Denmark

Father Denmark Inspires Deeper Thinking

~ americanjulie ~ Leave a comment

IMG_1121I didn’t want to make a thesis about Denmark’s political culture from one bike tour guide’s comments. So after stopping at the Father of Denmark’s statue I sought out a book that could tell me more about NFS Grundtvig.

At the bookshop they had two options in English and one was lighter to carry and described as more accessible. I bought Knud J V Jespersen’s A History of Denmark and read the relevant chapters. (I skipped “Economic Conditions 1500-1800”!)

It turns out that Grundtvig is even more interesting than BikeMike shared. Grundtvig lived from 1783-1872 and his life spanned from the age of Enlightenment to Romanticism to Bismarck’s Realpolitik. “All of the strong philosophical currents contributed in their own way to his thinking, and so to the creation of a particularly Danish ‘ism’—Grundtvigianism–which probably affected Denmark far more than any other European political or ideological movement.” (p 112-113)

His written histories reintroduced pagan Norse myths and gods to the Danish people. His subsequent three extended study visits to England gave him an appreciation for the value of pragmatism and freedom of thought. His most famous maxim is “First a human, then a Christian.” Ponder that for a moment.

What if everyone in the world thought in these terms?

  • First a human, then a Muslim.
  • First a human, then an American.
  • First a human, then a Republican.

How much of our conflicts would go away? Similarly if all people could acknowledge they are humans and not gods or God’s agent. Humbly accept the limitations of being human, which includes an imperfect understanding of the divine. What peace and love and understanding might be available? But I digress.

In Denmark in the early 1800s, society was mired in a stranglehold of the church institution and aristocratic absolutism. The defeat to Bismarck created an existential crisis and Grundtvig articulated a new way to be Danish. He was a Lutheran pastor who preached separation of church and state. He preferred a Christian faith that is a conversation among equals rather than a long theological sermon. Amen.

He also reformed education with his ideas about a “school of life,” which was aimed at rural youth who’d been deprived of educational opportunity. “In short the intent was no less than to transform the inarticulate masses into responsible and articulate citizens in the new democratic society, which was slowly taking shape.” (p 114)

In a series of commentaries on contemporary societal problems (in 1838), Grundtvig created the word “folkelighed” to present his central concept:

…belonging to a nation was a matter of free choice. One could choose to join or remain outside. Choosing to join the popular, that is, national, community meant accepting certain duties towards that community as a whole, not just linguistic, but in the form of taking for the whole and an obligation to include the members in a folkelig, a mutually committed community. (p 118)

Grundtvig arrived at a propitious time in Denmark’s history when they were at a crossroads. The USA and England are at a crossroads. Who will inspire us to be more fully human, to look after one another and our planet? In the absence of a philosophical giant such as Grundtvig, we will have to read his words and others from history and find our inspiration.

Is there a “Right Size” for Cooperation?

~ americanjulie ~ 1 Comment
IMG_1146
Libraries, like this massive one in Copenhagen, are a sign of a healthy, collaborative society.

While I’ve been in Europe I am following what is happening nationally in the USA via Vox news, the Atlantic and New Yorker social media, and FiveThirtyEight and other podcasts. They are bearing witness to extreme democratic dysfunction. Clowns appointed as judges, bills written in secret, a President tweeting his id. Meanwhile in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries they are quietly inventing ways to turn household waste into energy without pollution and cooperating with one another to ensure everyone has enough.

I mention this to my friend UK Sarah on our walks and she says what she said in New Zealand, “Yes, but how many people are there?” Denmark has 5.5 million, New Zealand 4.5 million. It is a bit of a conversation ender. However, this morning I woke up wondering if those who predicted the USA would break into regions were in fact prescient. Perhaps democracy works best on a small scale. Not the scale of the town hall meeting alone, which frankly I’ve experienced as both a tyranny of petty-crats and a glorious thing. Maybe something on the scale of a region like the Pacific Coast states. We share a coastline and I-5.  In Denmark, they maintain their social democracy, in part, through a strong consensus on what Danishness is and is not. The Pacific Coast states share a pioneering history, plus an orientation to the Pacific and a majority of the populations are post-modern. It would be easy to also include Hawaii, and harder to include Alaska.

IMG_1522
Public Transportation is another sign of collaboration. (Waterloo Station in London)

I remember in the 80s there were a number of intellectuals writing articles about the demise of California. One that sticks in my memory compared it to ancient Alexandria and proposed that with so many languages spoken in the schools and so much conflict over the environment and resources that surely the ship of democracy will sink. Actually, thanks to the creative and technology economies, California is thriving in many ways that many parts of the USA are not.

Another intellectual recently argued that the way forward in the USA will be led by our great cities. The Pacific Coast states have many excellent cities, but they are only sustained by the agricultural production and the watersheds of the associated rural places around them. So while there may be much innovation in cities for many things, a city cannot live behind a wall. Their survival depends on a dense network of connection to the outside world.

Do we need a federal government? Or a European Union? This is the open question that I am faced with in the U.K. and reading news from home. The righty-right leaning Republicans have been arguing the federal government is too expensive, too large, too meddlesome for many years. By electing an unqualified person to the chief executive they are perhaps forcing the question on the rest of the electorate. They may not like the answer that the collective comes up with.