The SAS Commercial : An Outrageous Definition of Scandinavian Culture

Recently, a controversial commercial from SAS, the Scandinavian airline company, was published on social media. It attempts to portray Scandinavian culture as basically non-existing. The message is that because all typical Scandinavian cultural traits and imagery can supposedly be traced to external sources, Scandinavia has "nothing", as the commercial repeats, in many languages. SAS obviously is trying to be politically correct in these globalist times, in which the Nation is looked down upon. At the same time it wants to encourage Scandinavians to use SAS to fly to faraway lands to bring back more valuable things (such as meatballs?), so these too may in the future be transformed and become part of what represents Scandinavia. 

Review of “Sapiens : A Brief History of Mankind”

Though the book “Sapiens”, by Yuval Noah Harari, came out a few years ago, it became such a bestseller that it could be worth reviewing it briefly.

First of all, it must be mentioned that "Sapiens" is a popular book, and therefore necessarily simplifies and omits. Such a book cannot therefore go into details and explanations that academic books could. Many people tend to forget this fact just because the author is an academic. This shall not therefore be the gist of the critique of this work.

The author set himself out to tell the whole story of the human race in a single book, however thick.

Processes and People

It is easily forgotten that a firm is far more than just the sum of its employees. Indeed, the success of a company is the result of the contributions of all of its assets. These assets, tangible and intangible, consist of e.g. its existing stored information and experience, the efficiency of its organisation, its connections with government and the local community, its established processes, its IT systems, its intellectual property (including the brand), its material resources (including inventory), its land and real estate, and, of course, its human capital. 

Taking Advantage of the Welfare State

Many people living in the generous modern Welfare State do everything they can to take advantage of the system; they try to reduce their tax bill and claim as many subsidies and benefits as possible.[1] The question is whether they should be blamed for doing so? In other words, is such behaviour morally acceptable?

In fact, such behaviour is generally considered immoral, which is somewhat paradoxical since it is so pervasive.

The Reality of the MBA

The Master of Business Administration, or MBA, is often a prerequisite in order to reach the top strata of corporations, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. However, MBA studies cannot be said to make much demand on the mind. The MBA is merely a clever substitute for experience, so that motivated young men and women can reach the upper layers of private corporations without first having to slowly gather experience for decades at the lower ones.

The Desk Soldier

The salaried worker is worried. Unconsciously, he worries the day will come when he might have to use rational thought. If, as the years go by, such a day does not come, he will relax in his routine and perhaps forget that unfamiliar sensation when the light of reason suddenly illuminates his mind. He will finally almost convince himself that intellectual insight is imaginary and not applicable to the real world.

On rare occasions, however, a task that requires reason to complete will land on the desk of the salaried worker. This is a provocation to fight – not a war – but a mental battle with reason for arms. When this duel cannot be avoided and if, after the confrontation, victory ensues, such an event is later remembered as one of those moments when the mind caught a reflection of itself. 

A ray of light then suddenly shines deep into the cave where the salaried worker is chained with his face to the wall, looking only at the shadows of equally pathetic figures that he is convinced make up the world. The bright light of reason catches his attention and makes him doubt; he is intrigued by its source. He ought perhaps to get better acquainted with it if only he could but for his heavy armour and the chains that tie him to his office desk. 

Most of the time, the dreaded encounter never materialises though; for some pretext or other it is called off or directed elsewhere, to the great relief of the desk soldier. He can then safely resume the routine tasks that allow him to put his mind on hold throughout his working day and throughout his life. The salaried mind grows rusty from lack of exercise and before middle age the desk soldier is usually no longer fit for such a struggle. 

With every passing year, the likelihood fades that the desk soldier will be able to gather the determination to pull his visor down again and lift his lance to engage his mind. Before he knows it, the salaried worker will drift into complacency, staying predictably on the safe road that leads to retirement and old age.

Some Thoughts on Marketing

Marketing is usually seen from the point of view of its utility, but not always from the point of view of its scope. In almost any company, marketing clearly plays an important and useful role, but what is often less clear is that marketing is made up of a ragtag collection of disparate functions assembled under a common name. To do “marketing” can often mean doing at various times all or some of the following activities: sales, advertising, finance, planning, logistics, sociology, journalism, psychology and many others.

