Part of the Earthquake series. Have we gone far too far too quickly? Is it possible to pull back a little without compromising the benefits of the new?
(now ... that's a distinctly un-norwegian way to begin any text, we just don't go in for that sort of thing, and the formulaic 'Dear Sir' of the letter columns finds us giggling in merry confusion, but I have no better way of addressing you, my friend :-)
I've been mostly off-line for a while and am now back playing catch-up. But that is impossible!
This text is so dense -- so full of meaning -- that I reckon it would be half a day's work for me to digest it properly, like a conscientious student would parse his pensum. It's packed with information, assertions and questions, and the topic is genuinely very interesting. Your mind is a wonder of curiosity, conjecture and insights. I am able to digest only a morsel of this knowledge for each eassay of yours that I read; before I started reading your substack, I had not given the subject of marketing a thought in the world. Now I've begun thinking about it, and have made my own first, small discoveries in that landscape. It's a new terrain for me, and this is why I have so little to contribute, whereas you have spent a life thinking and theorizing about this topic. But I understand a little bit more each time :-)
You mention the Centre Pompidou, the post-1990 New World Order, Fukuyama's 'End of History' and all that jazz ... let me contribute with a sleazy anecdote or two from my own life, from round about that time ...
Although I took the 'science-line' at my Gymnasium, we still had to read Norwegian, English, German (or Spanish or French if you fancy making unmanly sounds with your mouth) and I'd also chosen Latin as an elective course. It was the German teacher who took us on an excursion to Berlin in 1989. Night train down through Sweden, ferry crossing to Stettin (?) and the enticing, soft, warm feeling of Martha's body against mine as we spooned on the cold floor of the train compartment. I will never forget when our train had had entered East Germany (Republic of Farmers and Workers!) and a gruff border guard demanded our passports while the indistinct tannoy speakers in the train yard shouted in tinny German what sounded like threats ... " und die Straaafe, und das Bluuud, auf jeden ... !" I had a smoke hanging out of the window while watching the border guards inspect the underside of the train with mirrors attached to long sticks, submachine guns slung over shoulders and German Shepherds on leash. Surreal for a boy from the Norwegian suburbs.
Berlin -- home town on my mother's side -- was not that unlike Oslo, but then again, Oslo is in many ways an unremarkable town; could've been any smaller, North-German Burgh with French pretensions in the posher parts. I vividly remember a 'lecture' we attended at some Institut für ... etwas, etwas ... for two reasons: 1) I was actually able to understand most of what the lecturer was saying ... he was speaking 'langsam, klar und deutlich Hochdeutsch' but still ... and 2) out teacher asked him how he viewed the possibilities of the two Germanies uniting in the future? He answered that he certainly hoped that his country would again find a way to ... yada, yada, yada ... but that he did not see this as any realistic option in the foreseeable future. It only took a year and a bit for history to prove him wrong! In the meantime we naughty schoolboys and -girls! went to jazz clubs, flea markets and restaurants. Children playing grown-ups in a foreign land. I treasure a picture of Christopher, 'Knobby the Elk', my brilliant good friend, and myself in front of the Wall where some local patriot had painted 'Lillestrøm' -- the name of my local, childhood town.
We were of course billeted in West Berlin -- Charlottenburg -- but made an excursion into the East for a day. We had to exchange a certain amount of 'west-mark' into 'ost-mark' -- at the ridiculous, official exchange rate, of course ... 'Zwangsumtauschen' = forced exchange. Our 20 potent West-Mark were exchanged into 20 worthless East Mark -- by fiat, before we could get on the U-Bahn from West to East. Thing is ... there was nothing to spend those commie marks on ... there was nothing worth buying! We walked around East Berlin, it was still dour and derelict, and had dinner at a Gasthaus where we were treated with marked hostility and served slow, slovenly slop with disdain for dessert. The smartest boy among us (he did have a rare talent for knowing which way his toast was buttered!) brazenly went into a pharmacy and bought all the cough syrup his money could buy. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon downing one small, brown bottle after another. For some reason he knew that East-German cough-syrup contained a pleasurable amount of morphine (or similar). He was both happy and content by the time we went back west and we all agreed that it had been an ... interesting day out.
Now ... that was in '89. A year later my mind had wandered from school-work to ... well, anything else, to be honest. I was fed up with being a clever school-boy ... I had been offered a glipse of LIFE and all it might contain ... I had arranged a small flat that I could afford with the small salary from my after-school job at a grocery shop. I took all-too-much pleasure from calmly anouncing at dinner on my eighteenth birthday that "I would be moving out tomorrow". Poor parents! Poor, stupid me! But still: a triumph of MY WILL! There is no individuation without will.
