The Economist: In Praise of Finland

(From Miia)
Here's a little game we can all play. Here's the link to a quite recent article in The Economist entitled In Praise of Finland: http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7141237.

Now, despite my Finnish ancestry and how much I would love to hear Finland praised, let's all figure out where some of my objections to this article might fall.

(Hint: I did my undergraduate thesis on the problems of disposing of nuclear waste and have been working with newcomers to Canada when in Toronto...) There are, of course, some other issues as well.

On a side note, isn't it interesting that once upon a time in university, I had a professor who told us all to go out and get subscriptions to The Economist? After reading this article and having developed a brain of my own, one wonders why any professor would encourage consuming such pro-capital slant.

Enjoy! I'm off to dinner and sauna. Life is good and we're reading, writing, singing, living, loving.

OK, I can't leave the post just there. I'll include some more...

I got an email from my two beloved Juan Carloses - one from El Salvador and one from Nicaragua. When I was in Nica three years ago, JC El Sal came to visit me and I introduced him to JC Nica. They've remained in touch and now when JC El Sal was at a conference in Nica, he hooked up with JC Nica and they sent me a joint email. I loved it and loved hearing from them.

I answered and JC El Sal wrote back with another email saying that he had read the story of the Mayan people with JC Nica the night before and as they sat under the stars, they cried together. The prospect of two Finnish men sitting together one evening and reading a bit of history from hundreds of years ago and crying together is unfathomable. Somehow getting that note from JC El Sal really reminded me of a version of myself that was not so coolly logical and appropriately removed. There's a certain beauty in guiltless bearing of the soul, in shameless human contact, and in the ability to exprience joy and pain with equal magnitude. One of the greatest things of living in Nica was that you genuinely feel and the extremes are real. Although Finland, just as an example but is by no means the exception, is heralded as the crowning glory of social democracy and achievement, I wonder what we forsake in return. Not just Finns but Canadians too... and many others. We pay our taxes, the government fulfils some share of the responsibility, society and social infrastructure works and the rest of us are spared the need to think about it, or, worse, feel it. We become dull and intellectual. Not always an oxymoron.

What think ye all? Post comments. Talk about. Get angry, disagree, agree, laugh, cry, whatever.

Maybe I'm just feeling especially isolated on these fronts but I think there is something true here too. Are we really the Vulcans?

Much love (really) and big, big hugs and sloppy wet kisses and shameless adoration of you all!
Miia