Jante'd - More on Jante Law

Amadeus trailer (1984)

(Jante Law, Part 1)

Artists (painters, writers, film-makers, musicians, ahem, DJs...), the narcissistic and self-centred creatures they are, live in constant fear. That fear is of competition, that a new hero/heroine will come up; being more talented, more creative, more innovative, more outspoken; outsmarting and making obsolete our poor narcissist, who will find out s/he is only a derivative hack feeding off other people's ideas and creating nothing essentially new in the process. Therefore, it will become necessary to eliminate the new contenders, whatever it takes, put them to their real place in the pecking order.

One of the most well-known case histories of this process of the artistic rival's elimination is featured in Milos Forman's 1984 biopic Amadeus, which depicts the intrigues and plots of composer Antonio Salieri to get rid of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose talent Salieri is fiercely envious and afraid of. (It's better not to get into any possible historical inaccuracies here, such as Tom Hulce's take of Mozart as a giggling punk rocker of his time -- the fabulist film-makers just want to tell as juicy story as possible to delight the viewers, not historians.)

Salieri's behaviour here is basically Jante Law in action, though usually its mechanisms are of more devious and invisible nature, much harder to detect. That is because there might not be found only one jealous Salieri to put spokes in the wheels but apparently a whole establishment (of rivalling artists and other cultural gatekeepers of the art world), as if designed to make our poor talent's life hard -- and this is also where conspiracy theories begin.

Is our artist only a paranoid imagining things, or is someone actually plotting to block his/her way, speaking bad things of him/her behind his/her back and generally making things difficult for him/her? Even worse than actual attacks on the artist's work and person or negative criticism might be the "conspiracy of silence", as if s/he was silenced to death by the lack of any feedback whatsoever.

Thus is born another martyr, another artist misunderstood by his/her peers, another victim of persecution syndrome. (Not to speak about other possible discriminating factors, depending on our artist's gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation, political views and so on: just open any art mag or culture pages of your morning paper for any desperate outcries and extra evidence.) Our artist was "Jante'd". Of course, there is no real way to know, but "being paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you". (Though personally, more than conspiracy theories, I always put more weight to just incompetence, people's laziness, prejudices and comfort-seeking nature that prevents them looking for any new viewpoints outside their small circles of acquaintances or "good old boys", comfort zones, current trends or "the tried and true".)

Naturally, it's possible our artist, that poor and sensitive spring daisy, may have only him/herself to blame, having just rubbed too many people the wrong way. Being a creative one doesn't always fit together with having a wholesome personality, being a nice, jovial bloke or lass, and many of them/us are -- let's face it -- just irritating twats with overblown egos.

We don't like obnoxious or boastful personalities, because it is as if they pose a threat to our own existence. Any self-hype makes us wary. We don't like forked tongues, slimy showbiz types, obvious fly-by-nights but most of all, we don't like people who blow their own horn too avidly: especially if they are potential rivals.

Or then, maybe our artist actually is talentless, despite his/her delusions to the contrary, so the Jante process of elimination only does a great service to the rest of the world.

The Jante Law

Aksel Sandemose, the inventor of Jante Law

Jante Law was developed by Danish-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose (1899 - 1965) in his novel En flyktning krysser sitt spor ("A fugitive crosses his tracks", 1933). There Sandemose describes life in an imaginary village called Jante, which is loosely based on his own home village.

Jante Law is basically an unwritten and strict code of conduct regulating all fields of life and guaranteeing not one individual will rise above the rest, under the threat of all sorts of social sanctions, common disapproval and so on. These hierarchies and "pecking orders" will take care that only those members who will agree to play along the rules will subsist, and those diverting from the path will be cast aside. Jante Law is considered especially a Scandinavian phenomenon, distinctive of relatively tiny, close-knit societies of "small village mentality", but also Australia, New Zealand and Canada are said to have something similar, called "Tall Poppy Syndrome".

Lately Jante Law came up in Finnish domestic discussion when it was claimed Panu Rajala, the author of Unio Mystica, a biography of the legendary Finnish writer Mika Waltari, lost the acclaimed Finlandia Prize only because the Prize Board members thought Mr. Rajala's "celebrity status" -- the author often featured on the pages of ladies' magazines and so on -- prevented the book in question having any real "literary merit" in the eyes of the Board and thus from receiving the Prize many thought Rajala's book deserved.

Other examples in Finnish cultural life are countless; just every time when it's a question of the artists' job opportunities, grants and common recognition, being the source of endless bitterness for those hapless individuals who consider themselves being discriminated by "the System" or even by "the Mafia" (i.e. the cultural gatekeepers such as critics, curators, publishers and so on).

The late Finnish artist Kalervo Palsa, known for his morbid and grotesque paintings and comics depicting sex and death, kept Jante Law as his motto sign on the wall.

Jante Law:

1. Don't think you are anything.
2. Don't think you are as good as us.
3. Don't think you are smarter than us.
4. Don't fancy yourself better than us.
5. Don't think you know more than us.
6. Don't think you are greater than us.
7. Don't think you are good for anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think that anyone cares about you.
10. Don't think you can teach us anything.

Jante'd - More on Jante Law