Norway’s perception of woke

11 comments

1. >I have the feeling that Norway is more of a conservative country whenit comes to social and family standards and constellations.

   Compared to?

   I mean, [this is the main article on NRK](https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/single-kvinner-har-tatt-over-fertilitetsklinikkene-i-norge-1.16078471) today:

   >Seks av ti som har fått donorsæd ved St. Olavs hospital er enslige kvinner.

   ​

   You can read more about e24’s guidelines [here](https://e24.no/etiske-retningslinjer) if you’re interested. But my personal perception is that they’re pretty neutral, with very easy comprehendable economy news for the general population compared to Finans Avisen or Dagens Næringsliv who’re catering to the more rightleaning with more in-depth financial news.

2. It’s a bit hard to answer, since we don’t know what we are comparing to.

   If it is the us, then i would say we had kind of the same woke battle about 10 years ago, but only at a much smaller scale.

   We don’t have a very polarized political landscape either, and religion is not tinted political either. So we don’t really get these political “packages” with “christian, conservative, and right wing” or “progressive, lgbtq friendly, and left wing”. At least not even close to the degree you have it elsewhere.

3. Regarding E24 and this piece. This is an opinion piece written by Asle Toje and should not be confuced with the editorial line. According to the ext over the headline Toje is a “spaltist”, which is a regular column writer (don’t know the English word). A “spaltist” is usually in their role because they highlight different sides of an issue and sometimes to challenge the viewpoint of the reader. E.g. several of the Christian dailies have muslim spaltists.

   Toje is a conservative debater and there have been som instances of him becoming hate object of the Norwegian Twitter left. (Not because of this piece)

4. Many things which the Right would consider “woke” in the US are just common sense in Norway (e.g. virtually no one in the political spectrum is against equal marriages or the right for abortion, and almost all political forces would attend an annual Pride).

5. The writer of this piece is seldomly taken seriously by the majority. Asle Toje usually spews divisive right-wing stuff, and this piece is no exeptance. He gets his praise from a small minority, but most people see through his petty arguments (not to mention that he has absolutely no idea about Tolkien or his writings – that much is made clear in plain sight in this piece).

   That being said, the ‘woke’ debate is some what going on here as well – but on a much smaller scale than in, say, the US.

6. >I have the feeling that Norway is more of a conservative country when it comes to social and family standards and constellations

   Your feeling is based on what exactly? Same-sex marriage is legal in Norway since 2009. Just yesterday I saw books about same-sex relationships in the youth section of a bookstore. And there are huge rainbow flags hanging from the ceiling in the shopping center.

   I have the feeling that Norway is a pretty progressive country when it comes to LGBTQ topics.

7. 80% of what americans know as «woke», we know as normal, common decency.

8. As for the conservative family values: to put things into perspective, one of Norway’s most famous TV-characters for children, Brillebjørn, has two mommies. A children’s science show, Newton, had a whole segment on masturbation – by showing a woman masturbating. Both these are produced by the state broadcaster, NRK.

   Your perception is wrong.

9. >Besides ~~the cliche of “I don’t care as long as you leave me alone”~~ a fundamental pillar of society.

10. I see woke as taking marginalised groups into consideration. I think it’s good that we are being challenged on this because there is a lot of room for improvement.

11. Asle Toje is pretty right wing, and E24 is a conservative paper (not right wing per se, just conservative as most capitalist finance publications tend to be). He was nominated to the Nobel committee by the Progress Party (Frp), the most right wing party in Parliament. You could look up some other pieces he’s written. They’re well written, to be sure, but they’re to the right of most Norwegians.

    Is Norway more of a conservative country when it comes to social and family standards and constellations? Well, maybe. More conservative than what? We’re certainly more progressive than Poland, although that’s setting the bar low. We’re probably less progressive in that regard than our neighbor Sweden; at least that’s the common perception. However, we were the first Scandinavian country to legalize same-sex marriage (and the sixth country in the world), in 2009, shortly before Sweden that same year. Same-sex adoption and artificial insemination for lesbian couples were also legalized then.

    I’m not entirely sure what you mean by the “woke movement” precisely. I mean, I know roughly what it is, but I feel like you need to be a bit more clear on what exactly you’re asking.