During my last year at gymnasium I had detatched myself from 'school life'. I no longer considered myself as a 'pupil' or a 'schoolboy'. I was a man ... or at least I wanted to be one. I'd been able to save a bit of money from my after-school work at the grocer's ... and I was reading Hemingway, Hamsun, Dostoevsky, Calvino and Kjærstad ... a heady brew, I tell ya! I figured I could live frugally in Portugal for up to a year while I would write the Great Norwegian Novel (TM). Yes ... I too laugh at my young self ...
And then, in the autumn, I got a letter from the Norwegian Military. I was to present myself at a date and place to have my abilities assessed. Well, well ... young Lothario did not foresee that particular spanner disrupting his works ... despite it being mandated by law ... what blustering fools young men are!
At this time, being a conscientious objector was still a real alternative (since then, they've made away with much of the Norwegian armed forces, because they were so sure we would never have to face any armed adversity ever again -- praise be their glorious foresight -- and think of all the money we can spend on grifters instead!
Anyhow ... I seriously spent a month or two contemplating if I were a conscientious objector or not. I'm not. I spent these months in deep introspection. What I found, deep down in my soul, in my 'educated and cultured personality', is an ability and a willingness to use violence to combat evil and vice. This is not a perversion (as the geldings might perceive it), it is an ability. So ... a martial life for me? No, but ...
But first; a holiday of depravity: I spent my savings on three weeks in Paris with a giddy pair of 'lesbians'. I can vaguely remeber the new Centre Pompidou and the Mona Lisa somewhere there in the back of my brain ... to be honest, I had more salinous things on my mind -- no man, except some depraved, Roman emperor was ever so deliciously distracted.
And how long was Adam in paradise? Two and a half weeks. Then I had to take the train back home ... I remember buying 'Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine' by Tom Wolfe at a surprisingly literary kiosk in the middle of the night, at Aachen train station, while waiting for my connecting train back home. And ain't Dutch a mind-fuck of a language if you're half-asleep aboard a train somewhere in the western part of Europe and have a smattering of German, French and English ... it's like they speak to you in a language you did not know you knew -- but of course you do ... we're all family.
... and then I put the Great Norwegain Novel on the shelf, washed my clothes and took the train to the north of Norway to join the Air Force.
Hmmm .... no, please don't. Glad you like it, but it's just a rambling brambling bumbling blob of a text. You know me, I get carried away sometimes, and ... well.
Perhaps it's your social experiment-series that set me off :-)
Dear David,
(now ... that's a distinctly un-norwegian way to begin any text, we just don't go in for that sort of thing, and the formulaic 'Dear Sir' of the letter columns finds us giggling in merry confusion, but I have no better way of addressing you, my friend :-)
Here's a bit of music to bolster your spirits! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dmWAve3Pvk
I've been mostly off-line for a while and am now back playing catch-up. But that is impossible!
This text is so dense -- so full of meaning -- that I reckon it would be half a day's work for me to digest it properly, like a conscientious student would parse his pensum. It's packed with information, assertions and questions, and the topic is genuinely very interesting. Your mind is a wonder of curiosity, conjecture and insights. I am able to digest only a morsel of this knowledge for each eassay of yours that I read; before I started reading your substack, I had not given the subject of marketing a thought in the world. Now I've begun thinking about it, and have made my own first, small discoveries in that landscape. It's a new terrain for me, and this is why I have so little to contribute, whereas you have spent a life thinking and theorizing about this topic. But I understand a little bit more each time :-)
You mention the Centre Pompidou, the post-1990 New World Order, Fukuyama's 'End of History' and all that jazz ... let me contribute with a sleazy anecdote or two from my own life, from round about that time ...
Although I took the 'science-line' at my Gymnasium, we still had to read Norwegian, English, German (or Spanish or French if you fancy making unmanly sounds with your mouth) and I'd also chosen Latin as an elective course. It was the German teacher who took us on an excursion to Berlin in 1989. Night train down through Sweden, ferry crossing to Stettin (?) and the enticing, soft, warm feeling of Martha's body against mine as we spooned on the cold floor of the train compartment. I will never forget when our train had had entered East Germany (Republic of Farmers and Workers!) and a gruff border guard demanded our passports while the indistinct tannoy speakers in the train yard shouted in tinny German what sounded like threats ... " und die Straaafe, und das Bluuud, auf jeden ... !" I had a smoke hanging out of the window while watching the border guards inspect the underside of the train with mirrors attached to long sticks, submachine guns slung over shoulders and German Shepherds on leash. Surreal for a boy from the Norwegian suburbs.
