A politically conservative young person enrolls in a social science program at the University of Copenhagen and is dismayed to learn that her fellow students aren’t very friendly or receptive to her opinions. Does that show a woeful lack of understanding of society in 2020 that might disqualify her from pursuing a career in this field?
As I reported recently, Denmark may not yet be in full compliance with the social justice standards of the Anglosphere, but it is making strides to catch up. In that post, I looked back at highlights of political correctness in the country last year. Those were isolated incidents that were perhaps too easily conducive to jokes. But some people have to live with this code of conduct every day.
The University of Copenhagen’s student newspaper interviewed students and faculty members (DK) in the social science and political science departments and learned that, as in the US, both groups are overwhelming leftist. Conservative students felt they couldn’t express themselves candidly on subjects such as race, gender, inequality and immigration and sometimes found themselves shunned socially.
The sexual dimorphism heresy
One student said that of all the organizations he had experienced in schools and workplaces, this one was the most limiting of free debate. He felt he couldn’t discuss gender “because I believe there are two sexes and that’s almost an illegal opinion here.” A sociology student said that he couldn’t be sure whether right-wing students in his department felt marginalized because they’re weren’t any others left. The three others in their entering class had disappeared. There are certain basic assumptions that his fellow students agree on, he said, such as the multiplicity of sexes, and the only debates about them are between moderate and radical leftist positions.
In the student council election campaign in 2019, a conservative student displayed a poster that said “No to identity politics,” with a picture of a sombrero – a reference to a recent cultural appropriation scandal on campus. A photo of the poster was posted on Instagram with the description “white supremacist move” and a suggestion that the posters be torn down. The same thing happened to another candidate with the slogan “No thanks to grievance-readiness” (Nej tak til krænkelsesparathed). She said that other conservative students confided in her that they stayed in the closet or else got shamed for their opinions.
All opinions welcome – except yours
Two anthropology students behind a Facebook group called “Inclusive environment at U of Copenhagen” believe it is legitimate to exclude certain opinions. One said that some conservatives have views of humanity that are directly harmful and violate human rights: “We have accepted the idea that there should be room for all opinions and views and that it is okay not to like immigrants, to be transphobic or to hate women a little. But it is not an opinion that some people cannot have the same rights as others.” The other draws the line at racist, sexist and otherwise oppressive views: “The question is how you treat other people. Are you discriminatory in the words you use? Do you wound other people and make them sad?”
It is not apparent what rights they thought the conservatives wanted to deny to others or what words they perceived to be discriminatory. Some conservative students may have committed such infractions against general guidelines for ethical behavior, but the ones interviewed seemed very cautious and self-censoring. These progressive students share the same beliefs and tactics as their American counterparts. They want to limit free speech for those with opposing views, they use subjective emotional reactions as the criterion for determining whether something is to be prohibited, they think disturbing language is violence, and they rely on straw-man – er, straw-person – arguments.
Maoism light?
The professor who conducted one of the surveys, Assistant Professor Frederik Hjorth, found a surprising degree of political prejudice and “affective polarization” among the general population in Denmark. He also found that leftists were more likely to show intolerance than others, and so it was likely that social science and political science students tended to fit that description since leftists are overrepresented in those fields. He noted that this wasn’t a completely new phenomenon, however. There was a similar conformism to left-wing opinions and an intolerance of others in the 1970s, at that time according to a more classical socialist or communist ideology. In any case, he concluded, such an atmosphere of polarization and tribalism is bad for democracy; fear of stigmatization or social retaliation stifles the free exchange of ideas.
But Hjorth himself has not heard many pointed political opinions expressed in the classroom. On the contrary, he thinks his political science students are rather apolitical. The fact that a professor can research and describe the situation in an impartial way in itself indicates that the situation hasn’t reach the tendentious anti-science and anti–free speech atmosphere of many elite American liberal arts colleges. But that’s little comfort to the students who are being discouraged from entering these fields by subtler pressures. And their exclusion because of intolerance for intellectual diversity is a loss for the professions they were preparing for and the society they are supposed to serve.
28 February 2020
21 February 2020
Is Wonderful Scandinavia a hoax?
