Superb article, Ed. So much insight percolated into it. It seems to me that the high common sense/data-based content in this collection of ideas is in direct proportion to their unsayability in polite metropolitan circles. But you can't blot out the sun with one finger, so please keep up the good work.
Marx and Engels were both stripped of their German citizenships by the Prussians and sent into exile. Where did they go? Britain, of course!
It was considered a virtue of pragmatic Anglo liberalism that there was no fear to allowing Marx and Engels settle in Britain. But this liberalism works best when it is not greatly abused. Marx and Engels may have been political refugees, but how many political refugees were storming the shores of Britain in the 19th century? Preciously few.
Likewise, the generous welfare state model that is certainly a factor attracting so many migrants who seek to abuse it only works so well when the abuse is limited. The model is now broken because so many illegal migrants are fully aware of how to abuse the system and get away with it without penalty. It is so difficult to deport illegal migrants. And one also sees progressive officials and judges freeing dangerous migrants on empathy grounds, so no wonder many people only feel despair at governments' abilities to tackle the tides of illegal immigrants. But it really is due to political and institutional will, as the Danish example shows us. I do remember when immigration into Britain was very tightly controlled and regulated, and that was within living memory (right up to 1997) because the Tories and pre Blair Labour had a mutual understanding that it was in neither party's political advantage - it was what voters, both Tory and Labour - wanted, and for different reasons, whether cultural or economic competition. But when New Labour decided it wasn't a problem and filled the ranks of the bureaucracy and judiciary with sympathetic people, suddenly, it did become a real problem!
I'm even mindful of the contrast between Trump and Biden. For all of Trump's ballistic language, he did take a strong stance on illegal migration with the result that the numbers of illegal migrants fell sharply under his administration. Since Biden took office, it roared right back up and is now at all time highs, with an estimated 2.5 million illegal migrants crossing the Texas border in his tenure (so far). And it's because the Biden administration simply doesn't care so the administrators just don't do anything, which sends strong messages encouraging even more migrants. As the joke now goes, Biden cares more about the Ukrainian border than the Texas border.
Leaving aside the current hysteria sweeping the US over the "great replacement theory," what it also represents is a breakdown of law and order. When a liberal progressive faction simply ignores elections, polls, and borders and turns a blind eye to gross abuses of law and order policies in the name of greater social good outside the constitutional norms and policies (aka diversity! empathy! and hidden within it is surely that ironic disease of disgust at one's own culture and history afflicting so many progressives despite that it is only the same culture and history gave rise to the same "enlightened" progressive forces) - no wonder people increasingly grow dispirited and feel helpless at their governments.
I will say it is to Denmark's advantage that it is a small country. There's a virtue to the size. It makes the government much more accountable to its citizens. People feel more connected to politics and their governing. As much as I disapproved of Scottish independence and the third-rate SNP and their disgusting cybernats, I also do see the allure in the notion of a smaller new state that would be very responsive to your needs and feelings of solidarity and community rather than governed by a distant national government "over there." The irony, of course, is that Scottish independence sentiments is strongly fostered by notions of Scottish identities, and if the SNP had their way, they'd just turn Scotland into another Sweden rather than Denmark in their own progressive blindness.
It could be that most Anglo countries are now just too big that the abuses of social good and the welfare state can happen on a large scale and yet still be largely meaningless to most people (?), which is exacerbated when a progressive mindset captures the governing bureaucracy that remains in place regardless of elections and parties in power. So people retreat from the greater "national" community into their self-identified tribes and seek legitimacy of ideas and identities from the tribe rather than seeking a national consensus. The downside is that national creeds start to decline and attachment to national governing institutions weaken sharply (this may explain what the US is going through at the moment).
I suspect Ireland survives as a liberal state because it is just that too small (?) to attract meaningful numbers of migrants. It does have the virtues of being a smaller country with a government strongly accountable to its people, which keeps a control over its progressives. Perhaps it's the luck of the Irish, after all. Let's hope it stays that way.
Excellent article as always. I'm from Denmark and can confirm every bit West mentions. Embarrassingly, as an immigrant, I only appreciated how high the social capital was here when, as a libertarian teenager, I was reading brilliant social observers from outside Denmark like Ed West.
However, the reason I write is that I really wanted to know what Ed West thinks about Happiness research as he wrote "It is — by a measure I’m very dubious of — the second happiest."
