Well, this makes it all sound very chummy and kindly. How enlightened. How European. How all-work-together socialist. Not like the unfortunate Americans.
Then again, if you describe the same thing from a different angle you get this.
I once got in mild trouble at work during a training, as the outside instructor gave a test to us about cooperativeness, and mentioned after we were discussing it that a class of Russians had done very well on the test. "Which isn't that surprising, coming from a background of everyone working together for the good of others." I was harsh in correcting her, and she looked very surprised that I didn't know this about people under communism, because didn't everyone? She didn't get that people under communism get very good at telling outside authorities exactly what they want to hear.
A friend studied in Sweden years ago and loved the place. People were kind, they were hospitable. Then at Christmas every house on his street was decorated in exactly the same way, and he decided it was best not to make his home there. Nobody makes them do that, but it tells you how much they value sticking together. There is very generous support for new mothers (and now new fathers, I believe), but there is also a strong cultural value of hard work, and you are expected to contribute back to those who come after when you go back to work. Great system until people don't want to pay back quite so much. In Norway they like togetherness so much they even take your children away if you aren't assimilating properly. (They got them back seven months later.)
I am not saying that Scandinavians are all crytpto-nazis, and that singing together, community spirit and untranslatable* "togetherness" are bad things. It sounds good overall. The Danes are very nice people. I don't buy that repeated myth that they and the other Scandinavians are the happiest people in the world - the suicide rates are too high, for one thing. Also, they consider it a matter of national honor to say how great life is. Which I suppose is a type of happiness, to be part of something bigger than yourself and be willing to swallow your own pain for the greater good. It's not a lie to call themselves happy - they aren't the most miserable people by any stretch - but it pays to be a teensy bit skeptical.
I wish Americans could actually do more of this sort of group cultural bonding. We used to in the old days, but decided it was a little oppressive, especially after seeing how bad it could get with Nazis and Soviets. We err on the side of not going down that road now. We have lost something, I suspect. But I don't like liberals or conservatives hyping this sort of togetherness without considering what could go wrong.
*It occurs to me that I have become more suspicious of these supposedly untranslatable words over the years. The first I ran across was gemutlichkeit in high school German. It doesn't translate into a single word or even a few, but it's not that hard. It just takes sentences instead of phrases. Hardly surprising. I wonder how much of "untranslatable" is just "You wouldn't understand it because you haven't been there. It's really good, but when I put words to it it doesn't sound as amazing." Yeah, when you try to put it in actual words, it doesn't sound so amazing.
"Which isn't that surprising, coming from a background of everyone working together for the good of others." I was harsh in correcting her, and she looked very surprised that I didn't know this about people under communism, because didn't everyone? She didn't get that people under communism get very good at telling outside authorities exactly what they want to hear.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it is fairly common that those who praise communism do so without being aware of the compulsion inherent in communism. Consider Bernie Sanders's praise of Fidel Castro.When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a Lesson.
Sanders had a hunch that Cubans actually appreciated living in a one-party state. “The people we met had an almost religious affection for [Fidel Castro]. The revolution there is far deep and more profound than I understood it to be. It really is a revolution in terms of values.”
Bernie Sanders does not speak Spanish. As such, translators informed him of the "almost religious affection" that Cubans had for Fidel. Any Cuban faced with a translator for a foreigner is going to assume that the translator is working for the Cuban regime. No Cuban with an instinct for self-preservation would have given a candid opinion of Fidel or his regime to a translator, who would have undoubtedly reported the conversation to the appropriate authorities. If a Cuban disliked the regime, the odds of candidly expressing that opinion to a regime-supplied translator are close to 0.
Regarding Bernie being a "Democratic Socialist" or a "Communist," his enthusing about a "revolution in terms of values" in Castro's Cuba sounds very much like Che Guevara's "New Man." The USSR,from Lenin on, had similar hopes about the "New Soviet Man." I very much doubt that someone who really believed in Democracy would parrot such Marxist mumbo-jumbo. Which is why I conclude it isn't all that far off to label Bernie a commie.Consider the kibbutz Bernie chose to live at when he was in Israel.
BTW,this Bernie quote originated in the Burlington Free Press, March 24,1989.
In one building at the College of Wooster in Ohio, every faculty office door has exactly the same progressive political posters. Apparently individual faculty can arrange them as they see fit, but they must put up a defined set of posters.
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