358. How hard it is to point to the Scandinavians.

Have you checked the latest Scandinavian success?  According to The Economist (9-24-16) Norway has made itself securely, deeply rich.  Receiving the kind of windfall that geology gives some countries — Nigeria, Venezuela, Libya, Iraq, for example — these ex-Vikings, postponing satisfaction, planning for the future, ensuring public education, protecting themselves against bad leadership, being fair to everybody, socked their yearly oil revenue into a fund that is now worth $882 billion and producing more revenue than the oil. 

Scandinavians are such great examples, the ants to the world's grasshoppers.  But they're not always easy to point to, not by everybody, and certainly not by me.

I start with the handicap of a Swedish name.  My finger will have the marks of ethnic pride on it.   A slight weight, maybe an imagined weight, but still a weight.  Not there if my name were Capucci.

More distinct is the weight of my Christian upbringing.  Materially wealthy people are not supposed to be examples.  They're not laying up treasures in heaven.  They can't get through the eye of a needle.  I should, with the rest of my Sunday School class, be pointing at Albert Schweitzer.

More widely shared is the weight, in democracies like ours, of the common man's disapproval.  Or, more often, the disapproval of his spokesmen, seeking political weight.  I on point am an elitist, one who fails to recognize that all men are equal.  If I point at one people I can't imply that they are better than other people.  Here my finger has at least the weight of risk, and the need for explanation, and possibly a forced admission on it.

The weight on the Christian gets heavier when he adds to his implication that his wealth shows his goodness the implication that if other people were smart they'd be rich too.   He's an elitist loaded with pride.  That's what the editorial writer for the Boston Globe was when he took up the question (9-18-15) of why Massachusetts was so wealthy. "Because we've got a lot of smart people," he freely answered.  A Christian democrat from the Midwest can only look on with envy.

 We live in an age when disapproval of this kind of thing is on trigger, with telescopic sights.  At the University of California, among other universities, "America is the land of opportunity," is a locution faculty should avoid (Washington Post, 6-16-15).  It apparently implies, at what must be about three removes, "If your people were as good and smart as my people they wouldn't be doing so poorly."  A microaggression.  Here I feel a negligible weight,

There are other weights on my arm, but most interesting is that of cultural imperialism theory. "Cultural imperialism," according to its theorists, "is the practice of promoting and imposing a culture" and it can take the form of "an attitude, a formal policy, or military action."  The theory was widely employed in cultural studies, which was developed mainly in English departments, and for a time, including my own, it enjoyed high prestige there.  High enough, anyway, for me to feel its weight.

I see more clearly now why it shouldn't have.  Cultural imperialism theory was so deeply flawed  that it shouldn't have tipped the scale anywhere.

 The flaw appeared (or would have, if I'd been more alert) right away in its self-designation, which introduced a reproach word, "imperialism," into an objective formulation.  And this introduction produced a conceptual wreck.  How did one distinguish "cultural imperialism" from "cultural acquisition"? How did one tell victims from rational choosers of the good life?  There was no room for Macedonians around Socrates' table, acquiring a superior culture.  Alexander the Great became a victim, conquered by Aristotle.

So that was a temporary weight I can now blow off.  I blow without a quaver since in all my expanded post-retirement reading I have yet to see evidence of any consequences of the theory of cultural imperialism in the world of affairs.  Nobody in a position to get things done pays any attention to it. 

So where does that leave my finger?  We've got to have some kind pointing.  How will the unnoticing ever notice, and profit, unless somebody points?   I'm the one here.  So, whatever my Nordicity, my Christianity, my elitism, I stand up before the less successful cultures of the world and say, "Look, look, you grasshoppers of the world, over there at the Norwegians.  What a culture!  What values!  What a terrific example!"