Marketing, therefore, can hardly be called a “science,” though many of its gurus do so all the time. There is hardly a better way to improve the brand image of marketing than to claim that marketing is a serious science, complete with its laws and theories. A lot of efforts are put into the marketing of marketing; the first subject of marketing is marketing itself. But perhaps marketing could be called science if sociology or anthropology can be called sciences. These subjects all deal with human affairs; they are therefore necessarily variable, imprecise and subjective. Marketing is empirical only in the popular sense that it slowly improves over time, as a response to external conditions. It is not empirical in the scientific sense.

Marketing can be more aptly described as a special mixture capable of boosting a company's sales. Its complex formula is often updated; the marketing mix is tweaked in order to improve its effect. The dream of the marketing executive is to find the magic potion that will work wonders on the customer.

Marketing was born as one of the modern corporation's many reactions to its market environment. It is therefore not a forward-looking activity by definition. The marketing method was not as developed half a century ago as is it today simply because today's sophistication was not needed at that time. Product offerings of the past satisfied the demands of those customers; competition in those days was not strong enough to stimulate any deeper thinking about pricing strategies; and corporate profits and shareholder returns were good enough for many innovative marketing proposals to be disregarded. Though some companies are better at it than others, marketing is always a product of its time. It seems reasonable to think then that in the future, as society evolves, marketing will continue its adaptation.

Despite this reality, scholars of marketing often try to have the last word by proposing a final, universally applicable, "unifying theory" of marketing. This is not surprising since it is the best chance for them to be remembered after they are gone. The desire to seek general all-encompassing theories has always existed, in all fields; it might be called the "Newton obsession." It is also a practical strategy since it allows academics to respond to all possible questions with the same answer. Currently, the grand unifying model of marketing is based on the concept that all goods, whether “tangible” or “intangible,” should be seen as services. 

However, as the world becomes ever more complex and specialisation has long been essential for any real expertise, it is rather counter-intuitive to try to develop a general theory of marketing to cover the entire business world. Actually, the opposite approach seems more logical. Marketing in heterogeneous societies should also be heterogeneous. As business areas become more and more specialised and competitive, marketing should be tailor-made to each one of them. For instance, marketing for a social media company cannot possibly have much in common with marketing for a medical equipment manufacturer.

Any proposal for a universal theory of marketing can therefore only be an oversimplified truism, appropriate only as an introduction for undergraduate students. It is in human nature to try to unite and simplify, but sometimes this temptation must be resisted. All the more so in the area of marketing, since it is practised separately by all big players in each business area. Instead, universities with a marketing interest could best contribute by focusing on giving structure and guidance to some of these specific business initiatives.  

Love in the Modern World

When we think of love, our first thought usually goes to what we may call “natural” love between a man and woman. This romantic notion is deeply embedded in the cultures and myths of all major civilizations, and it is therefore the first one that comes to mind. Yet, natural love is a rare phenomenon because it happens only when two people spontaneously melt into a single emotional entity. George Santayana described natural love as “a deep and dumb instinctive affinity, an inexplicable emotion seizing the heart, an influence organising the world, like a luminous crystal, about one magic point.” When there is love at first sight, the average existence is unexpectedly interrupted by a sudden emotional flash, like a coup de foudre (i.e. a thunderbolt) as the French say.

It is not surprising therefore that those couples who are struck by natural love often don’t know each other well. Sometimes they have hardly ever spoken a word to each other the moment Cupid acts. Indeed, knowledge of the loved one is not a prerequisite for natural love. It is a love that prefers natural, simple people; that is, people with little self-knowledge and experience. Natural love is therefore almost always the instinctive and unsophisticated love of young and immature couples, like Tristan and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet. Their minds and hearts are immaculate, like white sheets on which nothing much has yet been written. Never have their inexperienced hearts felt an overflowing desire for another being, never have they felt the sting of rejection, never have they felled tears of unrequited love: natural love is usually first love.

With the accumulation of experience though, with every passing year, natural love thus becomes a little less probable, as the mysteries of mankind slowly reveal themselves in the self and others. Natural love requires innocence; experience and the loss of innocence are what converts, corrupts, or destroys natural love, as in the Fall of Man and his descent from Eden. Natural love is a fleeting moment of intense and shared emotion in two young lives; in older and more experienced people, love will usually take a different form. As the love-struck continue to live and learn, if only by getting to know each other better, either their natural love is converted into a more “mature” love, or, like a flame it flickers for an instant and then goes out, leaving bitterness or indifference behind.

