There was once a time when that classic Swedish expression “lagom” (roughly translated as ‘moderation’) served as an explanation for Sweden’s prosperity. It was not just our language, as reflected in that awkwardly translated term, that constituted a unique resource. The very idea of “lagom-ness” was the essence of life, a tempered space where export figures and welfare indices climbed through the roof like beanstalks. Sweden was an oasis of moderation in a world of irrational, gun-happy, wild gesticulating foreigners.

That now seems just as antiquated as one of Jules Verne’s visions of the future. But it was not totally inaccurate. Swedes made a number of wise choices in the 20th century. Clearly, our eminence as apostles of welfare was exaggerated. Other Europeans democratised healthcare and their educational system according to similar recipes, and a lot of what we thought was unique could be found elsewhere, minus the ideological fanfare. Today, one seldom hears that pleasingly agreeable “lagom” explanation. After experiencing the open, rational, optimistically forward-thinking 20th century, Sweden is now back in the 19th century, an increasingly static society of the privileged where intolerance and fossilised conformism colour the world of opinion-makers in the capital.

“Lagom-ness” – moderation – is not the guiding principle of the new government. The key to Sweden is once again true belief. Positions have shifted, but the hectored, conflict-wary supporters behind the prevailing dictates of our era are bog-standard 19th century. A few examples illustrate the madness that has returned – now turned on its head: Experimental visual art was considered a danger to society in the Sweden of old. Its practioners were persecuted. Today, the grandees of the art world spit and hiss with the same frenzy over figurative art!

A blasphemous word about Jesus led to prosecution and exile for the sinner. Today bishops and priests readily go along with calling Jesus gay or revolutionary for the sake of convenience. To give a classic example, see the newspaper Metro (3 January, 2010) under the heading “Theologian: Jesus was gay!”. The bewildering article contains no proof at all – after all, there is none – but a couple of horror-struck theologians, including the archbishop, attempt to please: “Well, that may very well have been true!”

Fear of sex and prudishness in the Sweden of old bordered on the pathological. Images of nakedness and love poems led to prosecution and expulsion. Schools and military camps spread scaremongering propaganda against carnal love – and hence the turn-around, in one generation, to our equally feverish sexual fixation. It is perhaps too early to say how this will shape family life and the emotional outlook of tomorrow’s teens, but it no doubt involves some kind of imbalance.

Swedish prejudice and aversion to foreign people and cultures are firmly rooted. Today’s panicky fear over even discussing the challenges of immigrants is obviously not the healthy opposite of the old racism but rather a complex-ridden disguising of it.

Oscar Levertin’s famous poem “Folket i Nifelhem” (‘The People in Nifelhem’) was about the shyness of Swedes, about the pent-up need for contact and affection that was seldom given free rein. The need for intimacy was held in check by the fear of making a fool of oneself and attracting gossip. Today people can protect themselves against all the muck of admissions and fabricated confessions from columnists, media and show biz figures. Politicians who flinch at revealing their heart and kidneys to public view get help from coaches to overcome their scruples and “show vulnerability”, moving from tight-lipped pride unto death to a public life devoid of all dignity – in one fell swoop.

The same unsettling shift between extremes characterises our view of elites – of prestige, rank and power relations between social groups. The old Swedish obsession with titles made foreigners tear at their hair. Myriad petty distinctions were maintained as well between the first, second and third acting, assistant, deputy, auxiliary and vice clerk, aide and subordinate in offices, agencies, state enterprises, schools, guilds and private companies. In every changeover, the list detailing the order of precedence was brought out so that it was clear who could claim superiority over others and tip their hat at the right angle. But a healthy reaction turned – once again – into an absurd somersault. We slipped from a reasonable revolt against fussing over titles and table seatings in society into a doctrinaire denial of actual differences. It eventually became controversial – prohibited in some places – to even discuss differences in talent, brains, inclinations and sex.

In our textbooks from upper secondary school – around 1970 – there was an article about meritocracy. The potential state of the future was sketched out with great apprehension, not to say dread. With unfair class privileges having been levelled out, new inequalities were already rippling through the smooth surface. The clever ones, freed from the barriers of a class society, would simply be able to take power! The science-fictionesque worry about this new empire of the elite was manifested in a series of reforms that in due time would cripple the education system and – with the moral of a Hans Christian Andersen story – increase class differences.

In a society that has inscribed anti-elitism on its banner, everyone is a priori just as nice or just as competent as anybody else. Any differences in behaviour and achievement were ascribed to the environment. For someone living under such principles, it is just as misdirected to give precedence to competence as it is to punish violence and laziness. The fiascos of schooling have to be dressed up as adverse social conditions. Remorse, conscience and personal responsibility – these obsolescent levelling forces that had put many unstable human lives on the right track – were removed from the equation. It was when these mechanisms were banned that the schools lost their role, which was unique in the world in the 1950s and 1960s, as a vehicle for social mobility.

