Making Generalizations about National Cultures
A reccuring question about the study of national cultures - where cultural variations within a country are for the most part not considered - is whether it is at all meaningful to talk about culture at such a generalized level. As the Swedish ethnologist Orvar Löfgren has pointed out (Gaunt & Löfrgen 1984:11), aven if it is sometimes easy to distiguish between, for example, Swedes and Danes, by observing, ”the way of moving their bodies, cutting up a sandwich, opening a beer” or some other behaviour, there are, at the same time, many different subcultures - many Swedish cultures on the one hand, many Danish on the other. In other contexts, I too have pointed out the importance of researching the variety of cultures within national cultures (Daun 1968, 1970). Basic to my argument here is the idea that these subcultures - working-class culture, middle-class culture, male culture, female culture, etc. - are variations on one and the same theme, the Swedish theme. Thus if it is typical for Swedes to dislike aggressive face to face confrontations, there is, nevertheless, variation among different types of Swedes. Swedes brought up in upper-middle-class environments avoid such situations more than Swedes from the working-class (Frykman & Löfgren 1979). One thing which makes it easier to study the national culture of Japan and of the Scandinavian countries, however, is that they are all cosiderably more homogenous in comparsion with many other countries (Bell 1968).
One of the difficulties in doing research about a national culture is when this is the researcher’s own culture, in the same way that it is difficult when the object of study is a subculture to which the researcher belongs, for example the university world. The dilemma arises due to a kind of blindness towards familiar surroundings; it is difficult for the person concerned to achieve a necessary distance. A further block is that it can feel uncomfortable to see oneself in ”cultural terms”.
The rsult of seeing yourself due to psychoanalytical treatment, seeing aspects of yourself which you had not seen before, is often accompanied with feelings of anxiety. To see yourself, a large part of your emotions and your basic values, as having been formed by a culture - can on the other hand, also be experienced as a trivialization of one’s self. It is unpleasant to be generalized about as some ”type”, and on top of that, some character type which in other countries is considered comical, disgusting or possibly just strange. Swedes defend themselves against negative descriptions of Swedes, in the same way that of any other nationality defend themselves against negative descriptions of their culture. this is especially true if those concerned perceive that there is a factual basis for the description.
Cultural researchers - ethnologists and anthropologists - are no exceptions to this tendency, as has been pointed out by Edward T. Hall (1972:12), but they have methods at their disposal for defending their integrity. One defense can be to maintain that both cultural variations and individual differences make a scientifically valid discussion impossible; the idea of a national culture becomes too much of an abstraction. the image of one’s own identity as a ”type” can in this way be dismissed as an oversimplification or a ”stereotype”, which of course, it is. Such an attitude makes the concept of national culture easyier to accept, because it implies that you should not take such cultural descriptions all too seriously. They should be seen as rough or distorted pictures, caricatures, not serious portraits.
It is possible, however, that Swedsih intellectuals, in any case, are unusually able to ”take a lot” as regards criticism of Swedishness. But I believe that this is because they assume such negative descriptions apply to other ”ordinary” Swedes, rather than to themselves. One feature of Swedish culture that many foreigners have pointed out, is the lack of a show of national pride outside of the Swedish sports world, ”Swedes dislike themselves”, is how one immigrant expressed himself in a research interview (Bergman & Swedin 1982:182). Even King Carl XVI Gustaf referred to this in his annual radio address at Christmas, 1984.
In the past, it has been considered quite proper to speak highly of your country. An exaggerated love of one’s country has been said to be an important cause of conflicts with other countries. This is undoubtedly true, but we shouldn’t, for that reason, go too far in the other direction.
This phenomenon is not as new as the King’s speech suggest, even if there have been other periods of greater national pride. Early on, the emigration researcher, Gustav Sundbärg, described the lack of a ”national instinct”, as one of the aspects of ”the Swedish national character” (Sundbärg 1911). But it has indeed been common among Swedish intellectuals over the past few years not to want to associate themselves with the ”Swedish duck-pond”.
I see some of this ”snobbism” in myself, too, as well as the opposite reaction which is my defense against the discomfort of seeing my own personality as being very much a product of culture. What has, however, had a significant influence on my own perspective of the Swedish mentality has been 25 years of fanily life and of private life with immigrants and foreigners. I have become used to seeing Swedish behavioural patterns through the eyes of outsiders.
Because of family, a great deal of my private socializing has been with immigrants and visitors from abroad. As a result, I have also spent a lot of time abroad. Nevertheless, for the most part I consider myself a typical Swede, and often see myself in others’ descriptions of Swedes. I am not the type of person whom foreigners immediately like because they are considered ”un-Swedish”, with a possible exception being my style of socializing.
In many respects, my understanding of the swedish mentality has also been influenced by my upbringing in a small Swedish town and middle-class environmentand by the fact that my contact with Swedes, during my adult life, has mainly been with scientists, academics and artists from middle-class backgrounds. This means that I percieve Swedish culture in the light of these experiences, although my life in Swedish society as a whole, also my ethnological work, and a few close friends from the working-class, to some extent compensate for my socially biased perspective.
Now to the comparsions between the Swedish and Japanese mentalities.
