As usual, please see the Edgeryders blog and this post in particular as a space for us to ask questions and find answers together, or start discussions about the community. We constantly try to improve and ensure that there’s enough diversity at Edgeryders that will help broaden conversation on Europe’s youth!
My name is Adria, I was born and raised in Romania, but have been living in Denmark for the past 10 years. I’ve been following the discussions at the mini-conference in Strasbourg and have some thoughts on the issue of reaching out to Scandinavian countries. Having lived in Denmark for so many years, I’ve gained a lot of insight in the Danish culture and I believe that as a foreigner I am able to grasp things more objectively than most Danes would. The following assessments are based on my own observations and I believe they may serve to shed some light on this issue. There are several reasons why Scandinavians cannot be attracted to join Edgeryders so easily. I think Vinay Gupta during the Edgeryders march meeting at the Council of Europe formulated a very pertinent question – “is it because they’re not in any pain?”. The arguments I present are related to Denmark. I am not sure if they are all applicable to all the Scandinavian countries, but I presume the countries are very similar.
First of all, the Danish mentality is different from the rest of European countries, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. In Denmark there’s something called Janteloven (The Law of Jante) – an unwritten, very old law that is deeply rooted in the mentality of the populous. Basically its message can be boiled down to the commanding phrase "don’t think you are better than us!” The law imposes that no one put themselves higher and above other people. Thus, when it comes to entrepreneurship or anything else they are doing, the Danish people believe in friendly competition and in playing to have fun, not to win. It’s a kind of functional communism. The big decisions are taken collectively, there’s no hierarchy and all people are regarded as being equal. The general thought behind respecting the collective being “the common good serves me as well.” The Danes are one of the most homogenous populations with minimal, almost invisible divides between social layers.
This is also reflected in the Danish language, which no longer makes use of pronouns denoting respect. This applies to everyone regardless of whether you are at a job interview, addressing the prime-minister, or talking to a 90 year old person in the street, you always address them with the familiar “you”. Moreover, in Danish when you address someone in writing the personal pronoun for “I” is written in lowcase whereas “You” is always written with the first letter in uppercase denoting that you value the collective higher than your own person. The state is there to replace your mother, father and your God.
Danish youth move away from home and become independent at an age-average of 17. They are prepared to take this plunge because they are raised in democratic families where their opinions have been valued, and their individuality and personalities have had room to grow and build because of their parents’ laissez-faire attitudes. The level of ambition among Danes is lower because the welfare system provides a decent living for its citizens so there is no real risk associated with failing at something, losing your job or not getting a diploma. This however does not mean that Danes are lazy. On the contrary, on an average, they are still very competent and driven. But there is always the assurance that no matter how badly you screw up, the state will always be there to support you and to prop you up.
As you might know, according to the renowned yearly Gallup poll, Danish people have been deemed the happiest nation on earth a few years in a row. It later turned out that they weren’t quite that happy, but actually just “thriving.” They were content and pleased with their lives as they were and didn’t want for much more than that. This goes to show that the Danes are high-spirited on an average. I’m not exactly sure if there’s research on this, but Denmark is among the countries where people switch jobs most often, mainly because of under-stimulation and boredom on the job. This liberty makes them persist until they find a job that makes them happy, which means they are less likely to become demoralized than other nations are, because they don’t stick around long enough to become miserable. Most organizations offer their employees a wide variety of specialization courses. This means that if you’re bored at your current job, you can take a course and extend your areas of responsibility just enough so you no longer feel under-stimulated.
Everyone in Denmark is enrolled in a union that defends your interests and pays the equivalent of your salary if you just got fired. This is a sort of unemployment benefit like in any other European country, but multiplied by 10. Besides, as long as you are unemployed and under the wing of a union, you have the opportunity to specialize further according to your respective domain. The courses offered through the unions are extremely good, and they allow you to readjust you carrier - and it’s all paid by the state. This will raise your chances to find a job of your taste. This means that there are very few NEETs in Denmark and the ones that exist are provided for by the state.
So what I am trying to say is that social innovation often comes from a general discontent with the society you live in, and that discontent is super small in Denmark. If we were to combine this with “the common good serves me as well”, there are relatively few people who would dare to be different, pick alternative paths or break the well-established societal patterns. One discontent the Danes have is probably their awareness of the fact that they are narrow-minded, and they realize that the attempt to keep everyone in line is occasionally counter-productive as it doesn’t leave much room for innovation and creativity. But they realize it is difficult to change a whole nation’s mentality based on an impalpable law.
There is one initiative I know of that tries to invoke change. It is called Fucking Flink (fucking nice) and was created as a social campaign on FaceBook encouraging Danish people to be more open and friendly with each other, and overcome their fear of breaking the usual pattern. This campaign hit a soft spot and has generated some change bringing a few people out of their social lethargy.
Having said all this, I wonder what would make Edgeryders attractive for the Danish people? What do you think?