“Elites” is a troublesome term. Nowadays, and not just in Sweden, it often embraces secondary senses of cowardice and irony. People who say “elites” are seldom talking about clever, wise, prominent or creative people but rather about illegitimate power. In sociology, “elites” nowadays refers almost solely to influence, not to competence. An elite is one factor in the power constellation, pure and simple.

The Stockholm cultural and opinion-making establishment that gave elites a bad reputation are themselves an elite in the sociological sense. The common denominator there is not some kind of knowledge or skill but rather a few views, including an instinctive grudge against elites that takes a central position. Beyond the city and outside the media world, people are highly disrespectful of this attitude. Swedes in general esteem master carpenters, gifted teachers and competent doctors. Naturally, they – just as much as the anti-elitist pundits in the capital – do not want their children to be mediocre in their professions.

Obviously, attitudes vary. In Skåne and Småland, a more North American attitude to economic success and the fruits of this can be observed: enjoy them, by all means! In Dalarna, there is considerable scepticism about academic titles, whereas the university town of Uppsala sets high value on these strata. But on whole, there is no popular aversion to cleverness. If we had held referenda on the destructive anti-elitist school reforms, Sweden would still be a country of the future.

The red-hot element of controversy in the matter of elites is competition. To compete is human, especially competing with oneself. For Swedes, competition has come to be seen as a crime against the passion for community that imbues our political jargon. It was purely mistaken thinking from the start, perhaps an analogical conclusion from sport. My incentive, after all, is not to speak better German than the Germans, but to speak it better than I could before. This healthy aim to improve rarely has anything to do with rivalry. People who really want to get better at doing carpentry, writing or doing research are not motivated by the prospect of outshining others. The impulse is to test one’s own mettle, to see what one can do. When anti-elitism mixes the drive for quality with the drive for power, it misses what is essential.

In his New Year’s musings in The New York Times, my favourite columnist, Garrison Keillor, sat in a marina café in Florida, fed up with indolent beach life: “People are at their best when engaged in the endless heroic quest for whatever – truth, love, literary excellence, supremacy in tennis, a royal flush, the perfect salad – and relaxation makes them dull. It’s true. We’re hunters. Once we chase down that wildebeest and devour its hindquarters, we get suddenly stupider.”

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Den tidigare så ansedda människorätts­orga­­­nisa­tionen har övergett sina ideal och ideologiserats, skriver Bengt G Nilsson.

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That is from a person solidly rooted in the US liberal left! A song praising people as Swedish foxhounds, best when they are alert and hungry, would be inconceivable on a Swedish op-ed page. 

To dismiss competence and its importance for society’s development potential is particularly fatal for a country that was founded on competence. Competence is not IQ. It is something else, which Swedes are good at – postponing reward and working towards a goal that is not obvious: continuing studies, investing profit in the company, putting money in the bank. The famous marshmallow experiment demonstrated how fundamental this form of patience is. Young children were left alone with a sweet and told, “You may eat it. But if you wait, I will come back and you’ll get two instead of one.” The correlation between children’s results and their results on their university scholastic aptitude tests fifteen years later was stronger than the connection between their IQ and test results!

The most advanced form of marshmallow stoicism that I know of is the apprenticeship of Sweden’s proletarian writers. There is scarcely a glint suggesting literary greatness in the early works of Eyvind Johnson, Ivar Lo-Johansson or Harry Martinson. Yet they would rather go hungry than abandon their dreams. They wanted to eliminate the class society, but not even in their darkest moments did they succumb to the anti-elitism of our days. They worked like a devil in order to get the Greek gods, French verbs and the whole history of literature on board – everything we pitched into the sea for easier sailing. The Taliban did not blow up the Buddha statues in Bamyan because Buddhism challenged their monopoly on religion. They did so to obliterate any knowledge of richer cultures. Swedish authorities carried out an even more difficult task, for the same reason, during the Reformation. Frescoes were tarred or painted over, and chased reliefs were hacked at with sledgehammers.

There was no urgent religious logic in this. The Netherlands reformed their faith without going berserk. We did it again a few decades ago, when parts of Stockholm and many provincial town centres were rendered architecturally ugly by a clique of ideologues. The excuse for this wicked deed was, as always, anti-elitist. The perpetrators were not satisfied with tearing things down. They wanted to pave over the future and prevent varieties germinating in the next generation. What was not achieved with this concrete decree had to be accomplished with school curricula. It is this impoverished future that is our lot today.