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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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My country is being exceptional again on European polls. (If you don't want to click, it's a poll on how many agree with the question "One of my main goals in life is making my parents proud", and while in most European countries well over 70% would strongly agree or agree with this statement, and even in other Nordic countries the affirmative answer ranks in the 50% range, in Finland only 25% agree.)

Some explanations I've seen:

  • The word "proud", or rather its translation, just has a different, considerably more negative connotation in Finnish. Like, if hearing this question in English, the idea of "pride" I'd get would just be a beaming parent going "So proud of you, son!" while imagining the same phrased in Finnish, using the word "ylpeä" (direct translation), has much more of a connotation of an arrogant, conceited parent going around their friends going "Oh, you didn't know my son/daughter is a doctor?"

  • even taking this into account, the Finnish/Nordic culture of "collective individualism" (which I've discussed here) might play a role

  • some have just guessed that Finns tend to answer surveys like this more honestly and bluntly, actually thinking about their priorities instead of just automatically giving the pro-social answer - yes, something of a self-serving explanation

How many here would answer this question in affirmative, anyway?

Yeah, I would not say "Make my parents proud" is actually a life goal to me but I'd certainly think twice about doing something that would move away from that direction.

Same. I don't have a strong drive to make my parents proud, but I have a VERY strong drive to not make them ashamed. To @hydroacetylene's point, it certainly helps that most of the things that would make them ashamed would be bad things in and of themselves.

I don’t feel strongly either way. I mean I like my parents but don’t respect their opinion with regards to my life goals. I don’t want kids so that’s a big issue.