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The article exposes in my opinion one of the great weaknesses of the way Swedish society works. Generally Swedish society is very conflict averse and decisions
by cycomanic 3y ago
The article exposes in my opinion one of the great weaknesses of the way Swedish society works.
Generally Swedish society is very conflict averse and decisions are made trying to achieve consensus (or at least to give the impression they do), everyone's voice has to be heard and nobody wants to appear to actually force decisions.
This leads to a process that is slow when decisive action is required and particularly in light of bullying allegations ignores the impact of having the situation continue for a long time in order to appear fair.
I had a colleague experience a similar situation when his child was being severely bullied at school. Everyone was occupied with assessing the impact of a decision on the bullies and avoided making an decision, without considering the impact of dragging their feet on the bullied child
- kurthr 3y agoI recently saw a film about an art curator in Sweden ("The Square"?) that gave me a lot more insight into how that works. My experience in Japan also makes me aware of this sort of conflict avoidance (and my frustration with it), though it's still quite culturally different. It's more unnerving when done in English.
- bafe 3y agoThat could describe most of Swiss society as well. Endless discussions on every single topic in order to reach a "consensus". While superficially democratic and beneficial, you do see the limits of this approach when things are serious
- MichaelZuo 3y agoHow do you know they didn't consider the impact? It seems more likely that they did and nonetheless decided to stick to the usual norm.