11.09.202327.05.2017

Michael Booth

Almost perfect people. The whole truth about life in the “Scandinavian paradise”

THE ALMOST NEARLY PERFECT PEOPLE

* * *

Dedicated to Lissen, Osger and Emil

Introduction

A few years ago, on a cold and cloudy April morning, I sat in my Copenhagen apartment, wrapped in a blanket and dreaming of real spring. And then, opening the newspaper, I was surprised to discover that the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Leicester had calculated a certain Life Satisfaction Index, according to which my new compatriots turned out to be the happiest people on earth.

I looked at the publication date of the newspaper - no, not April 1st. On the Internet, this news was also one of the main ones. All media - from Daily Mail to Al Jazeera- they talked about it as a revelation of the Lord. Denmark is the happiest country in the world! Happiest country? My new home? This cloudy, damp, boring plain, populated by a handful of sensible stoics who pay the highest taxes in the world? The United Kingdom came in forty-fourth on the list. Well, since British scientists have proven this, it means it is so.

“But how well they manage to hide it. From the outside, they don’t seem at all like the personification of cheerfulness and fun,” I thought, looking out of the window at the city harbor in the pouring rain. Cyclists in reflective down jackets rode along the streets, and pedestrians jostled with umbrellas on the sidewalks. Both of them tried to dodge the flow of water from under the wheels of trucks and buses.

I remembered my misadventures yesterday. First, the gloomy cashier from the local supermarket, as usual, with an absent look, gave me a receipt for third-rate products at exorbitant prices. On the street, I crossed the road at a red light, for which I received loud reprimand from other passers-by. There were no cars, but in Denmark, not waiting for a green traffic light means a brazen violation of decency. Pedaling in the light rain, I arrived home, where a letter from the tax office was waiting for me with an offer to get rid of most of my monthly earnings. On the way, some motorist promised to kill me - you see, I turned left where I was not supposed to (yes, he lowered the window and yelled in the accent of a Bond villain: “I will kill you!”).

The evening television program offered a program on combating udder irritation in cows. It was followed by a ten-year-old episode of the series “Taggert” and the program “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” The name of the latter sounded mocking: a million Danish crowns is approximately one hundred thousand pounds sterling. What remains after paying taxes is only enough for dinner at a restaurant and going to the movies.

It should be noted that all this happened long before the beloved Danish TV series appeared on the screens, and the new Scandinavian cuisine changed our ideas about cooking. Sarah Lund had not yet charmed us with her sweaters, or Birgitte Nyborg with her tight skirts and tough approach to right-wing politics... In short, the current craze for everything Danish was still a long way off.

I am used to considering the Danes to be well-mannered, hardworking, law-abiding people who extremely rarely allow themselves to demonstrate... to demonstrate anything at all, let alone happiness. Compared to the Thais, Puerto Ricans and even the British, they seemed very reserved and prim. I believed that of the fifty nationalities whose representatives I had the opportunity to meet, the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and Finns belonged to least cheerful people.

Perhaps, I told myself, their worldview was clouded by antidepressants. I read that in terms of the number of “happy pills” taken, the Danes are second only to the Icelanders in Europe, and the consumption of these drugs is growing all the time. Maybe the Danes' happiness is just a soothing oblivion that Prozac plunges them into?

I dug deeper into the Danish happiness phenomenon and discovered that there was nothing new in the report by scientists from the University of Leicester. In 1973, the first survey of the population on a sense of well-being (Eurobarometer) was conducted in Europe, and even then the Danes topped the list of happiest nations. More than two-thirds of several thousand Danish respondents said they were “very satisfied” with their lives, according to a recent study.

There is already a unanimous opinion in the world: in order to see a society living a happy, fulfilling, calm, healthy and enlightened life, you need to look north of Germany and to the left of Russia.

I moved on. For several years I watched from the side the triumphant procession of Danish happiness. It is true that my regular visits to this country have mostly confused me. Is the weather still as lousy? Exactly. Do taxes still cost more than 50 percent of your earnings? Yes. Are shops still closed exactly when they are needed? Well, of course. And then I just moved back to Denmark.

