We are the most American.
I remember when I first came to Finland as a business English trainer, it was common to hear my clients say "Finland is the most American country in Europe" or similar. There was a certain amount of pride in it, as if it was a marker of how far Finland had advanced from the past and distanced itself from Russia all those many decades ago. It is something I found peculiar in many respects., one being that I don't think that Finns are very American at all, quite the opposite. But I later learned that many countries in Europe had similar sentiments, each claiming to be the most American.
Have times changed?
Shy, quiet and trustworthy.
Finns are known to be trustworthy people in general, and it is one of the first things they will say to describe themselves as a culture. It would be something like Finns are "shy, quiet and trustworthy". According to a recent survey though, the "We are the most American" might have changed a bit, where only 4% of Finns trust the US. However, that puts it about on par with India, China and Russia -which is quite incredible.
And the survey was taken before the attack on Iran.
I was reading about this a few minutes ago, but in two different client sessions today the topic came up in respect to trade with the US, where the trust in anything that is agreed to is zero. One even said that while you can make a deal with Trump, it is meaningless, because he can just change his mind the next day.
Negotiate with a baby all you want, but if it wants to cry, it will cry.
And remember that this is trust in the country, not necessarily the people. For those of us who have enough experience and a wide enough circle of backgrounds, it is pretty easy to tell the difference between a person, and the country of which they are a citizen. However, with a narrow circle, it seems that people equate the two, conflating what the government does, with what kinds of people voted in the government. That is not a very good indicator, especially in a place like the US, where less than two-thirds of the eligible voting population votes. Looking at the total population of voting age, it is less than 60% in the last election. So in 2024, the choice wasn't "half of Americans", it was less than 32% of eligible voters.
I had an interesting discussion with a client today after I mentioned there should be no political parties at all, and instead there should just be a mass of candidates for specific roles. The roles would depend on the needs and wants of the country, where "voting" would be a weighted survey of something like 100 different points and how important it is to the person. That would take the temperature of what areas were needed to fill, and then selection would be made based on the role required, like for a job position in a company.
However, while he was sceptical at first, he got onboard the hypothetical train and said that the candidates could also be blind, meaning that no one is voting for anyone, with the face, gender etc all obscured. The candidates (even if in parties) would have to put together their resume and plans and the ones with the best fit get the job, regardless of what party they are from.
It all needs some work to formulate'
But it is possible to change the way all the current governing systems work and replace them with something better that returns the role back to one of administration, instead of personality. Having blinded systems would mean that campaigning would have to be done on topics alone, so if a party wanted to forward their agenda, they would have to convince enough people that their agenda is worth progressing to the point that it will affect the results of the survey - without any faces involved. If they are successful, their candidates are more likely, but also not guaranteed to get in, as another candidate might be considered better for the role.
Whatever it is, the role of government should be to support the wellbeing of the people of the country and as I was saying to my client today, no one party has all the answers. If we assume there is a best decision to make, the best is a singular, meaning that there can be only one. Having party systems where one or even a few parties choose what is best, means that the best decision might reside outside of the in-power government. That is silly. Parties shouldn't be adversarial, they should be working together for what is actually best for the country.
The best team should play, not the members who think alike.
We have got it wrong. Same thinking might get consensus, but it is a bad way to solve a complex problem. Diversity of thought and skill is required to solve complex problems, because they generally need multiple disciplines to solve the issues. The thing that is also required is the ability to cooperate for the best result, even if the solution requires compromise or the elevation of another's idea of one's own. This is where "thinking alike" helps, because same think means more agreement, but it also means narrow thinking and support for what might be a hare-brained idea.
The governance system is broken.
It is very broken and becoming even more so, as more influencing factors are coming in to sway opinion, and people are becoming less capable of making solid decisions as understanding and direct experience lessens across the board. While many think that the people should have the vote, we are approaching a point where "the people" are unable to make a good decision, because we are so compromised. But, we still have a general sense of what is important to us and I believe that if we were to all fill out a hundred point survey of topics, there would be some very clear overlap between a handful of areas. These "basics" should be at the core and other policies built upon them, with improve wellbeing the underlying rule beneath it all.
Fuck politics and profits - improve people.
Trust me.... it isn't going to happen.
Taraz
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