Neither bus stops, football teams nor libraries should think anything
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fullscreen Free Ukraine’s place, Tobias Sana and pride flags at public buildings – three examples of society’s opinions and different values that take up more and more space at the expense of people. Photo: Caisa Rasmussen / Björn Larsson Rosvall / Christine Olsson / TT
The bus stop outside Russian the embassy is then named “Free Ukraine’s place” in June. The name change, Region Stockholm explains, “is part of several efforts to show Region Stockholm’s support to the Ukrainian people”.
However, the stop outside the Israeli embassy has not been renamed “Free Palestine’s place”, but is still called Djurgårdsbron.
As that Sweden abandons neutrality, we are also losing the very thing that characterizes free societies: neutrality of opinion. That is to say that the institutions are neutral, but that the people can have whatever opinions they want. The hallmark of authoritarian societies is, on the contrary, that the institutions have an opinionand that that opinion coincides with the government’s, while people not allowed to have a dissenting opinion without suffering reprisals.
Our institutions have begun to take a stand to an increasing degree. Postnord stamps all letters with “Aid for Ukraine”, municipalities raise the Israeli flag, the Pride flag, the Ukrainian flag – and regardless of what one thinks of this, it is unequivocal to take a stand. And then what happens to those who disagree? Are they not desirable? Should they be silenced, reeducated, deported, or, as many hope on social media, even executed? Do they have a place in society?
Last summer’s shed a library in Gothenburg published a post on Instagram that showed how they weeded out books by the author Lena Andersson, with a text that in a sarcastic tone alluded to her latest article. The tone may have been joking, but the meaning was unpleasant: if we don’t like your views, your books are not wanted here.
pullquoteI may have an opinion, but I don’t want bus stops to reflect it
The paradoxical thing is that the library acts like a person – but a person must no longer act like a person. Municipalities ban employees from wearing shirts with political motifs, such as #pressatläge, in the last election Region Stockholm forbade the healthcare staff to express themselves politically, and SVT employees are so afraid of being associated with anything political these days that they don’t even dare to exercise their constitutionally protected right to go to a demonstration.
In the i the politicization of society is the “fundamental values” that have spread like wildfire in companies, schools and businesses. Although they often contain bland wording about the equal worth of all – who could be against that, one thinks – that very blandness can serve as an arbitrary weapon, because it is so open to interpretation.
Values have also been used to dismiss at least a hundred people in recent years – if I only count the cases that appeared in the media. IFK Göteborg suspended the footballer Tobias Sana when he said against his coach. “I have only followed our routines and our core values” was the club’s explanation. A school principal in Sollefteå was dismissed after an argument with a security guard at the pub – his behavior was considered to violate the core values. Jensen Education fired a teacher who tweeted about the war on Gaza, with reference to the fact that it was against the values to “spread misinformation about the act of terrorism”. The armed forces threatened to punish an employee who refused to participate in the Pride Parade, as he was considered to act against everyone’s equal value (the employee was later vindicated, participation must be voluntary).
The value base is moving in a borderland between agreement and norm, and that is precisely why it is so elastic – it controls the workers even in their free time and on social media, despite the fact that they have not signed any contract to follow it. The values expressed there are assumed to be so general and harmless that everyone should be able to sign up to them. But if they are so harmless, why embrace them? If no one is against, why are they needed? And if someone is against, is that person not desirable?
In that way, the value base is a kind of shadow law. A law that is not voted on in the Riksdag, that has no penalty scale, but that still regulates what is good and bad. The government’s decision to develop courses in values for new arrivals moves in the same shadow country. According to the proposal, “equality, women’s rights, freedom of religion and society’s other basic values should become clearer in the social orientation”. Furthermore, it must be made clear that “anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred and hostility have no place in Swedish society”.
The point is not whether the values expressed here are good or bad. The point is that society should not have values. Society has a law, and that is good enough. Anyone who breaks the law is punished. That’s enough.
I may have an opinion, but I don’t want bus stops to reflect it. I don’t want them to express any opinion at all. I want them to be neutral. I don’t want a librarian weeding out books by undesirable authors or recommending books that align with contemporary ideological or geopolitical trends, even if I happen to agree. I don’t want society to think anything. Because if society thinks – then we are not free to think.
2024-02-19 02:01:47
#dont #society #opinions
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