En mycket intressant artikel har skrivits av en italienska som bor i Sverige. Texten handlar om svenskarnas underliga tro på myndigheter som inte kan skydda dem mot COVID-19, men kunde lika gärna gälla mångkultur. Frågan om svensken är människa kommer upp.
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Citat:
Some have voiced concerns over the lack of protective equipment for healthcare workers. Others say the relaxed measures have resulted in too many deaths. In an editorial in the Dagens Nyheter, a major Swedish newspaper, a group of scientists from the Karolinska Institutet, Uppsala University, and Chalmers University of Technology called the architects of the strategy “officials without the talents to predict or control the epidemic,” and urged the government to intervene with “radical measures.” But such dissonant voices and sporadic organized resistance, for example, among teachers, are rare. For the most part the Swedes back up the government and its choices. Polls show growing support for the governing Social Democrats and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in the last few weeks.
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Is the proclaimed belief in the Swedish character and individual responsibility at the heart of the country’s response to coronavirus? As an observer, that’s not what I see. Rather it seems the mark of an organicist society, one in which individual freedom always gives way to public good, where individuals’ goals and expectations are shaped by the will of the government. Indeed the secret of Sweden’s exceptionalism rests in a social compact that limits—not expands—people’s reliance on each other because it fosters dependence on the state. The Swedish formula, I think, combines anomie—lack of social and moral norms, not individualism in the liberal sense—with organicism.
In Sweden, government action against coronavirus is relaxed and contradictory, and so are people’s responses. At the root of the synergy is a unique pact between state and citizens. The state provides for people’s material needs so that they will not have to depend on each other for their welfare or be exposed to chance. In exchange, citizens trust the state to make decision in their interest. Trust, or the confidence that a party will act fairly and in the interest of the other party, is an essential element of society. When there is trust, people do not need to act defensively or attack out of fear of being attacked. It the absence of complete information, trust supports stability and reduces uncertainty.
Yet trust maintains an element of conditionality. Trust is gained, but it is also tested and revoked if not honored. For trust in government to be a good thing, citizens need to keep doubting, examining, questioning, judging governments and their choices. In an organicist society however, tests on trust cease. And, with blind trust in the government, people are relieved from the responsibility for what happens around them—even to them—to their fellow citizens and to their family. For over a century the Swedish state has committed to taking care of the children, the sick, and the old. Yet the bargain is dangerous for its citizens because taking responsibility, listening to one’s own needs, and taking care of others is what makes us human and protects us from arbitrary power.
[...]
Is the proclaimed belief in the Swedish character and individual responsibility at the heart of the country’s response to coronavirus? As an observer, that’s not what I see. Rather it seems the mark of an organicist society, one in which individual freedom always gives way to public good, where individuals’ goals and expectations are shaped by the will of the government. Indeed the secret of Sweden’s exceptionalism rests in a social compact that limits—not expands—people’s reliance on each other because it fosters dependence on the state. The Swedish formula, I think, combines anomie—lack of social and moral norms, not individualism in the liberal sense—with organicism.
In Sweden, government action against coronavirus is relaxed and contradictory, and so are people’s responses. At the root of the synergy is a unique pact between state and citizens. The state provides for people’s material needs so that they will not have to depend on each other for their welfare or be exposed to chance. In exchange, citizens trust the state to make decision in their interest. Trust, or the confidence that a party will act fairly and in the interest of the other party, is an essential element of society. When there is trust, people do not need to act defensively or attack out of fear of being attacked. It the absence of complete information, trust supports stability and reduces uncertainty.
Yet trust maintains an element of conditionality. Trust is gained, but it is also tested and revoked if not honored. For trust in government to be a good thing, citizens need to keep doubting, examining, questioning, judging governments and their choices. In an organicist society however, tests on trust cease. And, with blind trust in the government, people are relieved from the responsibility for what happens around them—even to them—to their fellow citizens and to their family. For over a century the Swedish state has committed to taking care of the children, the sick, and the old. Yet the bargain is dangerous for its citizens because taking responsibility, listening to one’s own needs, and taking care of others is what makes us human and protects us from arbitrary power.
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