Some Cultural Undercurrents

Since I arrived here in Sweden, I have been doing my best to understand this culture more and more. When I find myself in a new environment my initial response, as a social perceiver, is to illuminate the reality trough the lens of my personal perspective and build my initial impressions. As I have found out from past experiences, however, these initial impressions can quite often differ from reality. As you know, Sweden is a country with very unique characteristics, and a strong sense of neutrality on most controversial topics. I have always wondered how this society has been able to sustain an existence so different from most, with its focus not bases on human greed, at least not individual, or other such addictions. As I began to read about Sweden, and the Swedish values, there was one very odd "law" that kept reappearing in every book I read. The first time I read it, I simply disregarded it as something of a myth, but as I discovered it in a second and third book, I focused my attention on it, and its implications. This "law" is known as the Law of Jante and it goes as follows:
1. You shall not believe that you are somebody.
2. You shall not believe that you are as good as we are.
3. You shall not believe that you are smarter than we are.
4. You shall not think that are better than we are.
5. You shall not believe that you know more than we do.
6. You shall not believe that you are superior to us.
7. You shall not believe that you are good enough.
8. You shall not laugh at us.
9. You shall not believe that anybody cares about you.
10. You shall not believe that you can teach us anything.

As you can see why, at first I was very willing to dismiss these ten rules as some sort of bogus myth, however, they in fact are more like the Swedish "ten commandments" in a sense. Every one has heard of them, and they serve as a sort of a moral stem of the Swedish culture. These rules are not thought in a class environment; instead, they are passed down from generation to generation without much questioning. By the time, these "ten commandments" are fully perceived by the mind they have sort of boiled down to some sort of a mellow form of the original with the simple intend of reminding everyone that no one’s opinion should be regarded as irrelevant. The "you" and "we" in the ten rules remain undefined, and are left to take on a rather universal meaning. This sort of gives them the status of contract law, making them individually applicable to all situations, and all times.
I personally believe that this "law" is one of the key factors for the cultural uniqueness fostered here in Sweden. On the other hand, I am sure that there are many more mysterious such as this one that I have yet to discover, therefore, I will do my best to keep you up to date on my quest to discovering the bases of Sweden's mysteriously marvellous culture.