The Beach Bum’s Files: Norway’s Systemic FAIL

Our latest correspondent is a Norwegian expatriate whose travels have obviously created his refreshing perspective. In the US, we would call him “ornery” — and that would be a compliment.

His ideas on Norway’s government schools match my own experience with the current US school system. His opinions regarding the (eventually) salubrious outcome of the messy economic implosion somewhere down the road correspond with the Baron’s views.

Welcome the Beach Bum to our group of essayists.


Hello Dymphna,

Thank you for your nice letter. Yes, I have lived here in South America for close to seven years now, so my mastery of the language (with a mix of the local dialect and my Norwegian accent) has become quite understandable, though far from grammatically perfect.

I have spent a grand total of two days in England and two weeks in the USA, so most of my knowledge of the English language comes from basic education in Norway and a great interest in science fiction literature in my younger years. And from the fact that most televisions shows and movies screened in Norway are not dubbed, but subtitled. It bothers me that they dub everything here, with the result that hardly anyone speaks decent English, and very few seem to realize the point in doing so. This makes it difficult to be a tourist or newcomer here. On a positive note, it forced me to learn a another language.

I am fortunate to live in a place which has a good year-round stable and comfortable climate. It is strange that it is not yet really discovered as an optimal tourist destination. But it will be eventually.

That is why there are quite a few foreigners here, even a small Norwegian contingent amongst the Italians, Spanish, and Dutch expatriates. Norwegians here are mostly oil-related workers, employed all over the globe. Rather than go back to Norway between work shifts they have set up their home here. What makes it different is that quite a few have married here and “settled down”, reverting to more normal family patterns. This is a change from the rather wild free periods most of them enjoyed in their younger years.

Also, some Norwegians here are “misfits”, with no other general traits. I count myself in that group. Some are obviously real misfits who might have problems in Norway should they ever choose to go home.

Others, like me, are the “taking-a-break-from-Norway”-misfits. We can go back at any time. I might have to do just that very soon; setting up a working business in a new country turned out to be much harder than I expected. Whatever happens, it has been a great ride for seven years. I do not regret a second spent here! It turned out to be the best way to spend my money I could ever have come up with…

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The situation in Norway (and Europe in general) is quite complex.

As a child I grew up in the parts of society that had been radicalized in the late ’60s and early ’70s. During the period when I was too young to have my own opinions, I used to go to some of these summer camps myself. At the age of 11 or 12, I decided that what they were preaching was not for me and refused to go to more political summer camps.

At least back then I had a choice. The systematic indoctrination of young minds is something I have been very critical of ever since, but it is very hard to escape totally from this mindset in Norway…

The main TV channel (used to be the only one for many years) is state-controlled. It goes without saying that those in power will make sure that whatever is transmitted in that channel is “acceptable” to those in charge.

As for the newspapers, they’re now mostly owned by the labor organizations, which are strongly connected to the ruling Labor and Socialistic Left party. There used to be one large conservative newspaper but it now has a ‘former’ communist as its chief editor. She changed her label, but the change into a PC newspaper is easy to detect.

Norwegian society is organized in such a way that in almost all cases both parents have to work. Marxist feminism in practice. Obviously, this means nearly all children are sent to day care. Day care personnel are mostly uneducated women, already dependent on welfare-state wealth redistribution in some form. Thus, no individual or rebellious thinking is likely to be inspired in that environment.

Most books for children reek of PC views.

The schools are mostly patterned as learning machines. Kids learn facts, but they learn them at the speed of the lowest (and slowest) common denominator. This system bores the crap out of anyone with above average intelligence, creativity or energy. I honestly suspect many really smart people in Norway drop out and never amount to much because of this system of “education”. I know for a fact that I did, and so did many other smart people. I never took more school than I had to. By law, that’s nine years.

Norway’s failure as a free society (I speak about free thought and free speech) is systemic. And since it is economically comfortable, even those who understand this total FAIL do not and will not rock their luxurious boat. Thus, the indoctrination system has been perfected. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with what goes on as long as you don’t complain out loud about it. The only thing that counts is that all people are kept reasonably silent and in line.

I doubt that there will be any structural changes in Norway — unless, that is, a serious economic breakdown occurs. As long as their economic welfare bubble functions, Norwegians will allow themselves to be drowned in foreigners insisting on sharia law.

Quite a few blue-collar workers and intellectuals in Norway are well aware of elements of what I describe, but would use much softer words than I do here to describe the situation. But it seems that even more oppression is needed before a popular reaction of any notable size will manifest itself.

You can see why, in my view, a crisis in the world economy could only be positive for Norway and Europe. I hope the EU breaks down and that the world economy goes to hell sooner rather than later. This crisis is the only way forward to a realization of system-wide change. The state, the politicians and the public servants, should be the serving the people — not the other way around.

Well, there is one other way: via a dystopian-prophet-of-doom change, we could have another large war on the European continent. While it is a danger, I believe (maybe naively) we are still quite far away from that point. Unless some nutcase from you-know-where actually attacks us in a way that becomes impossible to ignore.

I read many of the comments on your blog. You have some Americans thinking that the USA is in a much better position than Europe. It is interesting to observe their cockiness and inability to see that similar trends are also in play on your continent. The united Western thought should be: we will not concede one square foot to any aggressor who wishes to suppress hard-won Western liberties. The less space we have to maintain and develop our way of life, the more likely we are to be overrun in the future. Therefore all countries in the Western world and our allies should act as one on this matter.

I quite agree with you that Fjordman has been smeared in Norway, and in other countries as well. That was to be expected, since his writing is so very counter to what is considered correct by the political elites there. In the smearing process, all organizations referring to themselves as against/counter to jihad or simply counter to world immigration have been put in the same position. Now most people associate you and people like you with Nazism (which, as you know, is claimed to be right-wing in most countries now). It’s part of the indoctrination.

I hope that Fjordman will continue to use his considerable talent for writing, to inform the world about the patterns and trends he sees.

— The Beach Bum :-)