Sweden and sex

Fjordman writes horrifyingly about Sweden, a society that I suppose is as close to the programmed sexual-equality-and-freedom dystopia of Huxley’s Brave New World as any earthly society could be. He tells, for example, how within a few months in the early 1970s the word for housewife was changed from the traditional honorable term to a derogatory term that pushed women out of the home into the work force.He tells how the word freedom in Sweden connotes only sexual freedom, and that the greatness of sexual freedom is taught to small children. You get the feeling that sexual freedom is to the Swedes what the National Health Service is to the Canadians: the thing about their society of which they are most proud. However, there is one detail in the article I doubt: that small boys in certain Swedish schools are required to wear dresses for a few weeks during the school year. My reading is that this is something that the teachers’ union would like to make happen, but that hasn’t actually happened yet. I think this would be too far out even for the Swedes.

But all this makes you wonder: what are Swedes made of, that they passively accepted this total transformation of their society?

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BE writes:

I read Fjordman’s article with horror—and gratitude. You see, most of my ancestors were Swedish, but fortunately, some of my great-grandparents, and my father’s father, left “The Old Country.” Thank you, farfar (“paternal grandfather”—whom I never met, because he died before I was born), for leaving Malmo, so that I might be spared Sweden’s endemic socialism and nanny-ism. Thank you for sparing me from Malmo’s horrific Islamization. Thank you for making sure I would never be subject to modern Sweden’s culture of despair and nihilism.

Thank you also for bequeathing me your genes: Americans of Scandinavian descent are, in general, better educated, earn more money, and commit less crime than Americans on the whole (so when are we going to get a “Scandinavian-American History Month” to commemorate our contributions and achievements? Oh, oops! I forgot—we’re white, so the answer is “never.”)

But most of all, thank you, Grandfather E (who was proud of his English and would have insisted I use an English term of address for him), for coming to America, where your progeny have been fruitful, successful—and traditional(ist—well, some of us, anyway).

Daniel writes:

I went to Fjordman’s page to read the entire article. At the bottom was some commentary by opponents to these crazy measures put forth by Swedish leftists. One comments starts as such: “My 11-months-old son will never be allowed to go to a kindergarten. I and my COHABITANT (my emphasis) reserve the right to raise our son into a thinking, rational and independent individual…”

My Cohabitant! Not, my wife, my girlfriend, my girl, my woman, not even my b***h, for goodness sake (at least this locution recognizes the essential distinctiveness of man and woman) buy my cohabitant!! This could not be an awkward translation. This has to be the correct translation from Swedish. Liberal rot has seeped into the DNA of the Swedish language to the point that the opposition is left without effective rhetorical tools to fight for its survival. This poor sap has probably bought into 95% of what the Swedish leftist, liberal ideology proposes. So much so, that he has adopted the leftist-cant with which liberals have managed to replace the full, expressive language. Only now, the leftists have gone too far with these ridiculous but destructive policies. But he can’t get off the ground to fight because he relies upon their rhetoric which constrains his own course of reasoned reaction. He is trying to attack a leftist policy while using leftist cant! They have him beaten already.

This comment reinforces the point that you make so often: one cannot be an a la carte conservative, picking and choosing which topics motivate our opposition. To oppose liberalism, we must adopt a consistent and broad conservative ideology. If we only get motivated over selective outrages we will be in no shape to oppose at that time, we will have been effectively disarmed and neutered.

LA replies:

“He is trying to attack a leftist policy while using leftist cant!”

This is a fundamental criticism, not just of the person in question, but of modern conservatism in general. Conservatives try to oppose liberal excesses while accepting liberal premises, liberal cultural attitudes, and liberal language. For example, every time conservatives speak of their opposition to “gay marriage,” by their very adoption of the word “gay,” they show that they have bought into the entire liberal view of homosexuality, even as they try to resist one aspect of the “gay” agenda that in their view goes too far.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 10, 2007 09:55 PM | Send