It was neither capitulation nor a daring experiment in human endurance. My wife just wanted to return to her homeland. And although everything inside me screamed: “Have you forgotten what it’s like there, Michael? live?, the bitter experience of past years has taught me that in the end it is better to listen to my wife.

Meanwhile, the craze for everything Scandinavian only intensified. The world couldn't seem to get enough of modern Viking culture. Detective stories by Swedish authors Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson sold millions of copies, a dark crime television epic Forbrydelsen(“Murder”) was shown in 120 countries and even received an American remake. This success was continued by the company's next series - a political drama Borgen(“Castle” is the name for the parliament building in Denmark), known in Russia under the name “Government”. She earned a BAFTA award and an audience of millions on the BBC. The joint Danish-Swedish detective series also became a hit. Broen("Bridge"). (And it doesn't matter that originality Forbrydelsen lies only in the location of the action - we have met stern female police officers before; it doesn't matter what Borgen a third-rate version of The West Wing, albeit with better interiors, and The Bridge is generally complete nonsense).

Unexpectedly for everyone, Danish architects, for example Bjarke Ingels, began to issue large foreign orders at a speed reminiscent of assembling a construction set LEGO. Works by artists like Olafur Eliasson began appearing everywhere, from boutique displays to Louis Vuitton to the Turbine Hall at the Tate Gallery in London. Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen led NATO, and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari received the Nobel Peace Prize. Danish films began to win Oscars and prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, and directors such as Thomas Vinterberg, Lars von Trier, Susanne Bier and Nicolas Winding Refn became among the most respected contemporary filmmakers.

Actor Mads Mikkelsen (“Casino Royale”, “The Hunt”, “Hannibal”) began to appear so often on Danish and world screens that when he appears, John Updike’s famous couplet about the same ubiquitous French actor comes to mind: “It seems impossible to see me/French film without Depardieu" ( I think that I shall never view/A French film without Depardieu). And also, of course, New Scandinavian Cuisine, which created a real sensation, and the transformation of a Copenhagen restaurant Noma from a little-known curiosity to a world standard of culinary fashion. Three times in a row Noma was recognized as the best in the world, and its chef Rene Redzepi became the hero of the magazine cover Time.

What about other countries in the region? Finland gave us a game Angry Birds, won the Eurovision Song Contest with the group Lordi, apparently consisting of orcs, and produced mobile phones, which at one time every self-respecting person should have had. Swedish H&M And IKEA continue to dominate our shopping malls, Swedish music producers and pop artists (it would take too much space to list them) are always on air, and from the same country they came to us Skype And Spotify. Norway supplies the world with oil and fish cooking, and the Icelanders successfully continue their incredible financial spree

Michael Booth.

Almost perfect people. The whole truth about life in the “Scandinavian paradise”

THE ALMOST NEARLY PERFECT PEOPLE

* * *

Dedicated to Lissen, Osger and Emil

Introduction

A few years ago, on a cold and cloudy April morning, I sat in my Copenhagen apartment, wrapped in a blanket and dreaming of real spring. And then, opening the newspaper, I was surprised to discover that the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Leicester 1
University of Leicester University of Leicester) is a public research university in Leicester, England.

I calculated a certain Life Satisfaction Index, according to which my new compatriots turned out to be the happiest people on earth.

The evening television program offered a program about combating udder irritation in cows.

It was followed by a ten-year-old episode of Taggert. 2
English detective television series aired from 1983 to 2010 (approx. per.).

And the program “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” The name of the latter sounded mocking: a million Danish crowns is approximately one hundred thousand pounds sterling. What remains after paying taxes is only enough for dinner at a restaurant and going to the movies.

Birgitte Nyborg hasn't charmed us yet with her sweaters 4
The main character of the Danish television series "Government" (approx. per.).

– tight skirts and a tough approach to right-wing politicians... In a word, the current craze for everything Danish was still far away.

