Quote:
Originally Posted by s_k
Can you describe the nature of the Swedes, their character?
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You're asking someone from inside the box, very hard to tell but I'll give it a try.
The stereotype of quiet and withdrawn people is probably true applied to the northern swedes but in the more urban half of the country people tend to be more open. On the surface, that is, because a lot of people are very opininated. In the smaller towns and communities people are often very close-minded, conservative and not keen on changes. In the bigger (relatively) towns like Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and maybe even Västerås, Örebro, Linköping, Lund and so on, people at least try to act out a more continental aura of openness but the truth is that the general swede is a very collective person who stick to certain ideas and conform to one common stream or another. And the infamous "Jantelagen" is still prevalent - you're not supposed to be anything special. These days however, when some try to point out that individualism is (and has been for a while) on the rise, I just don't see it. What I see is yet another collective stream trying to outsmart the surrounding streams by lauding the uniqueness of the individual, albeit in the process instead forming a social conformity in which you're
still not supposed to deviate from the norm within.
Did that make sense?
