Swedish Mentality

by Åke Daun

Book Overview

Is there a distinctly Swedish national character? Are Swedes truly shy, unemotional, conflict-avoiding, melancholy, and dour? Swedish Mentality, the English translation of the hugely successful book published in Sweden in 1989, considers the reality behind the myth. The author, ke Daun, is a respected ethnologist who is sometimes referred to as the "guru" of Swedish character. In recent years, it has become popular to discuss Swedishness and Swedish...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0271015020
• ISBN13: 9780271015026
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Not the Swedish Mentalist

As a "Swedish-American" (3rd generation), I have been looking for more information about my heritage. This is one of many books I have been gathering. It is more scholarly than I anticipated, but still very readable. The topic seems hard to pin-down in scientific terms, but he does a pretty good job. Although not a social-scienctist, I imagine this comes as close to facts as you can get with such a subject. It deals with many stereo-types of Swedes, treating most of them in a positive light. I found most to have some ring of truth either within my own temperment or things I have heard from my older relatives. He does point out several times that there are always exceptions to the generalizations. One thing that is interesting is that it was written in Swedish and translated. At first I thought I noticed that some of the sentence structures were a bit off, but then it might have been that I was just looking at it too hard. Also interesting is his perspective from the "inside", and mine from America, albeit "Swedish-America". This book has a pretty narrow focus, and is not that exhaustive, so is not the end-all on the Swedish personality or mentality, but is an interesting look at why a Swede and the rest of the world thinks of Swedes as somehow slightly different in the specific ways discussed. A good book.

Understanding Swedish Mentality

This was a very interesting book that enjoyed reading a lot. However, I do not entirely agree with previous reviewers who summarized the content of the book as saying that Sweden is dull and that Swedes has distaste for novelty. However, I still found all the other reviews helpful. Maybe I am biased because I am Swedish myself, but his book is a little bit more nuanced than that. The book was not anti-Swedish and not self-congratulatory. In general I would be suspicious of any book that tries to claim or identify national or ethnic characteristics. Such books are often either self congratulatory or hateful, especially those which claim not to be. Secondly it is a very hard subject to study objectively. If you do it by surveys the answers will be affected by local beliefs and prejudices, and local interpretation of words will distort the results. However, Åke Daun still succeeds in doing what seems to be an objective assessment of Swedish Mentality. I am impressed by his efforts and he convinced me. I can add that even though I am deeply affected by my Swedish Mentality I have partially escaped it and become a lot more tolerant of those who do not share it. That is a result of me living abroad for so many years. However, we are all "affected" and perhaps "damaged" by our culture and our childhood environment. That is true not just for Swedes! If I were to summarize this book in just a few words I would say that Swedes are on average more pragmatic, quiet, non-aggressive, conflict-avoiding, rational, honest, diligent, punctual, orderly, and yes envious too. It should be noted that, this are the kind of personality traits that make the Swedish welfare system possible. Swedes are quite different from Americans and Southern European in behavior and thinking patterns which make culture clashes possible in those cases. Swedes are also surprisingly similar to the Japanese. Swedes prefer engineering and mechanical creativity over artistic creativity (again on average) which has resulted in some impressive accomplishments in technology and industry but not as many great accomplishments in art. I can add that Susan Sontag apparently had a very negative impression of Sweden, but I know some Americans who have a positive impression of Sweden. One aspect of Swedish thinking that Åke Daun discusses which I have seen myself can cause some significant clashes between Americans and Swedes is the Swedish dislike for pride or "bragging". In America you are supposed to sell yourself, and talk "you're self up", and "show yourself", something that is a great "sin" in Sweden. By the way, I no longer think this way. Instead I easily adapt to the expectations of both countries (I am writing in America). In the beginning I had a hard time with the way Americans used the word "aggressive". One lady told me while watching my son play soccer, "your son is so aggressive", and when she saw that I was insulted she added "which is great". "Aggressive" in Sweden is always "bad

Reccomended

This is a very well written book about the Swedes and also very true!

Illuminating study of national character

Much of contemporary social science still looks down upon the study of national characteristics as hopelessly unscientific. What a pity. Author Ake Daun shows that such studies, intelligently handled, can provide a wealth of reliable insights into other cultures. Covering everything from child-rearing to academia, he sheds considerable insight into Swedish culture and answers, in the process, some worthwhile questions. Why, for example, is Swedish society, on the whole, so dull? Students interested in the cultural components of creativity will do well to take note of the Swedish distaste for novelty, the predilection for order, peace, literalmindedness, and the surprising salience of envy.