Tuesday 25 September 2001

Pic of the day: Building a palace. Screenshot from Civilization II.

Pettiness rules

News from Norway: The non-socialist majority in the Norwegian Storting (parliament) has given up the attempt at a centre-right coalition. The reason was not political differences, but disagreement as to who should have what cabinets in the new government. And in particular, the prime minister. The largest of the parties, the Conservatives, reasonably demanded the position as PM for their leader. The problem is that he is a strikingly uncharismatic person, indeed "forgettable" is the word that comes to mind. Since the PM is the closest we have to a president in terms of actual political power, this is not considered a Good Thing. Particularly since the Christian Democrats have a very popular and experienced person ready for the job.

So, as of tonight, the Conservatives turn to the populist right Progress Party. The obvious problem is that the Progress Party is unstable at the best of times, given to sudden mood swings. The reason for this seems to be that it is controlled completely by one person, the charismatic populist Carl I. Hagen. There is no reason to believe that he particularly wants to stand in the shadow either.

Meanwhile, Labor rules on with the support of approximately 1/4 of the votes, less than the people who stayed home on polling day. Fun, fun, fun. Luckily we're a small and even-tempered nation ... as a matter of fact, we would probably not miss our elected representatives all that much if they spent the next 4 years doing nothing but bickering. It does have some entertainment value, after all.

***

In other news from Norway, one of our largest industrial corporations seems to be headed for bankruptcy. Kvaerner was once a pretty powerful company, but then the previous CEO started to get visions. He moved the headquarters to London, bought up expensive properties, including some palace-like property for himself. Stuff like that. This tends to happen with Norwegians when they have more money than they can understand, which isn't all that much. Eventually they paid him a large sum of money to get out of there and never come back, and the current boss moved in. He's still obscenely well paid for someone who has yet to show a profit. What's more, he has also managed to irritate the largest of the shareholders.

Yes indeed, there is what looks like personal enmity between the largest investor and the boss. Ooops. And we know what happens then. Yes indeed. They'd both rather kill the company than give the other a chance to smile. So now the whole thing is going to pieces, and the investor is trying to talk banks and even the state out of lending any money to the company where he holds shares for a fortune. Evidently he'd rather lose it all. Fun, fun, fun!

***

Nor is this a special Norwegian phenomenon. On the contrary, Scandinavia is one of the least macho parts of the world. In many more primitive cultures, men will kill or die rather than lose face. This is so stupid that it would be ridiculous, if it were not so tragic. It is also blasphemy, if I may say so. How can a man possibly pretend to never make an error? Worse, to never just don't know?

What's with people? I know it hurts to humble yourself; but with practice you can endure it, and eventually become less stiff. You have to practice: If you never humble yourself, then eventually others will have to do it, and that is far worse.

At least most of us are so insignificant, we only show our stupidity to a few friends and relatives and colleagues / classmates. But by some nifty rule that is built into creation itself, the particularly haughty will gravitate toward the spotlight. That way, the more over the top their self-importance, the more visible they get. Perhaps this is what the Jewish wise man said, that foolishness sat in high seats. It certainly looks that way.

Not that I know I could have done better, if I were surrounded by people who flattered me and never disagreed to my face. Then again, I am not really surrounded by people at all. I guess it's easy to laugh at personal conflicts then, when you are the only person around ...