Recently, based on the well-established if-Netflix-made-it-then-it-must-be-awesome principle, I have been watching the show Lillehammer. (This principle is firmly based in the orange-is-the-new-black correlate, the house-of-cards theorem, and the Derek postulate).
Like all the Netflix shows, it’s pretty good. But unlike some, it’s only pretty good. It’s about a New York wise guy who ends up in Norway playing fish-out-of-water and wolf-among-sheep. I mean, the acting’s bad, the script is weak, and the characters are a little flat. But there is still an undeniable charm about the show related to its simmering rage about Norwegian culture.
The creators seem to delight in letting this mafia bull run rampant in the Norwegian china shop of red tape, politeness, and horrible bureaucracy. Most of the show’s plot revolves around giving the main character another bureaucrat to embarrass or bludgeon, thus presumably allowing for some sense of Norwegian cathartic release.
Don’t get me wrong, as the product of Norwegian immigrants I love the frozen Norse as much as the next guy. Like any good Norwegian, I read about the Vikings, make krumkake at Christmas, and hate the Swedes with a passion (them with all their Erikson phones, Volvos, and meatball recipes that they stole from the Norwegians).
But, as the show illustrates, being a wealthy socialist country with generally happy people is not all butter cookies and akvavit. There is a tradeoff of sorts – something that you get used to in the US without realizing it. It’s something I have noticed living abroad and struggle to define. It’s the abundance of something called whydontwejust.
What is whydontwejust you ask? You find it in business, research, and even at the DMV (despite what most people say). When faced with a problem, Americans immediately look for work-arounds. Whydontwejust list you as a dependant? Whydontwejust sell this heart medication to men who can’t get boners? Whydontwejust paint brown spots on it and teach it to moo?
Whydontwejust is not uniquely American nor is it always good (Whydontwejust package these sub-prime mortgages as if they were solid investments?). But I argue that nowhere else is it as widespread as the US. People who gripe about government red tape in the US should try it out elsewhere. Think the DMV is bad? You don’t know the meaning of the word “no” until you’ve heard it from a Mexican official with a stamp. Think you have forms to fill out? Try applying for a permit to do something here. Mexicans – among the friendliest and statistically happiest people on Earth become stone-faced robots as soon as they get behind a desk or counter. Thus, their only recourse is to resort to bribery. Those who bribe the best get more done and thus you have rampant corruption.
My friend tells a story of trying to buy a croissant with jelly at a café in Mexico City. It seemed that the croissant came with butter and only the bagel came with jelly. My friend asked, “Whydontwejust take a dollop of the jelly meant for the bagels?” The barista looked at the menu and then at the jar of jelly and said, “We don’t have any.” By that, I assume she meant special croissant-only jelly.
To me this quality – this culture of whydontwejust – is not hard to do. You simply put yourself in the shoes of another person and then try to help them out. But I suppose if it were that easy, then whydontwejust would be breaking out all over the world, causing corruption to evaporate from the face of the Earth.
Now, I have to be careful. I am not suggesting that any country is cleverer than another. Far from it – Americans rank way down the list in terms of stuff we know. Math, science, geography – statistically we suck at it. And there is a strong entrepreneurial spirit in many parts of Mexican society – evidenced by the woman making amazing tlacoyos halfway up my mountain biking trail. But it’s rare and thanks to the corruption thing, usually doesn’t pay off (hence, all the car parts stores are in the same place and all the computer repair shops sell identical stuff). And it doesn’t permeate into industry and science.
Right now in development and education circles around the world the big buzzword is “innovation.” How do we foster a culture of innovation in the world like in the US? How do we create an innovation economy? How can we foster the next big breakthrough? (I’ve been writing a fair bit about this lately here and here.)
This always leads to the question “Where will the next Silicon Valley be?” Berlin? Monterrey? Sao Paolo? Moscow? The answer, of course, is easy. Silicon Valley is the next Silicon Valley. The force of innovation and new ideas in the US is simply staggering and doesn’t appear to be letting up. And I maintain that a big part of it is our rampant whydontwejust.
I recently sat down with representatives from the World Bank to discuss a new project of theirs to foster innovation in Mexico. A lot of what they talked about boils down to increasing whydontwejust. Meanwhile, my wife has been working to foster whydontwejust in small artisinal communities arond the world. It’s a similar goal to that of the State Department and just about anyone who genuinely wants to fight poverty in the world today.
So here’s my message to you. Do you want to end global poverty? Do you want to end violence/ignorance/inequality? Do you want every fertile mind to have a chance to plant roots and flower? Then whydontwealljust.
However, there is hardly any corruption in the Scandinavian public sector (http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/). The Scandinavian countries all rank higher than the US.
True that. In fact, in the show the have a little fun with that fact. Again, nothing against my fedreland, here. But we spend a lot of time being envious of the Scandinavians and their utopia. This show is funny because it turns that on its head.
Usually, I’m not one to criticize essays on this website – like: never. But this disjointed bit could have been SO much better if it was dedicated to the “whydon’twejust” in one country versus another, rather than start with a show, then onto Norway, then Mexico (where did THAT come from?!), then the U.S., then onto poverty and getting rid of it (again, where did THAT come from???!!!). I’m sorry, but… not the best quality writing (the typos notwithstanding) to a subject that needs and deserves thorough study.
I like this essay overall, but it oversells the power of innovation. American ingenuity has not stopped the country’s appalling poverty rates, and may well have exacerbates the obscene incarceration rate, so we probably shouldn’t look to American “Why don’t we just” to solve global poverty (though the United States can, does and will continue to contribute solutions.)
The degree to which America is free from petty controls can also be exaggerated. In many states, bizarre and onerous conditions are placed on access to abortion. Many Texas clinics are closing or have closed because the legislature has placed unreasonable conditions on the operators with the express intention of depriving women of their right to access.