HARVARD INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR, 1958

Public Address by Lars Ulvenstam, Sweden

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I would like to announce my little contribution as
a Swedish Smorgasbord, with a couple of snacks for the soul.

Instead of standing here throwing out a dozen names
of authors that don't tell you people a thing, I think that
I would rather pick out some trends in contemporary Swedish
mind which you also will find in its modern literature.

Other mirrors might - yes, they _would_ certainly - catch other
problems. But I have chosen these because they also happen
to concern me sort of privately.

In our humanity group in this Seminar, we have been
discussing Thorstein Veblen and many of the questions he awoke
are indeed very relevant to the Swedish society, where living
conditions, materially, are so good that you can afford quite
a time brooding upon which one is fine or finer than the others
or finest.

(L)

FINE, FINER, FINEST

The Swedish Railway's 3rd class is now called 2nd class, and the old 2nd class has become 1st class.

It is just the same with people. Many boys and girls decide to change their surnames in Sweden today. Their motives in so doing are not only that there are, maybe, four other Johnsons in the same school class--it bears witness to a social ambition, a desire for refinement. But when the last Andersson and Johnson and Eriksson have gone for good, when the salt loseth its savour, what pleasure will there be in going about introducing oneself with some peculiar hand-made surname?

The same upward slide is apparent in the nomenclature of trades and professions. In the personal ads in the Swedish newspapers, asking for marriage partners, the signature "Warm-blooded Brunette" no longer seeks a "mechanic," but a "sea-engineer." In the autumn the Ministry of Education in Sweden requires a number of new inspectors and assistant inspectors, but all this really means is that they want some more sweepers and cleaners. General election propaganda was addressed to agricultural workers, but said nothing about farm-labourers. What used to be called how to cook and wash is now called "domestic science" in your schools. The housemaid is dead, because the housemaid wants a housemaid and the maid of the housemaid wants to ride. . . .

It has gone so far in general that since the people became masters in their own houses the nomenclature of work

2.

(lc)

has been hoisted up several pegs. And indeed this is no more
than consistent at a time which has seen the old class system
die out terminologically and be replaced by the more hygienic
concept of "social group." The old upper class had a fine
aroma. The middle class had no smell at all; it was odourless.
The lower class stank. The "social group," on the other hand,
carries no such scent-connotations.

I travelled last summer in the Swedish Railway's "1st
class" to a boarding-house on the west coast. In most of these
holiday homes you live for about a month as one of a circle of
people who, in general, present a cross-section of the community.

Where, then, ran the really big divide in that seaside
group?

There was a baron, and I thought of the days when the
nobility constituted practically the whole of the then upper
classes; adding a slight correction in that it received regu-
lar reinforcement from the ranks of those who attained nobil-
ity by merit. But the social line is no longer drawn there
today. To belong to a more or less existent upper class, just
because one happens to be born "saved," is a shade too irrational
for most of us to take really seriously. In more ephemeral
contexts, among snobs, and when booking a dinner table at a
restaurant, a <u>von</u> or a <u>de</u> before one's name is a useful sort
of thing to have. And as a typical representative of class-
circulation, as first generation intellectual, as farmer's son,
I must admit to a certain friendly curiosity when I meet a
finely-bred fellow-mortal of ancient lineage. But, by and
large, most people today surely regard a noble title as a
charming curiosity, if they really come to think about it at all.

3.

(w)

In my boarding house there were also members of a very high income group. In a historical survey one would let these represent the new aristocracy of money, who threatened the hereditary nobility and to some extent took over their prerogatives. Such a reversal of the scale of values was more justified, one would think, than when the accident of birth decided everything. One could be born to money. But money may be managed, even increased, even created. The reward of labour, in fact: there was some rhyme and reason in that.

## "U" or "Non-U"

But today the economic dividing line is not so clearly marked. Great personal fortunes do not accumulate as they did fifty years ago. There are still considerable differences of income. But, in reality, steeply progressive taxation reduces these differences fundamentally. The very poor no longer exist. Economic barriers no longer prevent a young person from developing his talents and education. Or, at least, the attainment of this goal is now within our reach.

