Hacker News Reader

Comment by wozniacki | Hacker News Reader

Under Janteloven:

The ten rules state:

  You're not to think you are anything special.
  You're not to think you are as good as us.
  You're not to think you are smarter than us.
  You're not to convince yourself that you are better than
  us.
  You're not to think you know more than us.
  You're not to think you are better than us.
  You're not to think you are good at anything.
  You're not to laugh at us.
  You're not to think anyone cares about you.
  You're not to think you can teach us anything.*

Wow. Just wow. Needless to say, a lot of American go-getters and super-achievers would find that bitterly stultifying.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante#Definition

View on HN

Do keep in mind that those were never written down as rules to be followed, but postulated in a work that criticized such social norms.

They don't even seem that strange as an American. It's just (a parody of) typical conservative Protestant small-town mentality. Much of Scandinavia at the time was made up of religious, Protestant small towns, with most of the population engaged in farming or fishing (and the novel in question was set in such a town). People in small-town and rural America don't like big-city, degree-and-money-having people who "think they're better", either. Sinclair Lewis's 1920 novel Main Street, about small-town American attitudes, has some loose parallels.

I think the same is true even today in the US. Some of the people who're lionized in Palo Alto or NYC would be shunned in much of the "heartland", if they flaunted their wealth or education and came across as thinking they were a "super-achiever". You're allowed to be rich, but you're expected to act somewhat humble and "down-to-earth" about it and not see yourself as better than other kinds of people (especially farmers, who have their own mythos). Warren Buffet, a lifelong midwesterner, is an example of being rich but still sort of pulling that off.

Hope you understand that this is not an actual law, but a piece of satire describing social norms in a smaller provincial town in the beginning of the twentieth century. This was a very different and much more traditional and hierarchical society, and the attitudes bitops describe more stem from the reaction against these norms which happened in the 60ies and 70ies.

Nonetheless, these statutes even if only adhered by a small population of Denmark and Scandinavia are repulsive and eminently worthy of disparage.

This is not what a technologically progressive society would want more of.

Totally agree! Interesting though that Denmark has better social mobility than the US, even though Denmark has historical attitudes like the Law of Jante, while the US have "The American Dream."

Very similar to tall poppy syndrome in Australia. As an American it's always bewildering to see these attitudes play out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com