I have spent some time lately commenting on left-wing tendencies in Denmark – identity politics and social justice activism. Some might find the coverage unbalanced. Well, a bomb – or at least a bomb threat – last week was a sort of wake-up alarm to let us know that the right-wing stalwarts are not biding their time waiting for the Muslims to pack up and head back to warmer climes. The bomb threat was aimed at an advertising agency that made a video for SAS’s website. The video asked what is actually Scandinavian, that is, what cultural brand symbols from the Nordic countries actually originated here.
“Danish” pastries? No, they’re from Austria. Rye bread? Turkey. Democracy? Greece. Open-faced sandwiches? The Netherlands. Bicycles with large carts for children? Germany. Even maternity leave? Switzerland. On and on, mercilessly. What is Scandinavian? Absolutely nothing. There’s no such thing as Scandinavian culture. Scandinavians have depended totally on inventions from the rest of the world. Everything is imitated, borrowed, imported, plagiarized.
Not even meatballs?
Why would SAS want to be so blunt and cruel, deflating the pride its customers take in their ethnic heritage? No, wait, they meant it as a compliment. Scandinavians, since the legendary seafaring and plundering Vikings, have brought back the best things from the outside world and put their own unique stamp on them. If you remember that the northern extremity was one of the last regions in Eurasia to be populated, then it doesn’t seem unlikely that some useful artifacts would have been devised earlier in the evolution of our species. The punchline is “We are travelers.” And collectors. That’s how we developed such a wonderful array of customs and concoctions. And the easiest way to continue this cosmopolitan scavenger hunt is to fly SAS.
Not everyone saw it that way, though. Negative comments poured onto the FB page. “With its disgusting advertisement, SAS demeans everything genuinely Norwegian, genuinely Swedish and genuinely Danish,” wrote Søren Espersen (DK) from the Danish People’s Party. “At the same time, SAS spits on every proper and fair Scandinavian.” Even the notorious far-right website 4chan got into the act (DK). Its users set up many threads, each with hundreds of comments, linked to the video, in what appears to be a coordinated attack. The video is part of a Jewish plot to undermine the white race, they wrote. According to journalist Kevin Shakir, the video’s references to all those other countries, shots of people with various skin colors, allusions to customs and cultures blending together across borders – it all looked to 4chan like an attack on white nationhood. They went so far as to dox employees of the advertising agency.
What’s wrong with learning from others?
We didn’t mean to offend anyone, said an SAS spokesperson. We wanted to say only that travel “lies deep in our Scandinavian DNA” and is enriching for us as both individuals and a society. Although the company maintained that it stood behind the campaign one hundred percent, it removed the video, which had already been seen by over half a million users. Later it posted a shorter version, omitting the “absolutely nothing” riposte. Not because it regretted the first, though, simply as part of its normal practice of making several versions of an advertisement. The original had of course been reposted on YouTube and shared all around the world it depicted.
The bomb threat came by email. Police evacuated the building (DK) in central Copenhagen and searched it. A hostel above the fitness center where the ad agency employees were relocated was also evacuated, sending some of its guests to stand on the sidewalk in their pajamas and freeze. No bomb was found.
“Away is nice, but home is best”
That’s a Danish saying. SAS’s critics would certainly endorse at least the second part. I’m still a little mystified about their real rationale or argument, though. Do they think the claims in the video are false and these phenomena really did originate in Scandinavia? Do they want to be able to pretend in peace that they did? Do they feel that Scandinavia improved these things so much that it deserves the title to them? Are they worried that contextualizing features of the region’s image will hurt tourism? Or are they just ethnic purists who fear that enthusiastic tourism will melt humanity into a single intermingling beige race?
I wonder whether there weren’t any woke trolls chiming in about all this cultural appropriation or at least the carbon emissions from this contemporary treasure hunt. From the video, it looks so easy to hop on a plane and feast on the world’s bazaar that you forget that the price of all our imports, souvenirs and cross-cultural experiences includes calamitous weather, mainly in the poorer lower latitudes from which SAS can safely return us.