No - the distinctions in society at large and in our little lodging house community did not run between rich and poor, but in quite another direction. It ran between cultured and uncultured. The dividing line could be drawn at the student examination (i.e., college graduation), if one measured it scholastically, and it manifested itself in small traits of behavior and mannerisms of speech. These have been hotly discussed last month under the heading "U" or "non-U"--i.e., upper class or non-upper class. The non-upper class are those who say, for example, "the wife" or "the missus," instead of

4.

(LO)

"my wife"; who say "I don't know nothing" instead of "anything";
and so on.

One received a little lesson on the social weight of
these distinctions when one sat talking with the mothers. They
wanted their sons to get what they called a "finer" job than
their fathers had, whether the husband was a shopkeeper or a
tram-driver, a carpenter or a house-painter. The income might
be the same, but still the more learned profession was more
desirable. And apart from the actual work, culture itself
seemed to receive a high social esteem.

Here was a real differentiation. Personally, I find it
more sympathetic than the two former; more sympathetic and more
reasonable than the values of birth, since one is not born to
culture and understanding as one is born to duke or baron; more
sympathetic, too, than the economic yard-stick, since one can't
stuff oneself with culture as one can amass a fortune via a
successful business. But I admit that this is connected with,
the fact that I regard the spiritual as superior to the material.
There must be some <u>meaning</u>, some paramount end, in all our
material improvement, one feels. Pascal once wrote that Julius
Caesar was too old to go about conquering the world; he ought
to have been more mature. And I guess that Pascal or some
other wise guy--as old J. D. Salinger, author of <u>Catcher in the
Rye</u>, for example--could have said the same of the businessman:
There must be some <u>goddam meaning</u> in horsing around collecting
all that dough.

5.

## The value of culture . . .

Is it, therefore, right to give a so-called cultured person a higher social esteem than an uncultured one - is it really right? No, it certainly is not. That would be another mistake. For the possession of a good intelligence, memory, or powers of concentration depends to a large extent on how one gets oneself born. It can't be right to separate sheep from goats this way.

We must have grounds more firm than this, and we find them in the words that form the theme of Rosmersholm, where Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright, says: "A new aristocracy is coming - not that of birth or wealth, nor that of ability or knowledge. The aristocracy of the future will be that of the mind and the will."

## . . . and of morality

That's the point - a good fellow, or a bad one. **Ethical** evaluation instead of intellectual. Of course, "ethics" is a relative term, dependent on the society we live in. But it seems as if there is also a universal, philanthropic ideal, which shows itself, for example, in a London bobby's helping an old woman across the street without the slightest idea what Confucius said about showing respect for old age.

To choose and to do that which is good, then. This follows from freedom of the will. We insist on moral responsibility, because we reckon with and depend on free-will, on character.

## . . . But

And yet . . . and yet . . . don't we every day, e.g.,

6. [10]

in psychological investigations, in law-court pronouncements,
get a painful lesson in how regulated and restricted our
characters and wills are - both through inheritance and environ-
ment? He who has had a bad home, or no home at all, he who has
had parents who bequeathed some physical or mental disability -
these have a much harder time of it than those born more for-
tunate. And so we are stuck again!

I can see no other conclusion than to strongly prize a
<u>good character</u>, <u>but to deal gently with the lack of it</u>. Not to
be too strict in retribution, but to suffer with the unfortunate,
the failure, the criminal, or the merely "naughty." And to
hopefully anticipate a time dreamed of by our greatest Swedish
poet, Gustaf Froding:

When no man is evil and no man is good,
Where brothers do fight the evil flood,
And stretch to each other a helping hand
To come to the far-off strand.

When we talked about the popular American magazines or weeklies in our group in the Seminar, we noticed how gay, confident and optimistic their conception of life was in comparison with what distinguishes the more serious modern fiction in the United States. This state is characteristic for Sweden, too, and I will venture an explanation.

(LO)

THE LOLLIPOP OF HAPPINESS

Come and buy Doctor Felix's recipe for guaranteed
happiness to man and beast! Write today and fill in your
names for Utopia's blitz-course on Paradise Island this summer!
Come along and bring your music when the Well-rounded Organiza-
tion Men hold their recruiting meeting tonight! No trumpeter
will tremble when Quick-Happy's march is sounding with all its
prodigal-promising signals. No true believer will be dis-
turbed by Fate rattling his chains when the hut of Suburbia
is rosy in the firelight tonight. ...

