Notes on Denmark.

Denmark is a beautiful country geographically. I cannot comment too much on the islands, of which there are 443 named islands (1,419 islands above 100 square metres (1,100 sq ft) in total), because I live on the mainland – the Jutland peninsula. Here the landscape is very agricultural, with rolling hills and small copses and forests scattered about. It is intensively harvested and very clean and ordered.

The society is also very ordered. When I first moved here 14 years ago I was struck both by the similarities with England, my homeland, but also with the differences. Danish society is very ordered. It is a 'classic' Scandinavian welfare state and has a very collective 'culture'. The tax rates are the highest in the world, but Denmark also consistently comes at the top of various attempts to measure and compare happiness within and between countries.

If all human societies lie somewhere on a spectrum with 'Perfect Individualist Society' at one end and 'Perfect Collective Society' at the other, then Denmark lies very close to the 'collective' end in contrast, say, to the USA which lies close to the 'individualist' end of the spectrum.

This has costs and benefits and the question is always what price is one prepared to pay in order to achieve the values or goals one sees as important.

This 'collectivism' is seen in many, many ways. One thing that struck me very quickly was how accepting of officialdom and official authority figures most Danes are, how law abiding they are. Even though they have a 'self image' as laid back party going types (and to some extent this is true) it has, for the most part, to be 'within the rules'. And that is not just 'official' rules. In fact, the informal rules are much more important, as is the case in most cultures. I was struck early on by how certain social events like birthdays and Christmas are governed by quite strict informal rules. Rules as to when certain things occur, what is to be eaten, who is to do what and so on.

Again, this is not unique to Denmark, but it has a very 'rigid' quality here.

The 'collectivism' of the culture is seen in many other ways to. I would guess that the majority of Danes are a member of some club or association. These can be social, sporting, political, hobby related and such. And these groupings mean a lot to the members and have rules and formal meetings and officers and such. Their private life is very 'social', but in a very structured way.

And even in the 'informal' periods of private life there is a kind of structure. When I first came over many of my wife’s friends and associates were very open and friendly and I thought that this was wonderful. Then …. nothing. The greetings done there was no other contact or invitations. Even though with time this changed, the initial impact is to give an impression of a very cold people.

The social class system in Denmark is very 'flat', at least in appearance. There are, of course, very wealthy people here and there is most certainly a cultural divide between status groups. However, it is not visible too much in daily life as the 'code of dress' in Denmark is very casual, whoever you may be. Casual to positively scruffy I would say, as a well brought up English man ;-)

The Danish economy has traditionally been agriculture. Essentially primary sector based extractive activity like farming, fishing, and a little mining has been the economic driving force historically. Denmark never underwent a heavy industrial revolution and even though there were attempts in the early days of the Twentieth Century, it has no auto mobile industry, for example.

Today agricultural output is still a major part of the Danish economy, but it employs very few people. Denmark has undergone the shift from traditional labour intensive farming to industrialised and 'technologised' farming. The majority of people, as in all other First World economies, work in the Service Sector. So Denmark has shifted from a primarily agricultural society to a technological service sector economy in a relatively short time and without a period of industrialising. Today Denmark is a Tertiary Sector economy that produces little actual physical product, again that is the trend in the West.

Denmark is also a very small country, 5.6 million people on 42,915 square kilometres, about 130 people per square kilometre, assuming that everyone was evenly spread out of course. Given that the metropolitan area of Copenhagen contains almost 2 million people one can appreciate that the population density is light. This, plus there relatively recent history as an agricultural society helps towards understanding some aspects of Danish culture.

Relatively small close knit communities bound directly or indirectly to the soil develop tight informal means of social control and a communal outlook that ensures that necessary tasks are done and that no one threatens the collective 'good'.

This tight knit agricultural society was not smashed into pieces by the impact of industrialisation and was not, therefore, required to reconstruct itself under radically new circumstances.

I accept that the Occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany during World War Two probably had an impact. But I think that a case could be made for arguing that the occupation had the effect of 'tightening' Danish culture in resistance and opposition to a common enemy.

Of course, Danish culture is changing, slowly, as are all 'cultures'. Denmark is under economic pressure as a member of the EU and under social pressure due to the emergence of a more radical form of Islam within its borders. The internationalising effect of the information technology 'revolution' links more and more people globally, regardless of culture. The younger generation are much less, I feel, 'traditional' then their parents generation. This, of course, is normal and often the younger generation slides more and more into 'traditional' rules and roles as they age.

It remains to be seen if that will happen in Denmark.