- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
That’s not why I posted this here, though:
The government will also probe the possibility of outlawing the political use of certain symbols, including the swastika as used by Nazi Germany as well as the hammer and sickle that appeared on the former Soviet Union flag.
🇫🇮 🔥 
The comment on fat shaming made something click for me in my experience since I moved here. One of my coworkers has this weird obsession with not being fat, or more specifically, not being construed to be unhealthy. When the group decides where to eat lunch, they will interject weird comments about how this or that food like a sandwich is inherently unhealthy … and then they will vote to eat at an Indian place instead. Never mind that it’s all the same macros, in different form… what is “unhealthy” is just whatever foods arbitrarily have negative associations.
You are right about many Finns not understanding racism. That’s true of most places I guess. It does take a distinct flavor here though.
Yes, this discussion is also what we grow up with. Every single food choice is noted and people always feel like they need to justify it if they decide to eat a piece of cake in public. Especially in work settings. It is like an endless bargaining game to earn the status of “the best performer” within these very narrow social norms.
Diet talk and pushing that to people who are for example unemployed is also common. I work with folks who like to remind the poors that if they just lost weight their life would get better. A lack of empathy and zero understanding of anything structural is a pretty common trait regardless of education level here.
Individualism as it is framed in neoliberalism has fit into the mindset here perfectly. If something happens to a person, it’s always on them. People have also internalized this exceptionally well. Be it getting sick or losing a job, the fault is always on the individual. If someone tries to point out they got laid off just because capitalism, this is treated like “yea sure”. But at the end of the day everyone thinks they are themselves just expectional enough that it can’t happen to them, but it is ok and reasonable when it happens to others.
The capitalist apologia here is next level, even landlords are commonly framed as fully good actors who get treated with a lot of sympathy.
But I suppose this is pretty common in all the neoliberal hells of today.
The food thing sticks out to me because growing up, my parents were strict about my eating habits and subtly negged me about it. I was afraid to be caught grabbing a snack and felt shameful if they saw me eating outside the primary meals. It is amazing that I don’t have an eating disorder today — I simply brute forced their acceptance of my eating habits with pure angst in my teenage years. I’ve always had a healthy bodyweight and my parents were both obese, so it was easy to decide they didn’t know shit about nutrition.
Agree on the individualism stuff too, I’m definitely sensing that here. Still learning the culture though.