In 2009, Copenhagen hosted Oprah Winfrey, who later talked about how “people leave their children in strollers in front of the cafe and are not afraid of being kidnapped... there is no endless race for material wealth.” This was declared the secret of Danish prosperity. And since Oprah only proclaims undoubted truth, people believed that this was exactly the case in Denmark.

By the time Oprah appeared, I had already left Denmark. My wife is tired of listening to my incessant whining about her homeland: the climate is harsh, taxes are monstrous, everything around is monotonous and predictable... There is a suffocating atmosphere in society of agreement on the minimum necessary and fear of standing out from the crowd... Ambitions are not valued, success is not approved, rules of conduct in society is shocked... Plus, a cruel diet of fatty pork, salty licorice, cheap beer and marzipan. But I continued to closely and slightly bewilderedly observe the phenomenon of Danish happiness.

For example, I learned that this country showed the best results in a worldwide poll conducted by the Gallup Institute. Respondents over the age of 15 in 155 countries around the world rated their current quality of life and their expectations for the future on a ten-point scale. Gallup asked other questions about social support (“ Do you count on the support of relatives or friends if trouble happens to you?"), freedom (" How satisfied are you with the freedom to choose your life path that exists in your country?") and corruption (" How widespread is corruption in business in your country?"). The results showed that 82 percent of Danes are “prosperous,” while only 1 percent are “poor.” By comparison, in Togo, which was in last place, the number of successful people was only 1 percent.

But they could have asked the Somali immigrants in Ishoi 6
Ishøj (Ish?j) is a Danish commune (administrative unit).

Are you happy They, I thought, coming across similar surveys and articles. It is unlikely that any of these explorers ventured beyond the rich outskirts of Copenhagen.

And then came the climax, the high point of the story about happy Denmark. In 2012, economists John Helliwell, Richard Laird and Jeffrey Sachs brought together the data of all modern studies on the topic of “happiness” - Gallup World Polls, World and European Life Values Surveys, European Social Survey, etc. The result was the first World ranking of the happiest countries under the auspices of UN. And who would have thought - the list topped... Belgium! No, no, I was joking. Denmark was again the happiest country in the world, followed by Finland (second place), Norway (third place) and just behind Sweden (seventh place).

To paraphrase Wilde's Lady Bracknell 7
Character from O. Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest” (approx. per.).

In fact, Denmark is not the only contender for the title of coolest place to live on Earth. Each Scandinavian country has reason to be considered a leader in quality of life. Shortly after the publication of the UN ranking, the magazine Newsweek stated that the best country in this indicator is not Denmark, but Finland. At the same time, Norway topped the UN ranking called the Human Development Index, and another modern study found that Sweden is the optimal place to live for women.

So what if Denmark not always first by everyone parameters of these studies of well-being, life satisfaction and happiness, she is still among the leaders. And when it’s not in first place, it’s usually some other Scandinavian country. Sometimes New Zealand and Japan (or Singapore and Switzerland) can fit into this picture. But the general message of the reports cited by European and American media is clear and transparent, like a glass of ice-cold schnapps: Scandinavians are not just the happiest and most contented people on earth. They are also the most peaceful, tolerant, democratic, progressive, prosperous, advanced, liberal, highly educated and technologically advanced. In addition to this, they have the best pop music, the coolest detective series, and, recently, the best restaurant in the world.

Each of these five countries - Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland - has something to brag about. Finland has the best education system in the world. Sweden is a striking example of a modern multicultural industrial society. Norway spends its colossal oil revenues on investing in sensible long-term projects, not on building stupid skyscrapers or escorting girls from Park Lane 8
The area where the most expensive escort services in London are located (approx. per.).

Iceland has the highest level of gender equality in society, the longest life expectancy among men and huge cod fish resources. All Scandinavian countries make great efforts to protect the environment and generously fund their social welfare systems.