In our legends and in our imaginations, these two outcomes can be clearly perceived. Sometimes the story ends happily; natural love is then soon converted into enduring mature love. The final words often confirm it: “…and they lived happily ever after”, as was the case for Cinderella, Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty. But most of the time natural love ends tragically, as for the two famous couples mentioned above, but also for Lancelot and Guinevere, Orpheus and Eurydice, and many others. The same emotional suffering has been related in the most well-known novels as well; such as in Manon Lescaut, The Sorrows of Young Werther, The Count of Montecristo, and La Chartreuse de Parme.

In the examples above it is interesting to note that though natural love is strongly felt, it is never fulfilled or consummated. Every time, it seems some external forces conspire to destroy the small paradise that the young natural lovers have found on earth. There is always a suspicion that natural love cannot, in reality, come to fruition. Though natural love is the subject of countless tales, what is mostly felt is the desire, the hope or the anticipation of love rather than love itself.

Today, natural love seems more elusive than ever; indeed, a love crisis has hit the modern world. Never have there been as many “single” adults as today, along with many social events designed specifically for them. In the affairs of the heart, the freedom to choose may, ironically, confuse the act of choosing, by distracting the senses and preventing their focus on a single point of interest. Paradoxically, love in a world of abundance is more complicated than in a world of scarcity. If natural love was a mirage in earlier times, it is now hardly discerned on the horizon.

The modern world is individualistic in its outlook; it places high priority in the acquisition of knowledge and the development of the self. Such a culture has many advantages, as the progress of the West has shown, but such a culture is also pernicious to the possibilities of natural love. The notion of natural love is arguably being substituted for the highest form of love proposed by Plato in the Symposium; namely the love of knowledge, or, to use a more timely expression, the desire for self-realisation. For better and for worse, when they reach adulthood young men and women are already quite experienced in most aspects of life; they lack the innocence of their forebears that natural love needs.

It seems, therefore, that the current cultural climate is more agreeable to mature love than to natural love. Mature love contains diluted traces of natural love; it is a transformation of natural love after it has been forged and strengthened by knowledge and experience. It includes feelings of a higher order than those found in natural love, such as complicity, admiration, and respect. Relying on better self-knowledge and more experience, mature love is deeper, stronger and more sophisticated than natural love, and consequently, more in tune with today’s complex and constantly changing world. In a moving environment, we are obliged to adapt our ways, including our way of loving.

Yet, instead of embracing mature love, many young people continue to cling to the romantic and almost illusory notion of natural love, without having any longer the social and sentimental condition required for it. Today, Western young women are usually liberated, independent, determined and experienced. However, they still often dream of the sudden arrival of a bygone character that, in fact, they can hardly fathom: the chivalrous knight in a shining armor, also known as “The One”, the prince charmant, or the principe azzurro. Conversely, emasculated young men who have forgotten how to woo, still somehow hope to do precisely that to impervious and often callous females. Such fundamental misunderstandings help to explain many modern love failings. 

Giving preference to mature love instead of natural love might help to remedy such difficulties. Mature love differs from natural love because it involves the discovery of a complementary soul, a kindred spirit, or a media naranja (i.e. an orange half) as the Spaniards say. In this case, love is no longer the spontaneous amorous merger into a single emotion, but a progressive feeling of harmony and fullness as a couple, physically and spiritually. In this regard, mature love can be called ideal in a way that natural love cannot, since it takes into account as much as possible the two lovers’ identities. But mature love is therefore also capricious; it will only burgeon in the presence of souls that are honest and truthful to themselves and to each other.

Love between experienced and knowledgeable lovers is never pure; it inevitably involves conflicting sensations. We must therefore become aware that mature love requires that the relationship soon reaches a relatively stable equilibrium point. There is a need for a unique and delicate balance in the couple between two positive, yet opposite, sensations; the sense of peacefulness that comes from security, calm and comfort on the one hand, and on the other, the fresh feeling of freedom to change and challenge. Too much of the first often leads to jealousy, possessiveness and control, and too much of the second usually brings carelessness, selfishness and chaos. Both are detrimental in the long term to mature love.