Berlin -- home town on my mother's side -- was not that unlike Oslo, but then again, Oslo is in many ways an unremarkable town; could've been any smaller, North-German Burgh with French pretensions in the posher parts. I vividly remember a 'lecture' we attended at some Institut für ... etwas, etwas ... for two reasons: 1) I was actually able to understand most of what the lecturer was saying ... he was speaking 'langsam, klar und deutlich Hochdeutsch' but still ... and 2) out teacher asked him how he viewed the possibilities of the two Germanies uniting in the future? He answered that he certainly hoped that his country would again find a way to ... yada, yada, yada ... but that he did not see this as any realistic option in the foreseeable future. It only took a year and a bit for history to prove him wrong! In the meantime we naughty schoolboys and -girls! went to jazz clubs, flea markets and restaurants. Children playing grown-ups in a foreign land. I treasure a picture of Christopher, 'Knobby the Elk', my brilliant good friend, and myself in front of the Wall where some local patriot had painted 'Lillestrøm' -- the name of my local, childhood town.
We were of course billeted in West Berlin -- Charlottenburg -- but made an excursion into the East for a day. We had to exchange a certain amount of 'west-mark' into 'ost-mark' -- at the ridiculous, official exchange rate, of course ... 'Zwangsumtauschen' = forced exchange. Our 20 potent West-Mark were exchanged into 20 worthless East Mark -- by fiat, before we could get on the U-Bahn from West to East. Thing is ... there was nothing to spend those commie marks on ... there was nothing worth buying! We walked around East Berlin, it was still dour and derelict, and had dinner at a Gasthaus where we were treated with marked hostility and served slow, slovenly slop with disdain for dessert. The smartest boy among us (he did have a rare talent for knowing which way his toast was buttered!) brazenly went into a pharmacy and bought all the cough syrup his money could buy. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon downing one small, brown bottle after another. For some reason he knew that East-German cough-syrup contained a pleasurable amount of morphine (or similar). He was both happy and content by the time we went back west and we all agreed that it had been an ... interesting day out.
Now ... that was in '89. A year later my mind had wandered from school-work to ... well, anything else, to be honest. I was fed up with being a clever school-boy ... I had been offered a glipse of LIFE and all it might contain ... I had arranged a small flat that I could afford with the small salary from my after-school job at a grocery shop. I took all-too-much pleasure from calmly anouncing at dinner on my eighteenth birthday that "I would be moving out tomorrow". Poor parents! Poor, stupid me! But still: a triumph of MY WILL! There is no individuation without will.
During my last year at gymnasium I had detatched myself from 'school life'. I no longer considered myself as a 'pupil' or a 'schoolboy'. I was a man ... or at least I wanted to be one. I'd been able to save a bit of money from my after-school work at the grocer's ... and I was reading Hemingway, Hamsun, Dostoevsky, Calvino and Kjærstad ... a heady brew, I tell ya! I figured I could live frugally in Portugal for up to a year while I would write the Great Norwegian Novel (TM). Yes ... I too laugh at my young self ...
And then, in the autumn, I got a letter from the Norwegian Military. I was to present myself at a date and place to have my abilities assessed. Well, well ... young Lothario did not foresee that particular spanner disrupting his works ... despite it being mandated by law ... what blustering fools young men are!
At this time, being a conscientious objector was still a real alternative (since then, they've made away with much of the Norwegian armed forces, because they were so sure we would never have to face any armed adversity ever again -- praise be their glorious foresight -- and think of all the money we can spend on grifters instead!
Anyhow ... I seriously spent a month or two contemplating if I were a conscientious objector or not. I'm not. I spent these months in deep introspection. What I found, deep down in my soul, in my 'educated and cultured personality', is an ability and a willingness to use violence to combat evil and vice. This is not a perversion (as the geldings might perceive it), it is an ability. So ... a martial life for me? No, but ...
But first; a holiday of depravity: I spent my savings on three weeks in Paris with a giddy pair of 'lesbians'. I can vaguely remeber the new Centre Pompidou and the Mona Lisa somewhere there in the back of my brain ... to be honest, I had more salinous things on my mind -- no man, except some depraved, Roman emperor was ever so deliciously distracted.
And how long was Adam in paradise? Two and a half weeks. Then I had to take the train back home ... I remember buying 'Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine' by Tom Wolfe at a surprisingly literary kiosk in the middle of the night, at Aachen train station, while waiting for my connecting train back home. And ain't Dutch a mind-fuck of a language if you're half-asleep aboard a train somewhere in the western part of Europe and have a smattering of German, French and English ... it's like they speak to you in a language you did not know you knew -- but of course you do ... we're all family.
... and then I put the Great Norwegain Novel on the shelf, washed my clothes and took the train to the north of Norway to join the Air Force.
Walter, this is a wonderful comment. No, it's more than a comment. Far more. It's a mini masterpiece. Please may I re-publish it as a guest post?
Hmmm .... no, please don't. Glad you like it, but it's just a rambling brambling bumbling blob of a text. You know me, I get carried away sometimes, and ... well.
Perhaps it's your social experiment-series that set me off :-)
Understood. But it is really good :-)