And an audience of millions on the BBC. The joint Danish-Swedish detective series also became a hit. Broen("Bridge"). (And it doesn't matter that originality Forbrydelsen lies only in the location of the action - we have met stern female police officers before; it doesn't matter what Borgen third-rate version of "The West Wing" 10
"The West Wing" ( The West Wing) - American television series 1999–2006. about the daily life of the US presidential administration.

Although with the best interiors, “The Bridge” is generally complete nonsense).

Tate Gallery London. Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen led NATO, and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari received the Nobel Peace Prize. Danish films began to win Oscars and prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, and directors such as Thomas Vinterberg, Lars von Trier, Susanne Bier and Nicolas Winding Refn became among the most respected contemporary filmmakers.

The media is full of rave reviews about everything Scandinavian (except, perhaps, Iceland). If you believe our newspapers, television and radio, in Scandinavia they never make mistakes; these countries are a true paradise of equality, tranquility, quality of life and homemade baked goods. But the experience of living in the cold and cloudy northern regions introduced me to the other side of the coin. And although many aspects of the Scandinavian way of life can indeed be considered instructive examples for the rest of the world, I was increasingly upset that the image of my new homeland seemed too one-sided.

Against the backdrop of the universal love for everything Scandinavian (be it free schools, snow-white interiors, political processes based on consensus or chunky knitted sweaters), one thing seemed strange to me. Why, with such powerful PR and detailed stories about the “Scandinavian miracle,” is no one eager to move there? Why do people still dream of owning a house in Spain or France, instead of packing up their belongings and moving to Aalborg or Trondheim? By the way, do you have any idea where Aalborg or Trondheim are (just be honest)? So why, despite detective novels and television series, is so little known about Scandinavia? Why doesn't anyone you know speak Swedish or "can explain themselves" in Norwegian? What is the name of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark? Or the most popular Norwegian comedian. Or Finn. Any Finn.

Very few people visit Japan or Russia or speak Japanese or Russian. You are unlikely to know all the political leaders of these countries, artists, names of secondary cities, but you can probably name at least some names. But Scandinavia remains real terra incognita. The Romans didn't bother with it. Charlemagne didn't care about her. As T. K. Derry writes in his book on the history of the region, “The North remained almost completely outside the sphere of interest of civilized man.” These days the situation has not changed much. Not long ago E. E. Gill in an article for a newspaper The Sunday Times described this part of the planet as “a collection of countries that we do not distinguish among themselves.”

Part of our collective ignorance (I myself had no idea about this region before I first moved to live there) is because relatively few people have ever been here. Despite the beauty of nature, the cost of a trip to Scandinavia, coupled with its climate, discourages people from the idea of spending a vacation there (especially when France exists in the world). Where are the travel books about Scandinavia? Bookstore shelves are full of Mediterranean travelogues like “My Binges in the Shade of Olives” or “Extramarital Affairs on Oranges,” but no one seems to want to spend “A Year in Turku” or try “Riding the Lingonberries.”

Once, when I was waiting for almost half an hour to be served at a pharmacy (Danish apoteks- a monopoly, so service is not a priority for them), it dawned on me. Despite the glamorous stories about Sophie Grobel 13
Star of the TV series "The Killing" (approx. per.).

From The Guardian, to articles about Faroese knitwear and twenty ways to prepare fresh seaweed (I am also involved in the latter topic), we are much better informed about wild tribes from the Amazon basin than about real Scandinavians and how they live.

This is strange: after all, the Danes and Norwegians are our closest eastern neighbors, and the Icelanders are our closest northern ones. As far as national character is concerned, we have more in common with them than with the French or Germans. For example, our humor, tolerance, distrust of religious dogma and political figures, honesty, stoic attitude towards disgusting weather, law-abidingness, poor diet, lack of creative approach to clothing, etc., etc. (Compare this with emotional intemperance, endemic corruption, outhouse humor, teenage temperament, negligence in personal hygiene, gourmet cuisine and elegant clothing of our southern neighbors.)

Perhaps this superficial similarity leads to the fact that in Britain we do not try too hard to learn about the Scandinavians something beyond the general clichés.