Mature love is not like that flash of natural love that shines brightly for a moment and then is gone; it is a slow radiating halo of affection in which experienced lovers bask. Mature love is like an unwavering glow of passion originating in the heart and spreading through the body and into the soul. It is the feeling of intimately knowing that there is no other person with whom we would rather be united now and in the future, and that the sights and sounds of our beloved are preferred even to our own. Mature love is the kind of love that wears well and that can be expected to last, perhaps even, “until death do us part.”

Today, more than ever, it is worth remembering that mature love is the kind of love that can bring happiness in the long term. Relationships in the XXIst century should be built, therefore, not on the frail structure of natural love, but on the strong foundation of mature love, capable of withstanding the challenging winds of modernity.

Springtime in Moscow

Spring comes late to Moscow. When outdoor cafés in Western Europe are already bustling with people, Moscovites still wear wool and fur in March. When the winter finally retreats, the snow quickly melts, leaving slush, dirt and large pools of water in every streetcorner of the Russian capital.

This time of the year both visitors and locals are usually at some point drawn to the Red Square. The long stone-paved surface lays well guarded; it is both divinely protected, flanked on the South side by St Basil’s cathedral (of the famous multi-coloured domes), as well protected politically under the watchful eye of the Kremlin. Next to the high red wall, one cannot fail to notice a strange and brownish structure, small and low, that looks curiously out of time and out of place. It is the mausoleum of V. I. Lenin, built in the radical Constructivist style, a Soviet version of Bauhaus. There have been some talk of finally lowering the body of the leader of the Bolshevik revolution into the ground, but this is yet far from certain.

The first ten days of May in Russia are traditionally dedicated to rest and leisure. Many Muscovites then leave the city and are replaced by incoming foreign and Russian tourists. The period kicks off with International Worker’s Day on May 1st and ends with the most important event of the year; the Victory Day celebrations. Every spring the Red Square – and indeed the whole city – is spruced up for this event. On the agenda are military parades, défilés of tanks and missiles, and the salute to a dwindling number of veterans. May 9th was the day when the Soviet Union finally defeated Nazism and ended what the Russians call the “Great Patriotic War” of 1941-45. It seems collective amnesia has set in, however, with respect to the preceding Russian invasions of Poland, Finland and the Baltic states two years before.

In springtime, nature calls of course. After many months of bundling up, the sudden sight of slender Russian women gracefully strolling by in tight mini-skirts and high heels can elicit strong emotions. The popular garden of czar Alexander, just around the corner from the Red Square, is then one of the places to see and be seen.

It may be surprising for some to hear that Moscow is green. There are apparently four times as many square meters of park space in this city than in Paris, London or New York. Perhaps this is because the official city limits extend far beyond those of other big cities, encompassing both dirty run-down suburban areas as well as vast well-maintained parks. The centre of Moscow, however, is perhaps the most decidedly urban city in the world; a grey unkempt sea of stone, concrete and asphalt, only rarely punctuated by islets of green. As if to compensate though, flowers are popular all year long in a country where there is always a good reason to offer a bouquet.

Often therefore, the easiest way to get a view of nature when walking around Moscow is simply to look up at the sky, which thankfully remains blue despite the presence of heavy industry in the region. Eventually, the visitor will then catch sight of one of the “Seven Sisters” of Stalin, proudly imposing in the hazy distance. These massive buildings, spread around the city, were erected during Stalin’s last years, from 1947 to 1953. Perhaps the two most impressive ones host Moscow State University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

These sumptuous architectural mastodons bring to mind the ambivalence in which Moscow, and indeed all of Russia, finds itself today. On the one hand, they constantly recall Russia’s difficult past; they are typical products of the Soviet times, obvious symbols of the totalitarian society. Their state-directed constructions used up resources that were badly needed in the aftermath of a war which cost the country dearly. Yet, at the same time these structures were consciously built to rival in style the most capitalist neighbourhood in the world: Wall Street and Fifth Avenue. As such, they are also exemplary symbols of the capitalist society, in the same way Ayn Rand saw the Manhattan skyline in the Fountainhead as “the shapes of man’s achievement on earth.”

The Seven Sisters thus subtly represent the stark duality of today’s Moscow; a modern high-rolling metropolis shot through with authoritarian and conservative streaks. They capture in their violent beauty the current strange combination that defines Russia at the beginning of the XXIst century: an exuberant and giddy life for a few and an often resigned and gritty existence for the rest. There is indeed a fresh feeling of spring in Moscow, but not everybody can enjoy it fully.