Evidence that you are in Europe for the summer:
1. You sleep in a sleeper-car train / converted hostel in Lund, Sweden for the weekend, where three people sleep in a room smaller than the closet-sized single you lived in alone all year.
2. You love it.
3. You buy a waist-length, faux-leather jacket that zips diagonally to the side of your neck. This is not viewed as any kind of fashion statement.
4. The major difference that has been pointed out to you between Denmark and Sweden is that, in Denmark, a prison break will get you one extra month in prison. In Sweden, you get no punishment at all.
The most distressing news of my summer is: Apparently, Denmark has revealed to me, I am a conservative. I believe in punishing criminals. I believe in a weaker central government than one that controls the rules of free speech (read: hate speech laws.) I think I lack trust in people at all levels--the government to rule without exploitation, and the people to carry out their rights fairly. Denmark's entire political spectrum is shifted to the left of America's, such that even conservatives in Denmark are as liberal as our liberals--they believe in a strong central government, abortion, gay marriage, the works.
We visited a Danish prison, where the Danes in the group focused on the horrors of solitary confinement and the Americans focused on the fact that prisoners are allowed to have kitchen knives. Yet another example of the radically different cultural expectations of how to treat people with dignity, and how much dignity all people deserve.
We also visited a refugee camp, which was such a sad experience for me. These are people in total uncertainty, unwanted in their home or their new country, just waiting to be shuttled to the place that dislikes them least. The Red Cross workers who worked at the camp seemed genuinely warm-hearted and giving, at the very least.
My thoughts on major issues, in a nutshell:
1. Freedom of speech should always be completely unrestricted, save for direct incitements to violence. Enacting laws against hate speech is both a violation of this right and a dangerous precedent that allows the majority to silence minorities in the name of protecting them.
2. The only way a government can fairly function is complete and total separation of church (that is all religions, denominations, concepts of G-D, religious codes) and state.
3. Just because someone freely chooses an action or lifestyle doesn't mean we have to condone their actions on a moral or legal level.
4. And most revelatory, to me, is my developing conviction that you cannot legislate morality. The push for fair, equal, and moral laws must come from the bottom-up rather than the top-down, such that laws reflect the will of the people they govern. This is the only way the laws will ever be perceived as fair and therefore followed. Certainly, legal cases have altered the course of history (Brown v. Board of Ed; Roe v. Wade; and on and on), but I believe those reflected a court that took up the shifting tides of public opinion rather than one that determined to change public opinion on its own. By this logic, grassroots organizations rather than politics are the true means to social change.
None of these are particularly strong convictions, because I'm struggling with how you can you be sure of anything when you can understand both sides of the issue. Ah, well...
Also of note: I have discovered my NEW FAVORITE FOOD EVER. Yoggi mini-meals, these pre-packaged vanilla yogurt + muesli (like granola) breakfast snacks they sell in the shops (Kort and Godt) near the train stations. The terms "yogurt" and "granola" do not do justice to the creamy, crunchy deliciousness that is my palettal sensation every morning. Also, the word "muesli" just sounds adorable. Say it a few times. It's a kitten of a word.
All right, I'll stop hunching in the middle of the three short bunk beds in my train car and go to sleep now. Ya elske Sweden. ("I like Sweden" in Danish.)
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Oh Court! I love how you can so skillfully intertwine political commentary and your love for new foods and Eurojackets! I miss you!!!
ReplyDeleteAaaah I miss you, Courtney! And I agree with Diana. Food for thought, though, regarding Courtney Conviction #4: When considering the different causes of social change, could the distinction between jurisprudence and popular opinion be a false dichotomy? That is, can bodies like the Supreme Court sometimes perceive a preexisting shift in popular opinion and give it a gentle shove forward? That is not to say that judges base their decisions on the opinions of the masses (justice, ideally, should be blind to this)--rather, that they sometimes are an important complement to more gradual means of effecting change. (I could talk more about this, but maybe we should save it for our next gchat. :-))
ReplyDeleteNerd moment over. P.S. You have to send me a photo of you in your diagonally zipping jacket...I'm trying to envision this in my head, and it isn't working.
*"It" being my vision of the jacket, not the jacket itself. I'm sure it's hot.
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ReplyDeleteDavey, you make a very astute comment. I really like the way you phrased the concept of courts giving embryonic social movements "a gentle shove forward," and I think that was what I was attempting to express less eloquently than you did. It's simply the concept that we cannot trust in governmental systems alone to legislate what's right and thereby take that burden beyond the level of society. Though my dad also pointed out that we equally cannot trust public opinion to progress necessarily in nondiscriminatory directions, a second good point that suggests that (like everything) moderation and combination of the two sides is key.
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