I'm similarly dubious about this but I wondered if Ed had written about his scepticism somewhere? Or alternatively he had more thoughts?
thanks. I just think happiness is hard to measure and it doesn't pass the smell test. Happiness correlates with wealth but it also mainly correlates with religiosity and social life (inc happy marriage) which are probably stronger in both the Med and Middle East
Inevitably these happiness results don't seem to pass the observer's smell test. In a sense it's clear that Scandis are not superficially happy/joyful but perhaps rather very content with life. But if Scandis' social code is to expect little and be content with it that makes relational status and therefore "contentness" easier to achieve. Following your previous article on status.
But that's merely a hunch and perhaps the happiness researchers have already taken that into account.
If I may suggest so this calls for another article. One that balances the high common sense/data balance you excel at as Jimmylem1 mentioned. If you're interested then a good jump off might be the prominent Danish economist Christian Bjørnskov's new 60 page ebook coming out in a month. From what I recall he attributes it to associational life and even hypothesised it had roots in viking culture:
thanks. I'll see if I can get a copy. Always welcome recommendations for books to review!
I wonder if it's a cultural thing, Scandis feel that if they are content that's enough - equivalent of mustn't grumble - while your Frenchman, drinking the finest Bordeaux in his Dordogne farmhouse, is suicidal because he's just read another Houellebecq novel.
My example is always to imagine an American being content with a bike and these smaller houses and whatever luxury the median American enjoys. That image always makes it immediately clear to me they wouldn't accept this "contentness".
On the flipside if you take a thousand American families and place them here long enough would they eventually realise the status competition(and rewards) they are used to is simply less intense and end up becoming content?
I reckon that having an active regular social life, so living in a safe and walkable neighbourhood without squalor and cars, probably would bring a lot more happiness than ever quite a lot of material wellbeing.
The Danes have pretty big homes - apparently the 2nd largest in Europe - it's the Brits who live in tiny boxes.
Sorry I was actually thinking of apartments (all I know). Something my German girlfriend commented on frequently in various Airbnb places here. Small size, small toilets, thin walls. Her frame of reference is Germany.
Superb article Ed. I hope Denmark has replacement fertility because the left will start shrieking at them about how their "low birth rates" mean they must embrace mass third-world immigration or will cease to exist as a people. Actually I'm sure they're doing this already.
Superb article, Ed. So much insight percolated into it. It seems to me that the high common sense/data-based content in this collection of ideas is in direct proportion to their unsayability in polite metropolitan circles. But you can't blot out the sun with one finger, so please keep up the good work.
thank you!
Marx and Engels were both stripped of their German citizenships by the Prussians and sent into exile. Where did they go? Britain, of course!
It was considered a virtue of pragmatic Anglo liberalism that there was no fear to allowing Marx and Engels settle in Britain. But this liberalism works best when it is not greatly abused. Marx and Engels may have been political refugees, but how many political refugees were storming the shores of Britain in the 19th century? Preciously few.
Likewise, the generous welfare state model that is certainly a factor attracting so many migrants who seek to abuse it only works so well when the abuse is limited. The model is now broken because so many illegal migrants are fully aware of how to abuse the system and get away with it without penalty. It is so difficult to deport illegal migrants. And one also sees progressive officials and judges freeing dangerous migrants on empathy grounds, so no wonder many people only feel despair at governments' abilities to tackle the tides of illegal immigrants. But it really is due to political and institutional will, as the Danish example shows us. I do remember when immigration into Britain was very tightly controlled and regulated, and that was within living memory (right up to 1997) because the Tories and pre Blair Labour had a mutual understanding that it was in neither party's political advantage - it was what voters, both Tory and Labour - wanted, and for different reasons, whether cultural or economic competition. But when New Labour decided it wasn't a problem and filled the ranks of the bureaucracy and judiciary with sympathetic people, suddenly, it did become a real problem!
I'm even mindful of the contrast between Trump and Biden. For all of Trump's ballistic language, he did take a strong stance on illegal migration with the result that the numbers of illegal migrants fell sharply under his administration. Since Biden took office, it roared right back up and is now at all time highs, with an estimated 2.5 million illegal migrants crossing the Texas border in his tenure (so far). And it's because the Biden administration simply doesn't care so the administrators just don't do anything, which sends strong messages encouraging even more migrants. As the joke now goes, Biden cares more about the Ukrainian border than the Texas border.
Leaving aside the current hysteria sweeping the US over the "great replacement theory," what it also represents is a breakdown of law and order. When a liberal progressive faction simply ignores elections, polls, and borders and turns a blind eye to gross abuses of law and order policies in the name of greater social good outside the constitutional norms and policies (aka diversity! empathy! and hidden within it is surely that ironic disease of disgust at one's own culture and history afflicting so many progressives despite that it is only the same culture and history gave rise to the same "enlightened" progressive forces) - no wonder people increasingly grow dispirited and feel helpless at their governments.
