“Trägårdh and his collaborator—a well-known Swedish historian and journalist named Henrik Berggre—put together their observations on individualism and formulated something they called “the Swedish theory of love.” The core idea is that authentic love and friendship are possible only between individuals who are independent and equal. This notion represents exactly the values that I grew up with and that I feel are most dear to Finns as well as people from the other Nordic nations, not just Swedes, so I like to call it “the Nordic theory of love.” For the citizens of the Nordic countries, the most important values in life are individual self-sufficiency and independence in relation to other members of the community.”

— Anu Partanen

Prologue
The Nordic Theory of Everything

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Anu Partanen 12

journalist 1975

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“I can not figure out what Swedish culture is. I think that's what makes many Swedes jealous of immigrant groups. You have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things.”

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Mona Sahlin in a speech to the Turkish youth organization Euroturk, March, 2002 http://turkiskaungdomsforbundet.blogspot.com/2010/11/euroturk-pa-natet.html

“I am so 100 percent Swedish… Someone has said a Swede is like a bottle of ketchup — nothing and nothing and then all at once — splat. I think I'm a little like that.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

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“Love unifies by individuating and individuates by unifying. At what moment do lovers come into the most perfect possession of themselves as individuals if not when they are most lost in each other? Self, is given up, but "he who loses his self will find it."”

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Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

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2005-09