“Danish” pastries? No, they’re from Austria. Rye bread? Turkey. Democracy? Greece. Open-faced sandwiches? The Netherlands. Bicycles with large carts for children? Germany. Even maternity leave? Switzerland. On and on, mercilessly. What is Scandinavian? Absolutely nothing. There’s no such thing as Scandinavian culture. Scandinavians have depended totally on inventions from the rest of the world. Everything is imitated, borrowed, imported, plagiarized.
Not even meatballs?
Why would SAS want to be so blunt and cruel, deflating the pride its customers take in their ethnic heritage? No, wait, they meant it as a compliment. Scandinavians, since the legendary seafaring and plundering Vikings, have brought back the best things from the outside world and put their own unique stamp on them. If you remember that the northern extremity was one of the last regions in Eurasia to be populated, then it doesn’t seem unlikely that some useful artifacts would have been devised earlier in the evolution of our species. The punchline is “We are travelers.” And collectors. That’s how we developed such a wonderful array of customs and concoctions. And the easiest way to continue this cosmopolitan scavenger hunt is to fly SAS.
Not everyone saw it that way, though. Negative comments poured onto the FB page. “With its disgusting advertisement, SAS demeans everything genuinely Norwegian, genuinely Swedish and genuinely Danish,” wrote Søren Espersen (DK) from the Danish People’s Party. “At the same time, SAS spits on every proper and fair Scandinavian.” Even the notorious far-right website 4chan got into the act (DK). Its users set up many threads, each with hundreds of comments, linked to the video, in what appears to be a coordinated attack. The video is part of a Jewish plot to undermine the white race, they wrote. According to journalist Kevin Shakir, the video’s references to all those other countries, shots of people with various skin colors, allusions to customs and cultures blending together across borders – it all looked to 4chan like an attack on white nationhood. They went so far as to dox employees of the advertising agency.
What’s wrong with learning from others?
We didn’t mean to offend anyone, said an SAS spokesperson. We wanted to say only that travel “lies deep in our Scandinavian DNA” and is enriching for us as both individuals and a society. Although the company maintained that it stood behind the campaign one hundred percent, it removed the video, which had already been seen by over half a million users. Later it posted a shorter version, omitting the “absolutely nothing” riposte. Not because it regretted the first, though, simply as part of its normal practice of making several versions of an advertisement. The original had of course been reposted on YouTube and shared all around the world it depicted.
The bomb threat came by email. Police evacuated the building (DK) in central Copenhagen and searched it. A hostel above the fitness center where the ad agency employees were relocated was also evacuated, sending some of its guests to stand on the sidewalk in their pajamas and freeze. No bomb was found.
“Away is nice, but home is best”
That’s a Danish saying. SAS’s critics would certainly endorse at least the second part. I’m still a little mystified about their real rationale or argument, though. Do they think the claims in the video are false and these phenomena really did originate in Scandinavia? Do they want to be able to pretend in peace that they did? Do they feel that Scandinavia improved these things so much that it deserves the title to them? Are they worried that contextualizing features of the region’s image will hurt tourism? Or are they just ethnic purists who fear that enthusiastic tourism will melt humanity into a single intermingling beige race?
I wonder whether there weren’t any woke trolls chiming in about all this cultural appropriation or at least the carbon emissions from this contemporary treasure hunt. From the video, it looks so easy to hop on a plane and feast on the world’s bazaar that you forget that the price of all our imports, souvenirs and cross-cultural experiences includes calamitous weather, mainly in the poorer lower latitudes from which SAS can safely return us.
14 February 2020
Don’t vote socialist yet, Democrats
Denmark is back in the Democratic primary debates. When Amy Klobuchar listed various people that Trump blames instead of himself, she included “the king of Denmark.” Denmark hasn’t had a king for more than 60 years, and Trump didn’t blame the queen either. After Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called his proposal to buy Greenland “absurd,” he described her remark as being “nasty.” At his request, Queen Margrethe had invited him to visit Denmark, and after Frederiksen’s response, he canceled the visit. If he had come, he would certainly have found something to blame her for – perhaps for not banning the Trump Baby Balloon – but in this case, Klobuchar’s charge was inaccurate.