I will say it is to Denmark's advantage that it is a small country. There's a virtue to the size. It makes the government much more accountable to its citizens. People feel more connected to politics and their governing. As much as I disapproved of Scottish independence and the third-rate SNP and their disgusting cybernats, I also do see the allure in the notion of a smaller new state that would be very responsive to your needs and feelings of solidarity and community rather than governed by a distant national government "over there." The irony, of course, is that Scottish independence sentiments is strongly fostered by notions of Scottish identities, and if the SNP had their way, they'd just turn Scotland into another Sweden rather than Denmark in their own progressive blindness.
It could be that most Anglo countries are now just too big that the abuses of social good and the welfare state can happen on a large scale and yet still be largely meaningless to most people (?), which is exacerbated when a progressive mindset captures the governing bureaucracy that remains in place regardless of elections and parties in power. So people retreat from the greater "national" community into their self-identified tribes and seek legitimacy of ideas and identities from the tribe rather than seeking a national consensus. The downside is that national creeds start to decline and attachment to national governing institutions weaken sharply (this may explain what the US is going through at the moment).
I suspect Ireland survives as a liberal state because it is just that too small (?) to attract meaningful numbers of migrants. It does have the virtues of being a smaller country with a government strongly accountable to its people, which keeps a control over its progressives. Perhaps it's the luck of the Irish, after all. Let's hope it stays that way.
Great piece.
Fascinating analysis with lots of important concepts.
Excellent article as always. I'm from Denmark and can confirm every bit West mentions. Embarrassingly, as an immigrant, I only appreciated how high the social capital was here when, as a libertarian teenager, I was reading brilliant social observers from outside Denmark like Ed West.
However, the reason I write is that I really wanted to know what Ed West thinks about Happiness research as he wrote "It is — by a measure I’m very dubious of — the second happiest."
I'm similarly dubious about this but I wondered if Ed had written about his scepticism somewhere? Or alternatively he had more thoughts?
thanks. I just think happiness is hard to measure and it doesn't pass the smell test. Happiness correlates with wealth but it also mainly correlates with religiosity and social life (inc happy marriage) which are probably stronger in both the Med and Middle East
Inevitably these happiness results don't seem to pass the observer's smell test. In a sense it's clear that Scandis are not superficially happy/joyful but perhaps rather very content with life. But if Scandis' social code is to expect little and be content with it that makes relational status and therefore "contentness" easier to achieve. Following your previous article on status.
But that's merely a hunch and perhaps the happiness researchers have already taken that into account.
If I may suggest so this calls for another article. One that balances the high common sense/data balance you excel at as Jimmylem1 mentioned. If you're interested then a good jump off might be the prominent Danish economist Christian Bjørnskov's new 60 page ebook coming out in a month. From what I recall he attributes it to associational life and even hypothesised it had roots in viking culture:
https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Reflections-Christian-Bjørnskov-ebook/dp/B09QNLBZWF/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1654763957&sr=1-1
thanks. I'll see if I can get a copy. Always welcome recommendations for books to review!
I wonder if it's a cultural thing, Scandis feel that if they are content that's enough - equivalent of mustn't grumble - while your Frenchman, drinking the finest Bordeaux in his Dordogne farmhouse, is suicidal because he's just read another Houellebecq novel.
My example is always to imagine an American being content with a bike and these smaller houses and whatever luxury the median American enjoys. That image always makes it immediately clear to me they wouldn't accept this "contentness".
On the flipside if you take a thousand American families and place them here long enough would they eventually realise the status competition(and rewards) they are used to is simply less intense and end up becoming content?
I reckon that having an active regular social life, so living in a safe and walkable neighbourhood without squalor and cars, probably would bring a lot more happiness than ever quite a lot of material wellbeing.
The Danes have pretty big homes - apparently the 2nd largest in Europe - it's the Brits who live in tiny boxes.
Sorry I was actually thinking of apartments (all I know). Something my German girlfriend commented on frequently in various Airbnb places here. Small size, small toilets, thin walls. Her frame of reference is Germany.
'The killer could be anyone in Helgasund. That's over seven people.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-OOpZitfd0
Superb article Ed. I hope Denmark has replacement fertility because the left will start shrieking at them about how their "low birth rates" mean they must embrace mass third-world immigration or will cease to exist as a people. Actually I'm sure they're doing this already.
'We need to replace our native workers with immigrants...What? How dare you say the elite is replacing native workers with immigrants???'
Excellent insights Ed;
thank you!