The Law of Jante

Don’t Think You Are Any Good

The rarest and most precious attitude in life is: “Of course I can!”

In Sweden, at least at the time I grew from toddler to child to youth to young man (at which point I left the north for the wider world), there was the Law of Jante and like all Scandinavians, I grew up with this law. I don’t know how prevalent it is today, but I would be (pleasantly) surprised if it has gone away, as they say.

Let me, with a little help from Wikipedia, explain.

The Law of Jante is what one might call a Code of Conduct that appeared in the fiction of Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose and which has since been held by some to explain the egalitarian nature of the Nordic countries. This law characterizes as unworthy and inappropriate any behavior that is not conforming to community (accepted) norm. In other words, behavior that is out of the ordinary, or is personally ambitious is frowned upon.

These attitudes were first formulated as ten rules in Sandemose’s satirical 1933 novel “A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks”, but the actual attitudes themselves are much older.

Sandemose portrays the fictional small Danish town of Jante, which he modeled upon his native town Nykøbing Mors of the 1930s, where nobody was anonymous, a feature of life typical of most small towns — the American town portrayed by Sinclair Lewis in “Main Street” comes to mind.

When I grew up, the Law of Jante (Swedish: Jantelagen) was often brought up — sometimes just hinted at, sometimes mentioned by name, sometimes even quoted — to voice disapproval towards expressions of individuality and/or personal success.

In his book, Sandemose sets forth these ten Jante Law Rules which expand on the overarching theme of Don’t think that you’re special, or that you’re any better than us.

The ten rules state:

1. You’re not to think you are anything special.

2. You’re not to think you are as good as we are.

3. You’re not to think you are smarter than we are.

4. You’re not to imagine yourself better than we are.

5. You’re not to think you know more than we do.

6. You’re not to think you are more important than we are.

7. You’re not to think you are good at anything.

8. You’re not to laugh at us.

9. You’re not to think anyone cares about you.

10. You’re not to think you can teach us anything.

According to Sandemose (and as practiced by the Scandinavians of my youth) those who transgress this unwritten law are regarded with suspicion and sometimes even hostility, as it goes against the communal desire to preserve harmony, social stability, and uniformity (ostensibly — though I think envy and selfishness play the senior role).

Then there’s the eleventh rule recognized in the novel as “the penal code of Jante”: Perhaps you don’t think we know a few things about you?

That one sentence (the eleventh rule) reeks of content. Not only a threat but a blanket charge of all sorts of things, unlimited in scope since nothing specific is mentioned. Personally, I never came across the eleventh rule, but I’ve seen its many siblings often.

In 1955, Sandemose talking about his book said, a bit mischievously, that “Many people have recognized [in Jante] their own hometown.” He did not claim to have invented the rules, he said, he simply sought to formulate the social norms that had been stamped on the Scandinavian psyches for centuries.

And amen to that.

As a kid I was a pretty self-assured extrovert who just wouldn’t shut up about it and who as a result had to drink from the Jante cup more than once. My mom would often remind me that perhaps I wasn’t as clever as I seemed to think I was, to which I’d normally reply, “I am at least as clever as I think I am.” She’d shake her head and sigh till the next time she saw the need to remind me again.

The point, though, is that a childhood of this law leaves its mark. You do end up holding back. You do question yourself. You do wonder if you’re good enough, whether you’re smart or clever enough to attempt this, that or the other. Perhaps I should leave that up to my betters.

And seeing that the human psyche, sans Jante Law, is quite proficient in the self-invalidation department, you don’t really need external help. But external Jante-help is what we all got: Don’t think you are anything. And don’t even dream of accomplishing this, that, or the other.

The reason I bring all this up is that in 1968, when I was pursuing the, to me, critically important question “What makes me think?” I had forgotten all about the Law of Jante and how incapable and impotent I should be.

Instead, I lived in this constant frame of mind: “Of course I can.”

And looking back over a life nicely lived, I see that no frame of mind could be (or is) more precious.

© Wolfstuff