As model egalitarian societies, Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries remain in the background of the Democratic campaign, though, as they were when democratic socialist Bernie Sanders praised them in the 2016 campaign. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren presumably know more about Denmark’s welfare state than Klobuchar does about its royalty, and their proposals of radical reforms to reduce social and economic inequities have found an eager audience among a segment of Democratic voters. About half the Millennials polled favor socialism over capitalism. If other countries can provide universal health care, tuition-free university and subsidized daycare, why can’t the supposedly greatest country in the history of the world?
The risks of failure
I can generally recommend Western European social democracy, although it is not quite the socialism that many American Progressives suppose and it is not clear that its socialist tendencies are responsible for its relative prosperity and social harmony. I don’t think this is the moment to bet on a major fiscal restructuring in the US, however. The country is in a political and cultural crisis with a rogue administration dividing the population into factions that can’t understand and communicate with each other. The domestic polarization is worse than it has been in 50 years, and in foreign relations, the administration has destabilized the world by alienating democratic allies and encouraging authoritarian regimes. The stakes have rarely been higher, and the Democrats’ priority should be to end the misrule. A platform of drastic reforms would greatly increase the chances risk that Trump will be re-elected.
Trump’s base is apparently impervious to dishonesty, disinformation, corruption and consummate boorishness. And a sitting president with a fairly sound economy and no primary challenger in his own party has a huge advantage in the general election. If the Democratic Party is pulled toward the Progressive fringe, it will lose the centrists of both parties and the independents that it needs to win. Demands for open borders, health care for undocumented immigrants, late-term abortions and gender self-identification would alienate moderates. The country cannot afford the risks of another four years of Trumpism. It might be unrecognizable afterward, assuming that the Orange Oaf could be pried out of the office even then.
The risks of succeeding
Even if a Progressive Democratic candidate wins the general election, the implementation of structural reforms to mitigate wealth inequality, economic insecurity and Wall Street abuses is far from certain of becoming a reality. They would be very expensive and require enormous deficit spending, and the partial financing from a wealth tax, a higher capital gains tax, a financial transactions tax and more would most likely crash the stock market and cause a recession, probably another serious one. The market, which has been propped up by the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates and spigot of repo loans to the largest banks is long overdue for a correction, which would be blamed on “democratic socialism” or fears of the same. It would be used to discredit reforms and make it even harder to implement them.
There is a better chance of improving social welfare by first aiming to recapture the White House and restore a traditional liberal democracy before trying to overhaul the healthcare sector and the financial markets. If that succeeds, then it won’t be many terms before AOC and her cohort will get their shot at fashioning post-capitalist, post-racial, post-gender republic.
As model egalitarian societies, Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries remain in the background of the Democratic campaign, though, as they were when democratic socialist Bernie Sanders praised them in the 2016 campaign. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren presumably know more about Denmark’s welfare state than Klobuchar does about its royalty, and their proposals of radical reforms to reduce social and economic inequities have found an eager audience among a segment of Democratic voters. About half the Millennials polled favor socialism over capitalism. If other countries can provide universal health care, tuition-free university and subsidized daycare, why can’t the supposedly greatest country in the history of the world?
The risks of failure
I can generally recommend Western European social democracy, although it is not quite the socialism that many American Progressives suppose and it is not clear that its socialist tendencies are responsible for its relative prosperity and social harmony. I don’t think this is the moment to bet on a major fiscal restructuring in the US, however. The country is in a political and cultural crisis with a rogue administration dividing the population into factions that can’t understand and communicate with each other. The domestic polarization is worse than it has been in 50 years, and in foreign relations, the administration has destabilized the world by alienating democratic allies and encouraging authoritarian regimes. The stakes have rarely been higher, and the Democrats’ priority should be to end the misrule. A platform of drastic reforms would greatly increase the chances risk that Trump will be re-elected.