Stereotypical images of Scandinavians ascribe to them a liberal attitude towards sex, which somehow coexists with the image of pious Lutherans. You have to try hard to seem both the personification of sex appeal and repulsive coldness! In fact, Scandinavians do not like to take the first steps and generally stand out from the general background. This is against their rules (literally, as we will see later). Look in the explanatory dictionary for the word “uncommunicative” - there probably won’t be an illustration there. But in vain - the image of an unsociable Finn, who stands in the corner with his eyes downcast, would be perfect here.

When I wrote this book, some Scandinavians expressed genuine bewilderment that they could be of interest to anyone outside their region. “Why did you think people would want to get to know us better? - they asked. – We are so boring and prim. There are much brighter peoples in the world that you can write about. Go to the south of Europe!”

They seem to see themselves through our eyes: capable and worthy people, but so boring and colorless that it’s not interesting to study them. To us, the inventive, trustworthy and politically correct Scandinavians, with their tendency towards tediousness, look like an actuary 14
An actuary is an insurance statistics analyst. In the British mind, actuaries are the most boring people in the world (approx. per.).

At a wild party.

How, then, can I keep the reader's interest throughout this book? The answer is simple: I think the Danes, Swedes, Finns, Icelanders and even Norwegians are extremely unusual people. I hope that you will share my opinion when you find out how bright, advanced and at the same time unique they can be.

If Oprah had stayed longer than a day, she would have come to the same conclusion: there is a lot to learn from the people of the Scandinavian countries. This is a way of life, priorities and ways to manage wealth, a functional and fair social structure, the ability to combine career with personal life, effective self-education and mutual assistance. Ultimately, they should learn the ability to live happily. They are also witty, and not always intentionally, which, in my opinion, is the best kind of wit.

I tried to penetrate deeper into the essence of the northern miracle. Is there a Scandinavian recipe for a happy life? Is it possible to transfer it to other soil? Will people outside of Scandinavia be as envious of its inhabitants once they get to know them?

“With average talent and income, it is best to be born a Viking,” the magazine stated somewhat ambiguously The Economist in a special issue dedicated to Scandinavia. But where is the serious discussion of Scandinavian totalitarianism and Swedish officialdom? How oil wealth has corrupted Norwegians? How do Finns pump themselves full of drugs until they become completely unconscious? How can the Danes turn a blind eye to their national debt, their disappearing work ethic and their own place in the world? And the fact that Icelanders are essentially wild people?

Once you move away from the image of Scandinavia that has developed in Western media (country houses inhabited by women in cotton dresses with baskets full of wild garlic, surrounded by children with artfully tousled hair), a much more complex, and sometimes even depressing, picture appears before your eyes. It covers everything from the relatively harmless disadvantages of living in a homogeneous and egalitarian society, where everyone earns the same money, lives in the same houses, dresses alike, drives the same cars, reads the same books and goes on vacation to the same places - and to more serious flaws.

Among them are racism and Islamophobia, the disappearance of social equality, alcoholism, a gigantic bureaucratic system that requires high taxation, which squeezes out all hopes, strength and ambitions from a person... What can I say!..

So, I decided to fill in the gaps in my knowledge about Scandinavia and went on a trip to all five countries in the region. I met historians, anthropologists, journalists, writers, artists, politicians, philosophers, scientists, elf keepers and Santa Claus. My route from my home in the Danish countryside took me through the icy waters of the Norwegian Arctic and the menacing Icelandic geysers, through the infamous Swedish slums and Santa Claus's cave, through Legoland and the Danish Riviera with the Rotten Banana. 15
Local name for part of the Danish coast (approx. per.).

But they could ask the Somali immigrants in Ishoi if they are happy They, I thought, coming across similar surveys and articles. It is unlikely that any of these explorers ventured beyond the rich outskirts of Copenhagen.

To paraphrase Wilde's Lady Bracknell: first place in one ranking can be considered a lucky break, but first place in all since 1973 is a reason for serious research.

Almost perfect people. The whole truth about life in the “Scandinavian paradise”

* * *

Introduction

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