Isn't it funny how the huzzahs of the believers in
progress - in which we radicals join so vociferously - still
seem sufficient to shout down that dull memento: even in
anno
domini
1958!

Was not the antique time more brave, more adult in en-
during the anguish of the tragic vision, when it saw mankind
forever wandering down the long slopes of the Golden Age - and
could still sing and rejoice? Wasn't it, in fact, the dark
waters of Lethe that made the Aegean seas wash so clear and blue?
And wasn't it the joyless shadow-life of Hades that made Anacreon
sing so warmly of life's loveliness and its thousand pleasures?

The time that followed, uniting the people of Europe
for fifteen hundred years, had no interest in the here and now.
Mankind had no expectation of happiness in this earthly vale
of tears where once Christ suffered on the Cross for its sake.
For medieval man the world was an intolerable scene of trial in
which he doomed himself to eternal heaven or eternal hell. The

2

real kick-off in the great game only came with death. But by restraining his hopes of happiness so stringently, medieval man was frequently happier than he expected, and always happier than he deserved.

Then came the Renaissance. Under its battering-rams the epoch of cloister discipline was burst open. Man awoke to a consciousness of his own worth as a human being. This world was his only world, a world made to be loved, a world to dream of as a home for his yet unborn Utopia. The Renaissance was the bridge which carried him over into our vital restless modern times. New prophets were to arise who would paint afresh the Utopian mirage of heaven on earth.

Romanticism incited men to a huge craving for happiness, and the latter half of the nineteenth century promised to meet the cheque. All seemed fulfilled when biology's revelation of the single cell evolving to human creatures and even higher future forms of life was translated into a philosophic conception of life: every change was synonymous with progress, and one fine day the centuries would produce a nobler, spontaneously good human type, dwelling in perfect freedom. Individual happiness must be found for all, we were told, if not here, then just around the corner, in the next generation, or the one after that. There was no brake on the rosy dreams curling from the smoking crucibles of the earthly paradise, intoxicating the augurs of progress.

But was there ever a bitterer revelation than that this boundless optimism, which nevertheless gave us so many wonderful dreams and ideals, at the same time spawned one of the most

3 (10)

absurd follies ever devised: the belief in a general and unquali-
fied happiness? The belief that suffering could always be
shelved, that everything could be altered and that nothing was
inevitable - so different from the resigned fatalism of anti-
quity! The Greeks knew that water could not rise above its own
level, and they had a special name for the tragic hero's offence
in outreaching himself after uttermost happiness.

Has there ever been a temptation more disastrously de-
signed to drive man crazy? They became ego-centric happiness-
neurotics, rushing in every direction whenever they sighted
something that looked like the blue banner of happiness. With
romantic longing they whipped up their claims on happiness until
every society, every bit of work, every woman, must inexorably
be a disappointment. Who is to blame if I am unhappy? they
asked. Perhaps it is capitalism's fault? Then let us cut the
throats of the capitalists! Perhaps it is communism's? Then
let us strangle the communists! But happiness delayed, and the
mutual liquidation grew into a process without end. Then they
looked about for a liberator from their perpetual dissatisfaction.
But again and again the liberator was unveiled as an armour-
plated saviour who prostituted romanticism's blue wanderlust into
field-grey columns of troops.

But in spite of this men would not listen to reason.
They refused to accept the bitter limitations of human society.
They persisted in their soft demands upon self and their hard
claims upon happiness-to-be.

For over fifty years philosophers and scientists have
been exploding the minefields of the belief in progress. In
psychological terms this happened with Sigmund Freud's dark

4

(L)

pessimistic voice. He diagnosed mankind's peculiar and inevitable tragedy as the schism between nature and culture-norms: mankind was forever nailed fast to the rack by its capacity for desire and the necessity of denial. In cosmic terms this exposure occurred when the biology of Spencer and Darwin was followed by the death sentence of modern astro-physics. For as the bison is already buried under the green grass of the prairie, as the race dies, and as ideas themselves die, so too shall space itself explode in universal conflagration. The naked and the dead from war's destruction shall be done away, and the waste land shall not be confined to man's little world alone.