Trump’s base is apparently impervious to dishonesty, disinformation, corruption and consummate boorishness. And a sitting president with a fairly sound economy and no primary challenger in his own party has a huge advantage in the general election. If the Democratic Party is pulled toward the Progressive fringe, it will lose the centrists of both parties and the independents that it needs to win. Demands for open borders, health care for undocumented immigrants, late-term abortions and gender self-identification would alienate moderates. The country cannot afford the risks of another four years of Trumpism. It might be unrecognizable afterward, assuming that the Orange Oaf could be pried out of the office even then.
The risks of succeeding
Even if a Progressive Democratic candidate wins the general election, the implementation of structural reforms to mitigate wealth inequality, economic insecurity and Wall Street abuses is far from certain of becoming a reality. They would be very expensive and require enormous deficit spending, and the partial financing from a wealth tax, a higher capital gains tax, a financial transactions tax and more would most likely crash the stock market and cause a recession, probably another serious one. The market, which has been propped up by the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates and spigot of repo loans to the largest banks is long overdue for a correction, which would be blamed on “democratic socialism” or fears of the same. It would be used to discredit reforms and make it even harder to implement them.
There is a better chance of improving social welfare by first aiming to recapture the White House and restore a traditional liberal democracy before trying to overhaul the healthcare sector and the financial markets. If that succeeds, then it won’t be many terms before AOC and her cohort will get their shot at fashioning post-capitalist, post-racial, post-gender republic.
07 February 2020
PC in DK, 2019
Perhaps I was too quick to say that Denmark is trailing the Anglo-American world in social justice activism and scandals. Peter Rasmussen has posted a useful list of the “most absurd PC moments in Denmark in 2019” (DK) on Quora. He links to his individual commentaries on five incidents - good examples of how the country is striving to catch up to the achievements in outrage and grievance in more advanced precincts.
Hating hate
The first concerns Facebook comments by Black Lives Matter spokesperson Bwalya Sørensen about Pernille Vermund, the leader of the New Right party (and subject of a recent post). Vermund had expressed her happiness that a 14-year-old Thai girl who had been forced to leave Denmark because of strict family reunification rules was allowed to return. Sørensen wrote to Vermund: “You disgusting Nazi shit… How dare you use a little girl to spread your racist, hateful, verbal diarrhea… You stinking pile of garbage …” (my translation, may differ from the original English). Sørensen seemed to imply that Vermund favored deporting all Muslims (“her evil wish to shamelessly follow in her Fuhrers [sic] footsteps and cleanse Denmark of a whole religious group, 30s style”) and was therefore being hypocritical. As far as I know, the girl, known by her nickname, Mint, is not a Muslim.
Job theft
The second instance involves criticism in an op-ed piece of a thin actress for playing a fat character in the film Harpiks (Resin). This was considered discriminatory and fat-phobic because fat characters should be played only by fat actors – the same type of objection that led Scarlett Johansson to drop out of a transgender role. The writer is shown wearing a shoulder bag with the slogan “Fatties against fascism.”
Depicting another ethnic group
In a similar vein, a documentary film, Dreams from the Outback, was excluded from film festivals (DK) because the director was white and whites should not be allowed to make films about Australian aborigines and other minority cultures. The director noted that aborigines don’t often have the resources to make a film themselves, and they might well benefit from an increase in awareness in the outside world.
Everyday abuse is worse on holidays
Fourth, Micah Oh, who teaches structural racism and cultural appropriation at the University of Copenhagen, warned against girls’ dressing up for Halloween as the Arab Princess Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin because it could be perceived as “everyday racism" and offend people. Parents should tell them that they should be Sleeping Beauty instead. But with “Little girls first of all need to pretend to be princesses,” wasn’t Oh being somewhat discriminatory herself by stereotyping girls like that, besides ignoring the same pitfalls for all the little boys who might also wish to play princess?
Fighting racism with its own weapons
Finally, the Nørrebro Pride parade is an alternative to and protest against the annual Copenhagen Pride parade because of the latter’s commercialization, its acceptance of sponsorship from capitalist conglomerates and financial firms, and the participation of “racist politicians.” In the Nørrebro Pride parade, the LGBT+ people of color - “double minorities” - marched at the head of the procession, while white LGBT+ persons came afterward and cleaned up after the party. The parade thus not only offered an alternative for those who didn’t wish to be associated with mainstream racism; by reintroducing racial segregation, it also provided an opportunity for the descendants of racist oppressors to experience racism themselves.
