Hispanic Fanatic

In my last post, I discussed how Finland was crowned the happiest country in the world for like the 19^th year in a row. In fact, all of Scandinavia is prosperous, peaceful, and delightful. 

This fact should put American conservatives in a quandary. After all, when multiple nations embrace the exact opposite of your values, and those countries go on to become the envy of the world, one would think it would constitute a strong rejection of your ideals.

But conservatives are a hardy lot. Even when total disaster befalls them, and everything they said would happen doesn’t occur, and their agenda implodes into chaos, they insist that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

One could call this perseverance. I prefer the term delusion, but perspectives vary.

In any case, conservatives have a quick answer for why the Nordic countries — all socially democratic with active governments and generous benefits for their citizens — are doing so well.

“It’s obvious,” says the conservative. “They are reaping the benefits of being small, culturally homogenous societies with little ethnic diversity.”

To the conservative, the Nordic governments prosper not because they provide universal healthcare and don’t allow their citizens to carry around assault rifles. No, they thrive because all of their citizens are white and blonde.

This is, to say the least, an interesting viewpoint. It’s also implied racism, but we will let that go for the moment.

Let’s take a look at each of these arguments in turn.

First, I agree with conservatives that smaller countries seem to be more hospitable. This is one reason why I advocate for splitting up the United States (or at least studying the idea more thoroughly). 

Huge countries like America, China, and Russia tend to devolve into unmanageable messes or international bullies. Maybe the Nordic countries have an advantage in that they don’t have to keep 300 million people happy under one system. 

However, there are large countries that seem to have their shit together, like Canada, and small countries that are hellholes, like North Korea. So this is a supporting factor at best.

What about being culturally homogenous? It makes sense that a shared culture and national character would bind a country together. However, many studies have shown that the most culturally diverse cities tend to be the safest and most productive within any given nation. So maybe we call this factor a draw.

That leaves us with the heart of the conservative argument, which is that the happiest countries don’t have a lot of foreigners running around, and most people there are the same skin hue and look like they could be related.

Again, this is an interesting position to advocate for.

To analyze this argument, let’s look at that list of nations again. According to the study, the five happiest countries, in order, are the following:

Finland 

Iceland 

Denmark 

Costa Rica 

Sweden 

Yes, those places are not exactly melting pots. But do me a favor and take a glance at the same study’s list of least-happiest nations. The five most miserable countries, in order, are the following:

Afghanistan 

Sierra Leone 

Malawi 

Zimbabwe 

Botswana

Um, those countries are even less racially diverse than the Nordic countries. 

Well, that’s a plot twist.

Now to be fair, if conservatives are talking about ethnic diversity, they may have a point, because Afghanistan, for example, is home to many different tribes, all of whom apparently hate each other. But if you’re talking about racial diversity — and let’s face it, that’s what conservatives really mean — then the conservative argument is backward. 

Places like Afghanistan and Sierra Leone have almost no racial diversity. The vast majority of the people in those nations enjoy the cultural and racial hegemony that conservatives dream of, and yet this has not led to paradise. Also, those countries have limited governments (to the point of almost nonexistent) and plenty of guns in the hands of residents, so they sound like conservative Edens.

And if we really want to get bossy, please note that the top five happiest nations, in addition to being more racially diverse than the five saddest countries, also have much higher immigration rates.

This makes sense, because if you were a refugee, would you rather escape to Denmark or Malawi? So once again, if an immigration rate of zero is your dream, you must really love Zimbabwe.

At this point, it’s fair to say that even this most fragile of conservative arguments for the success of Scandinavia is absurd. In truth, there is no logical way anyone can look at the most prosperous nations, line them up with American conservative ideals, and see a match.

So maybe conservatives are wrong about the ideal society, and perhaps we should not listen to people who want American to emulate Hungary (the 74^th happiest country in the world) rather than Norway ((the sixth happiest country in the world).I know where I would rather live. How about you?

We get into trouble when we attempt to measure unmeasurable concepts. Yes, we can assess a nation’s economic strength by crunching the numbers, and such an assessment might lead us to conclude that America is on shaky ground.

But how do we measure a country’s capacity for love and hate and perseverance and creativity? Numbers cannot gauge the quality of a culture’s food and music and horror movies. OK, we don’t need to measure that last one, because we all know Japan is number one.

In any case, the list of the world’s happiest countries recently came out, and while we cannot say this ranking is definitive or precise, it does give us some insight into the quality of life for a nation’s residents.