But mighty popular myths of happiness and beliefs in progress are not changed overnight. After two world wars, and with the threat of a new one under our nostrils, millions of us are still bent on purchasing the cheapest forms of optimism. We are in no hurry to take the rosy lollipop of the change of the century from our mouths. It is true that democracy and social welfare count for a lot. As a democratic socialist, I'm convinced that they do. But it is vanity to suppose that they count for everything. And it is a death-blow to both democracy and progress if we tempt ourselves with such claims on happiness that no government in the world could deliver the goods. This is to entice lies and illusions from the soap-boxes and parliamentary benches. For none but a fool would claim to conjure away the griefs and agonies of the human heart by ideologies and election slogans. Love and death, *metaphysically*, do not inquire which side of the iron curtain they are on.

Millions are still deaf to the organ which plays its

5

dull assurance that if man is free on one foot, he is bound on
the other; that Paul weeps when Peter is happy with Kate; that
if man is strong in joy, so must he be strong in sorrow; that it
is death that makes our short lives so dear. This is a tragic
justice, which could save us from both cynicism and self-pity;
a vision of life that comes somewhat closer to the classic
dramas of Fate. . . . Modern Everyman is in one way a tragic
toiler without hope of victory, forever departing, forever on
duty, indefatigably on guard. But he receives no encouragement
that Zion is sighted afar, no jubilant promise that the holy
river Jordan will be crossed at last. He has known the joy of
courage, but also its vanity; knows the worth of sacrifice, but
also its futility; longs for total freedom, but knows its
impossibility.

And yet it is just this awareness of the hopelessness
of the struggle that proves man's bravery in these times of
unrest. Fate's outer contours form a sad circle out of opposing
necessities and inevitable death. But within the circumference
flowers scent the air and the cuckoo calls to delight through
strictly rationed hours of happiness. If this is pessimism,
then it is a strong, active sort of pessimism, the bravest in
our hag-ridden chaos.

---

And then came Sputnik. What sort of influence will
this have on literature? I guess that we either--or rather, that
we will get both poetry with modern symbols from space travel
between the swinging galaxies, and just as good as the freight
of symbols carried by the old schooner of the oceans, and we
will get paintings and hitherto unheard music with new and
wonderful images. As a fact, our finest living poet in Sweden,
Harry Martinson, has already composed a lyric epic of this kind
which he is now turning into an opera, that you most likely
will hear at the Metropolitan in New York.

But Sputnik will presumably also remind us that this
ball of earth is our only home in the universe. And that we
must be careful with it, and, if possible, try to love it.
There are noticeable signs of this, too, in Swedish literature;
foremost in a widely read, recent essay by farsighted novelist,
Eyvind Johnson.

And as for myself, if I may go on being ego-centric,
I felt very strongly about that some weeks before Christmas
last year when I went down one evening to the frozen sea with
my dog.

A WINTER'S EVENING LAST YEAR

The day before the third Sunday in Advent. After dinner I strolled down to the shore with the setter. It was cold, with crusted snow, and the winter sky was at its loveliest. The moon was in its last quarter. On the other side of the bay Venus hung over the Värmdö country. Under the heavenly Twins was a shower of star spangles--two children playing with balls of light, my grandmother used to say.

The setter sniffed. It occurred to me that just then a little, poisoned, rotting dog-comrade was travelling at eight kilometers a second around the earth, 150 Swedish miles up in the air. "A Star high in the sky did blaze, Alleluia. And wise men wondered in amaze, Alleluia," as the hymn puts it. True enough: the wise men of the East, and especially of the West, certainly wondered as it rolled round its vast ellipse.

The earth is already mapped out. The camel bells have ceased to tinkle, and the water in the keel no longer trickles through great geographical discoveries. The heights have sunk, the depths have risen: Mount Everest is beflagged, and the benthoscope has fished up sagas from the bottom of the sea. Now man is making glasses and head-phones for still more tremendous conquests within and without. The electro-microscope and the cyclotron have drawn back the door-latch to the world of atoms. Telescopes and radio antennae are pointing outward toward universal cremation in revolving giant crucibles. There roar the whirlwinds and the fountains of the starry gases; there the radio-telescope tells of the soughing of the Swan's wings after