While these events represent noteworthy strides in identitarian political action, they fall short of the dramatic harassment, physical attacks, vandalism and riots that greeted, say, Milo at Berkeley or Charles Murray at Middlebury. No one was fired or even hounded off social media for following a custom or holding an opinion that was unremarkable ten years ago. Some targets may have suffered slight reputational damage, and others might have been slightly guilted – those racist princess costumes! These results may be disappointing to subjugated and aggrieved groups whose existence is being denied or erased, but the local warriors are mashaling their forces and learning the necessary epithets, tropes and tactics, and perhaps this is only the warm-up stage in the long struggle for intersectional justice and equity in Denmark.
Tak, Peter.
Hating hate
The first concerns Facebook comments by Black Lives Matter spokesperson Bwalya Sørensen about Pernille Vermund, the leader of the New Right party (and subject of a recent post). Vermund had expressed her happiness that a 14-year-old Thai girl who had been forced to leave Denmark because of strict family reunification rules was allowed to return. Sørensen wrote to Vermund: “You disgusting Nazi shit… How dare you use a little girl to spread your racist, hateful, verbal diarrhea… You stinking pile of garbage …” (my translation, may differ from the original English). Sørensen seemed to imply that Vermund favored deporting all Muslims (“her evil wish to shamelessly follow in her Fuhrers [sic] footsteps and cleanse Denmark of a whole religious group, 30s style”) and was therefore being hypocritical. As far as I know, the girl, known by her nickname, Mint, is not a Muslim.
Job theft
The second instance involves criticism in an op-ed piece of a thin actress for playing a fat character in the film Harpiks (Resin). This was considered discriminatory and fat-phobic because fat characters should be played only by fat actors – the same type of objection that led Scarlett Johansson to drop out of a transgender role. The writer is shown wearing a shoulder bag with the slogan “Fatties against fascism.”
Depicting another ethnic group
In a similar vein, a documentary film, Dreams from the Outback, was excluded from film festivals (DK) because the director was white and whites should not be allowed to make films about Australian aborigines and other minority cultures. The director noted that aborigines don’t often have the resources to make a film themselves, and they might well benefit from an increase in awareness in the outside world.
Everyday abuse is worse on holidays
Fourth, Micah Oh, who teaches structural racism and cultural appropriation at the University of Copenhagen, warned against girls’ dressing up for Halloween as the Arab Princess Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin because it could be perceived as “everyday racism" and offend people. Parents should tell them that they should be Sleeping Beauty instead. But with “Little girls first of all need to pretend to be princesses,” wasn’t Oh being somewhat discriminatory herself by stereotyping girls like that, besides ignoring the same pitfalls for all the little boys who might also wish to play princess?
Fighting racism with its own weapons
Finally, the Nørrebro Pride parade is an alternative to and protest against the annual Copenhagen Pride parade because of the latter’s commercialization, its acceptance of sponsorship from capitalist conglomerates and financial firms, and the participation of “racist politicians.” In the Nørrebro Pride parade, the LGBT+ people of color - “double minorities” - marched at the head of the procession, while white LGBT+ persons came afterward and cleaned up after the party. The parade thus not only offered an alternative for those who didn’t wish to be associated with mainstream racism; by reintroducing racial segregation, it also provided an opportunity for the descendants of racist oppressors to experience racism themselves.
While these events represent noteworthy strides in identitarian political action, they fall short of the dramatic harassment, physical attacks, vandalism and riots that greeted, say, Milo at Berkeley or Charles Murray at Middlebury. No one was fired or even hounded off social media for following a custom or holding an opinion that was unremarkable ten years ago. Some targets may have suffered slight reputational damage, and others might have been slightly guilted – those racist princess costumes! These results may be disappointing to subjugated and aggrieved groups whose existence is being denied or erased, but the local warriors are mashaling their forces and learning the necessary epithets, tropes and tactics, and perhaps this is only the warm-up stage in the long struggle for intersectional justice and equity in Denmark.
Tak, Peter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)