers, urban people, rural people, people on the coast, in the valleys, and inside the fjords? Likewise people from the Bible Belt in the South and Southwest! Capital citizens, rich, poor, sick, healthy, young and old, women and men?
And is there not much variation in what we appreciate and expect from each other? And not the least what values we have, given these differences? In addition, since the 1970s, we have also received cultural influence from other more foreign countries, religions and traditions than the typical European and Western ones (see King’s speech on this: http://www.selvuniverset.com/2016/09/02/the-kings-speech/
For several reasons, I think that Norwegian values must always be regarded as taken out of an average of the population. Then actually very few individuals recognize themselves, or fall in under all the listed values.
– Great emphasis on independence.
Ottar Hellevik and Tale Hellevik conducted a thorough value survey for WVS, ie the World Value Overview. It then turned out that no other country in Europe had a population that placed as much emphasis on independence as Norwegians. (Hellevik, & Hellevik 2016). This may also be an international point.
– Godless, lazy and not very hard working.
Another extreme is the lack of interest in hard work by the Norwegians. Nor are we concerned with religious beliefs nationwide, compared to other populations in our continent.
-Extremely tolerant an eager to help.
At the very top of Europe we find ourselves in the importance of emphasizing tolerance, respect for others and helpfulness. Yes we are very happy to help others!
-Without modesty and unpolite.
However we are at the bottom in terms of modesty and thrift. We are also lacking in politeness and concerns about correctness. We are not typically charecterized by humility. I addition we stand out globally in that we are not keen on behaving properly, ie avoiding doing what other people and cultures think is wrong.
-Not so keen on being rich and succesfull.
Nor are we concerned about living in safe environments or avoiding anything that is dangerous. Interestingly enough we are not so keen on being rich and successful. Oddly enough, according to this overview, Norwegians are not so occupied with having fun. Here, I guess researchers have overlooked our teenagers in this value account. Maybe also metropolitan people, and financial and shipping people, ie people in our capital Oslo and the surrounding Bærum region?
Those who are most concerned with themselves and those who are most concerned with the well-being of others.
- Idealists and materialists.
There are also some contradictions in the population: Hellevik thinks the contradiction between idealists and materialists is most interesting. Idealists emphasize inner values, and are outwardly concerned with relationships and showing concern for others.
The materialists, on the other hand, are mostly concerned with the exterior, consumption and usually think more about their own needs than others.
As I said, idealists emphasize the interior. They think much about self-realization and spiritual experiences. They are very concerned with relationships and showing concern for other people.
This is not so for the materialist. They tend to think more about their own needs than about other’s. The “Monitor Round 1999” showed a marked increase in materialistic values between 1987 and 1999. There was a sharp decline in the so-called idealistic values at the same time. A graph also shows a jump from tradition to modernity between 1985 and 1987. (https://www.google.com/search? client =firefox-b-d&=share+materialists+ og+idealister+i+den +norsk+ population)
-A new trend of materialism.
From the 1980 ies and until now, it was a period both nationally and internationally, during which there was a dramatic political (neo-liberalist) deregulation of banking and finance. Some call this the Reagan-Thatcher period in international politics.
It is not my impression that we have become less materialistic since then. One can get the impression that houses, homes and interiors are in a special position. That the kitchen, bathroom and car park are renewed very often. In some places, the kitchen is renewed every five years. In addition, trips to all corners of the world come. I do not have data from 2018 and 2019 that show a decline in accordance with a growing awareness of the climate and environmental problems we are facing.
-Norwegians are full of trust in each other and in the state.
Hellevik, who has been leading the Norwegian Monitor Survey conducted by Ipsos (MMI) since 1985, has every year surveyed values among 3000–4000 Norwegians. One of the most important things he found was the enormous confidence in the Norwegian population in general. – “In Norway, trust between people and society has been built up over a very long time. It has its roots in the Hans Nilsen Hauges movement 200 years ago, to the Constitution in 1814 and to the introduction of parliamentarism in 1884. »
But may I ask: Do we still have that confidence in 2019? Then the question is whether the NAV wellfare scandal was unveiled in the fall of 2019, The maternity care offer and birth aid is getting worse in the districts, especially in the north. Despairing midwives are leaving their positions, reduced bed capacity at the new hospitals, closure of local hospitals, as well as Oslo’s biggest hospital Ullevål Sykehus, create much less confidence to the state and municipality than before.
-Many new reforms are dismantling the welfare state.
In addition, the outsourced air ambulance service in theNorth, can be mentioned, where the planes are grounded most of the time. The socalled Local Police Reform, is a great disappointment. Because instead of being visible and present in the streets of the city and in the suburban regions, they are removed from these places. Here they previously formed alliances with the young, and worked a lot preventively.
When the care of grandmother and grandfather is outsourced to the lowest bidder, it creates unrest. When elderly care and profit-based nursery homes proliferate, where profits from the enterprises, or sales, are transferred to shell companies in tax pardises instead of pensions to the employees, then many protest. And when our tax money does not go to extra service to the elderly and strengthens the professional staffing of the kindergartens, this also weakens the former confidence in the state in the population.
Having a lot in common.
Bjørn Roger Rasmussen talks about: “The Norwegian people’s soul or the Norwegian people’s spirit. This is about having a cultural community, such as shared language, shared history, shared culture and shared values,
A small country with few inhabitants.
Here I would add that Norway is a small country with a small population of around 5.4 million people. There is also relatively little ethnic cultural diversity in Norway, as opposed to Russia, China, France, USA, and England, to name a few.
A list of Norwegian values:
Rasmussen highlights a number of peculiar values that are very high in Norway:
· Democracy
· Legal security
· Human rights
- Gender equality (relatively far between gender equality and “gender equality” between the sexes)
· Equality and low level of discrimination (?)
· Freedom of speech
· Freedom of religion / belief
· Freedom of the press, where framework conditions and governance sets allow us to have confidence in the established media and journalism.
· Respect
· Equal opportunities and justice for all
· Economic and social equality / social justice
· Space for everyone in the community
· Solidarity
· Everyone has opportunities for active community participation in organizations, etc.
· Freedom and national independency
· Norway, the nation of peace and Nobel Peace Price
· Confidence (society based on trust), community, unity and generosity
· Rule of law with fair and predictable judgment in accordance with legislation
· “Dugnad” Spirit” (You do things together with parents, co- inhabitants in condomiums, at our childrens school, to repair,paint and refresh the area, at least twice a year.(my addition)) and all kinds of voluntary effort. This attitude is now on a declining front.
· A Social democratic basic attitude inside our people’s soul
· Our royal castle, monarchy with the royal family, king and queen, crown prince and crown princess, etc.
· Nature experiences.
Cited from B.R. Rasmussen, “The Norwegian and its Origin”
I would personally add:
- – We think we are the best country in the world, while at the same time we have the Law of Jante(“janteloven”, witch tells you not to believe that you are better than anyone else .
- We are the hikers: “Ut på tur aldri sur”, which means in english that you never get sour or grumpy if you go for a walk(in nature). When it comes to nature experiences, I would like to think that walking, skiing, especially on weekends, is highly appreciated by most Norwegians.
- And we probably travel by air both domestically and abroad, more than any other country’s population. Here we have for a number of years at least domestically been at the top in Europe. (ref. Statistics Norway and FaktiskHeltSant) https://www.faktisk.no/faktasjekker/0nW/nordmenn-flyr-na-fire-ganger-mer-en-svenkens-vi-er-pa-europa-top
Coming up: What kind of people and country is this? Norwegian Attitudes and Values. 2
