The evil that is Jante Law

[MadImmortalMan]

So I'm catching up on all the stuff in my dvr and I see Bourdain interviewing chef René Redzepi about his restaurant noma (considered the most elite cuisine on the planet atm). And he mentions in passing that because he'd been building this reputation, over the last couple decades he'd been getting all kinds of criticism and compared with nazis, war criminals and called all kinds of horrible things in the press simply because he's daring to excel at what he does. Tony didn't understand this so he explained it was a cultural thing having to do with Jante.



Now, forgive my ignorance, but this looks to my untrained American eye like the tenets of an evil cult. And a culturally self-destructive one at that.

Shouldn't the Danes be proud that the best chef in the world is in Copenhagen? There has to be more nuance to this that explains it better than what I saw in the show.

Please enlighten me.

[The Brain]

Seems to me that someone is breaking several of the rules.

[Legbiter]

Now, forgive my ignorance, but this looks to my untrained American eye like the tenets of an evil cult. And a culturally self-destructive one at that.

Shouldn't the Danes be proud that the best chef in the world is in Copenhagen? There has to be more nuance to this that explains it better than what I saw in the show.

Please enlighten me.

Jante law is a regrettable but inescapable facet of danish culture. It is what it is, and you learn to cope with it if interacting with danes on a regular basis. Or you get the hell out of the country.

[grumbler]

Jante law is a regrettable but inescapable facet of danish culture. It is what it is, and you learn to cope with it if interacting with danes on a regular basis. Or you get the hell out of the country.

So Jante is to Danes what Sharia is to Saudis?  Gotcha.

[Legbiter]

Jante law is a regrettable but inescapable facet of danish culture. It is what it is, and you learn to cope with it if interacting with danes on a regular basis. Or you get the hell out of the country.

So Jante is to Danes what Sharia is to Saudis?  Gotcha.

Yes.

Although maybe not as formally codified, it's ingrained into Danish society.

[grumbler]

Interesting, especially as how it wasn't even explicitly stated until some 80 years ago.

Still, I can see these rules being true in Scandinavia, and can see how the Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes each think that they invented the idea.  The Japanese have some very similar cultural values.

[Jacob]

It's derived from a novel set in a fictional Danish provincial town, Jante, in the early 20th century. It's not intended to describe something specific to that town, or even Denmark, but rather a universal human tendency to deride and counter individuals deviating from accepted community norms.

In Denmark the expression has common cultural currency and is often invoked, but never in a positive way. Rather it is used as a counter argument against critics or to explain difficulties, ascribing either to the hostility of myopic, resentful, small-minded individuals who allege to speak for the community.

But yeah - it wasn't intended to describe a particularly Danish phenomenon, and I don't think it does, but rather a not uncommon attitude of placing unambitious social expectations in opposition to the individual who want something different or dares to voice criticism.

It's not so much the tenets of a cult as much as it's an attempt to encapsulate the "commandments" of small-minded resentfulness.

[Jacob]

Jante law is a regrettable but inescapable facet of danish culture. It is what it is, and you learn to cope with it if interacting with danes on a regular basis. Or you get the hell out of the country.

So Jante is to Danes what Sharia is to Saudis?  Gotcha.

Yes.

Although maybe not as formally codified, it's ingrained into Danish society.

[Jacob]

Legbiter's inter-Scandinavian trolling notwithstanding, Jante's law is intended to encapsulate how someone who can't wait to leave their oppressive small town behind feels about the town, or how the frustrated individual feels about their ignorant and unambiguous colleagues and superiors in an crappy large organization.

[Razgovory]

Can it be rendered in minecraft?

[Liep]

It's what successful people use to explain criticism when they're being called out for being assholes.

Case in point: Our best Handballer ever, and perhaps the best in the world in her time. And also a colossal douchebag.


Also what Jacob said.

[grumbler]

It's what successful people use to explain criticism when they're being called out for being assholes.

Case in point: Our best Handballer ever, and perhaps the best in the world in her time. And also a colossal douchebag.

So Jante Law is what defines successful Scandanavian people as assholes and douchebags.  Gotcha.

Again, this is much like Japan.  I wonder if the cultural pressures leading to the similar values were, themselves, similar pressures, or whether it was just a case of similarity without any significant common thread.

[PDH]

Just remember, "the nail that sticks out catches your foot and hurts like hell."

[Liep]

So Jante Law is what defines successful Scandanavian people as assholes and douchebags.  Gotcha.

So no. But I see little point in arguing with you if that's what you took from what I wrote.

[grumbler]

So Jante Law is what defines successful Scandanavian people as assholes and douchebags.  Gotcha.

So no. But I see little point in arguing with you if that's what you took from what I wrote.

  You're not arguing with me, and I'm not arguing with you.

My posts are all tongue-in-cheek, like Legbiter's.  I'd never heard of this thing until this thread.