The Norse, Nobiliity, Martin Luther and Sweden

[tar]

Sweden is a poster child for social justice. How did she get that way?

Moral values a mix between those of Nordic Legendary Kings and those of the Bible turned Catholic by Christ, and Catholic turned Protestant by Luther.

The current social order is maintained by a mixture of nobility (Weath is not as equally distributed as income) and a democratically elected parliment.

The economy controlled by knowledge based large industries, fueled by great scientific minds (The Nobel Prize).


I left a lot out, no doubt, the ideas of Marx and those derived from the French Revolution have worked their way into Sweden as well, but the low religiousity of the people, many if not most of them, Lutheran at birth is worth a thought or two.

The U.S. mind has been affected by these ideas as well, along with the effect of significant numbers of Swedish immigrants.

It is probably difficult to turn oneself instantly Swede, without having a Swedish Nobility to turn to for support.

Plus we have a multitude of other workable traditions to account for in our collective mind, as we develop our own secular yet noble, moral code and cadre to trust and turn to for guidance and support.

We remain "the great experiment" and still have a chance to be the Shining City on the hill.

I am thinking though, that adherence to traditional values and ideas and social structure, can and should be done, with more trust placed in the lords available in reality, than trust in non-existing lords. For secularity's sake. For social justice's sake. And for God's sakes, honestly, what's the hold up? Sweden shows us we can keep one eye on God, and still keep both eyes on the road before us.

Regards, TAR2

 

And we can still do it the American way.

Edited January 29, 2013 by tar

[randomc]

Do you mean socially conservative normative leadership, or what are you talking about?

If so, the biggest challenge to conservatism in general is the scale and pace of technological change at the moment. There's really no reason to suppose structures and institutions that have served us in the past will be any good in the future, and moreover, if you look at periods of history in which massive social change occured you'll find technology as the catalyst. The printing press and the enlightenment period for e.g.

Since we're really on a near vertical incline on the sort of overall historical sociopolitical rollercoaster, the desrability of change is the wrong conversation. The conservative/progressive dichotomy is obsolete, the only question left in the game is what kind of change do you want?

So anyway, i don't think you can derive knowledge useful to use in civilisation building by looking at a single tradition such as Lutheran or Swedish generally, rather you have to look at as much of history as possible and try to work out what differnt traditions have in common.

Edited January 29, 2013 by randomc

[tar]

randomc, on 29 Jan 2013 - 05:09, said:

Do you mean socially conservative normative leadership, or what are you talking about?

 

If so, the biggest challenge to conservatism in general is the scale and pace of technological change at the moment. There's really no reason to suppose structures and institutions that have served us in the past will be any good in the future, and moreover, if you look at periods of history in which massive social change occured you'll find technology as the catalyst. The printing press and the enlightenment period for e.g.

 

Since we're really on a near vertical incline on the sort of overall historical sociopolitical rollercoaster, the desrability of change is the wrong conversation. The conservative/progressive dichotomy is obsolete, the only question left in the game is what kind of change do you want?

 

So anyway, i don't think you can derive knowledge useful to use in civilisation building by looking at a single tradition such as Lutheran or Swedish generally, rather you have to look at as much of history as possible and try to work out what differnt traditions have in common.

Randomc,

 

Well, thank you for that. I was more interested in starting such a discussion, than converting everybody to Lutheran.

 

But as you say, you can not "vote" for change, without knowing what tack you are on, and what tack your're choosing in its stead, and what overall course you have in mind.

 

Although I'm found of the sailboat analogy, tacking back and forth to make progress against the wind, I think that societies are more like battleships or oceanliners, hard to turn because of their momentum, and requiring a mission, or destination, a single captain and a capable cadre of navigators and second mates, and a crew to "make it so".

 

Your roller coaster is not bad, with its ups and downs and turns and such, but the freefall is exciting but safe, because the track is already laid, and the car will simply follow the track, and your participation is not required. You are merely a passenger, and your fate has already been decided by the designers of the ride.

 

My other favorite is the pendulum, swinging left and right where you as a passenger have your choice of leaning one way or the other, to pump or dampen, but any height reached to the left will be matched by the subsequent move to the right. Similar to the stochastics (overbought and oversold) and the dynamics of the stock market. With cycles discernable in any timeframe you choose(in retrospect).

 

But what and where we are as a society is a huge and complex organism, which operates on all these principles and more. What ever role in the orgasm we play, it is an actual role, where our human judgment determines the next action we take, and that action will have actual consequences in regards the fate of the organism.

 

In this, it is interesting to point out that the Swedish economy is very competitive. Internal competition pushes innovation and rewards capability and excellence, and this in turn produces fine steel and scientific breakthroughs, which are used by other societies, making Sweden competitive in World markets, and giving it a vital role in the EU.

 

I think it "too late" to ever design a civilation. Only on the fly and in context will ideas develop and be inacted. Unworkable ideas will be slowly discarded and the workable ones will endure.

 

And the body of work performed by those that came before us is worth maintaining, in large part.

 

The speed of progress in this computer age is indeed dizzying, whole areas of study and endevour have matured and spawned derivitives before most of us even know its name. But we should always retain control over these systems, and use them as tools, guided by human judgment. The tools themselves enact human judgment, the judgment of the programmers and the people that put the systems in place, but the systems themselves do not have human judgment. Its better that we keep our trust, in the judgment of other humans, that share our values and traditions. And use these systems as tools.

 

Regards, TAR2