Hi there. Every society has social/cultural protocol. I know many Brits say it is hard to do business with the Japanese, for example, because of their unwritten protocol. It doesn't happen overnight, obviously. The Jante Law probably won't fit in American society, for example.

@Ryo1
Yes, I agree Americans, in general, tend to be pretentious, and will turn up noses at Jante.

@AnonySchmoose Not all of them, I'm sure.

Do the Swedes seriously believe/obey the Jante Law?

Chris:
Yes, as far as I can tell, Jantelagen is a lived reality here.

It’s not a big deal to adhere to. If you’re Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, or British, you’ll already be steeped in its spirit. It works on the same premise as the good old “cutting down the tall poppy” - only that nobody would cut you down actively here in Sweden if you ever transgress. Instead, you’ll just have made an a$$ of yourself, and enter the village- or company chronicles as the guy who went a tad too far, and may therefore no longer have any friends. And everyone will just quietly go their way.

Personally, I love Jantelagen.

I grew up in Germany and Austria, and lived in the US, India, and China for many years, where it’s basically “flaunt it if you’ve got it, and if you haven’t got it, fake it till you make it.” When I’m down south on holiday with my folks, listening to the conversations going on with the locals there, I am often really grateful to have a biiiig glass of wine standing in front of me, and the bottle in reach, because by golly, all that bragging really goes on my nerves.

And you’re safe from that up here.

My favourite joke to illustrate how it works goes like this:

An American visitor attends a conference in Oxford. Next to him sits a Nobel Prize winner from Sweden. They strike up a conversation, and the American, having just come from another conference in Norway, launches into a lengthy proclamation of how he absolutely loved Oslo, and his wife, too, and how he wishes he could go and spend a holiday there. After a good twenty minutes of that, he asks the Nobel Prize laureate: “Have you been to Oslo?” To which the good man says: “Once.”

And that’s Jantelagen in action.

Interesting.

@Ryo1 I may have to move to Sweden. Even though I detest the cold.

Would you care to elaborate?

I know nothing about it at all.

@Jolanta So, you disagree with Bronte, the author of the article, and Chris who lives in Sweden. Fair enough. I don't expect all Swedish people, or any nation for that matter, think the same way all the time.