Culture in the Blender

Although I’ve witnessed first-hand the kinds of campaigns that Europeans that fear more integration can put on, it surprises me every time how strongly people can feel about avoiding it. Today’s article in the International Herald Tribune about the Irish voting ‘no’ to further integration was no less of a surprise than why so many [...]

While getting my iTunes library in order and exploring some new music suggested by a friend, I started looking up old Europop on YouTube. Following a trail of “Oh, it’s this song!”, I found Dr. Alban’s Look Who’s Talking. I do not feel that that listening to that song says anything about the race of [...]

While watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica that had originally aired on Australian television, I recognized the song they used in the trailer for the next episode. I couldn’t remember who sang it, but I remembered the name of the song – Spaceman. A little YouTubing later, I remembered it was by Babylon Zoo and [...]

I learned something interesting in my culture and psychology class the other day. Americans think that the world is more malleable than the self. (Whereas Chinese, and probably most everyone else, think that the self is more malleable than the world.) Maybe that’s why so many Americans play their music out loud without headphones on [...]

One of the most obvious differences between the United States and Europe is how racism is structured. In some ways, racism in Europe seems rather simple. Perhaps it seems simple to me in part because I’ve seen it so much more than in the US, but the key concept seems to be xenophobia. The people [...]

Yesterday was the 90th anniversary of Finland’s independence. My mother forwarded a letter from President Halonen to all Finns abroad that her Finnish club had been sent. I find it remarkable what this says about her (President Halonen’s, not my mother’s) deep understanding of cultural globalization and its implications for her country. And sort of [...]

I went to Finland for two and a half weeks recently with my mother, and it was very refreshing. Cold, of course, but I got to do many things I’ve missed doing, like eating rye bread. American have no idea of what dark, filling bread is like. “Rye” bread here is more like wheat bread [...]

These past few days, I’ve been discussing religion with my mother. We’ve been talking about the cultural differences in how religion is approached in the United States compared to Sweden and Finland. She is Christian and I’m an atheist. However, what we mean – and especially the implications – aren’t what they mean here in [...]

Just a little after writing yesterday’s post I happened to check the BBC News website, and lo and behold: US ‘no longer technology king’. So it’s happened already. I wonder how long it will take until the reality sinks in here. One day, there will be a lot of wounded national pride here – especially [...]

The Globalist has reprinted parts of a speech by de Villepin to the UN Security Council before the war in Iraq began. I wish the US would have listened. The US is dangerously out of step with changing global realities that they are both subject to and help shape. They also seem to have forgotten [...]