To no one’s surprise, the place to be right now is Scandinavia. Five of the top six spots are in that cold (but very happy) slice of Northern Europe The only non-Nordic nation to crack the upper ranks of happiness is Costa Rica, so score one for my fellow Latinos.

According to the list, the happiest country in the world is Finland. Researchers and social scientists give numerous reasons for why Finns are in a constant good mood. These factors range from economic stability to cultural tenacity to institutional trust. 

The president of Finland says that when it comes to nation-wide happiness, ‘I do not think there is a magic potion, but it helps to have a society which strives towards freedom, equality and justice.”

That all sounds vaguely woke, doesn’t it?

In any case, what these factors have in common is that none of them are based upon the rugged individualism, hyper-religiosity, patriotic fervor, and narrow definition of “liberty” that our conservative friends insist are integral to a nation’s well-being. 

In fact, Scandinavia is far removed from the “small government” libertarianism that conservatives insist is necessary for prosperity. The region is pretty much the antithesis of every conservative value, and yet it’s citizens are among the world’s happiest, safest, and most productive.

I haven’t been to Finland, but I’m going to gamble here and assert that if a guy in Helsinki shrieked that the government is plotting against him and guns are necessary for liberty, the Finnish populace would think that guy was a fucking lunatic. Then they would offer him free healthcare, because that’s a real thing there. 

So what happens here in America year after year, when these rankings come out, and they show that democratic socialism is a huge success story? Do conservatives acknowledge that low taxes for the rich and a shredded social-safety net do not lead to national happiness? Do they look at Scandinavia’s high quality of life and say, “Maybe we’re wrong to mock the homeless and demand that our citizens die if their insurance lapses?”

No, they tend to have a very different reaction. It’s one that preserves the illusion that their worldview is correct, and it ignores the obvious truth that healthy nations have no interest in adopting their simplistic ideals.

What is this reaction? I will discuss it in my next post.

Most of the people in my family are fairly cheerful people. My mom, in particular, is the most upbeat and optimistic person I’ve ever met.

It’s a little odd, in that nobody in my family is a millionaire, and we’ve all had our fair share of traumas. And yet, here we are, apparently happier than your average stressed-out American.

And a recent study found that Latin America is arguably the happiest place on Earth. Yes, even with all the region’s socioeconomic problems, residents of Latin America don’t sweat the small stuff.

Why is this?

Well, I’ve written before about the Latino tendency to be positive, even in the face of grim news and dreary statistics. But I recently came across a scientific theory for this relentless smiling.

Now, it’s old news that research “suggests an association between mental wellbeing and a mutation of the gene that influences the reuptake of serotonin, which is believed to be linked to human mood.”

Basically, much of our happiness, or lack thereof, may be traced to our genetic makeup.

Scientists have found that the Scandinavian population is most likely to have this gene. This may be one reason why Denmark, Finland, and other counties in that region perennially rank as the happiest nations on Earth.

Of course, a progressive government that ensures a high standard of living for their citizens may have something to do with that perpetual singsong attitude. But let’s not dwell on that because it’s, you know, socialism.

In any case, additional research has found that like the Scandinavians, Latin Americans are “more likely to contain a specific allele involved in sensory pleasure and pain reduction.”

As such, Latin Americas and Scandinavians are more likely to be chipper than, say, the Chinese or the Iraqis (of course, there are very real non-genetic reasons for their respective unhappiness too).

Is it possible, then, that as more Hispanics intermarry and intermingle and inter-you-know-what, they will spread their happiness genes among more and more Americans?

Hey, there’s only one way to find out.

 

There is no room for second place.…If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?

—Vince Lombardi

 

Recently, I wrote that American education pales in comparison to other countries’ school systems.

But America is still the place for those hardworking, ambitious people who want a better life, right? After all, one reason so many Latinos have come to the USA is that it is the land of opportunity.

Well, when it comes to social mobility — the cornerstone of the American Dream — we have more of a caste system than most industrialized nations, so “if you want your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder higher than you did, move to Canada.”

To continue reading this post, please click here.

 

 

Certain concepts are so ingrained in the American character that we rarely question them. Among them is the idea that we’re tops in everything. We’re “the greatest country in the world.”

But the truth is that, in many ways, we’re far from the greatest. When it comes to education, for example, we’re average at best.

To continue reading this post, please click here.