As I came to the tram stop at Kungsportsplatsen in downtown Gothenburg I saw a young man taking pictures of an iPhone advertisement with his cell. Someone had taped political art over the ad. My first thought was that I had left my camera at home and would miss an excellent photo. (I use an old cell phone that cannot take pictures. Why do I stick to such primitive technology? –Because I know it irks you.)

The paper posted over the iPhone read “Communicate more”. Between the two figures depicted on the paper was written “bla bla bla bla”. I looked around. “Does anyone else see this?” No.

When the guy was finished he turned around. I pointed to the ad and said, “I should’ve taken a picture of you taking a picture of the ad”.

But he didn’t hear me. He politely raised his hand and said he had earplugs in. He dug for a while beneath his long, well groomed hair and I wondered if he wasn’t pretending he had earplugs in because he didn’t want to talk. Then he frowned and firmly grasped and removed the left earplug. The right one came out much easier. He seemed to want to listen. I smiled and repeated myself. I added “I feel like I’m standing between two mirrors that go off into an infinite regress”.

What I didn’t think of was this, that the infinite regress was the infinite progress of capitalist reinvention and market expansion. What I didn’t think of was this, that the mirrors were cell phones and the reflections were everyone’s “bla bla bla” chattering on for what seems like forever.

Affably he answered “Yes. It’s good. And the thing is, it’s so true”.

“Yep” I said. Quiet struck us and a paranoid sweat ran through me.

What were we talking about and which levels were we talking about it on? And why did he have earplugs in? Did he have tinnitus, had he forgotten to take the earplugs out at work, did he normally try to avoid contact with others by keeping earplugs in as opposed to having the token iPOD appendages lodged in his skull? No… He had a new cell phone. It was much newer than mine. “He probably uses it much more than I do on mine. His clothes are nicer than mine so he can probably afford expensive cell phone bills” I reasoned.

The thoughts behind our exchange caved in on themselves. There was nothing more we could say and I disappeared from the platform with the next tram.

On the tram I goaded a photographer friend to come into town in the afternoon and meet me at Kungsportsplatsen to get a picture of the ad.

When I met him it was still there. This time a couple was hugging beside it. (Picture courtesy of David Relan.)

The ad illustrates that the cell phone industry creates a market (through reflection) of a dimension where a certain kind of talk can happen. You didn’t know you needed it, but you want it. Bored, stupid, or both, we simply buy the means and communicate more. Bla. Bla. Bla. A fractal chattering into the void.

Last week I was at a party and met a girl who said she always had music and headphones with her when she took public transportation. “Why” I asked. “Because I get so angry at people. I can’t stand hearing them” she said. Many of us can identify with this sentiment and it is the reason why I have only used headphones in public transportation twice in the past four years. Because unless a strong whim to listen to music hits me, I refuse to block out the world of public transportation. Regardless how much it irritates me, I keep my ears open, to listen, to learn, vigilantly awaiting the unlikely chance that someone might speak and say something perplexing or interesting, or that they might be asking for help. Indeed, let us communicate more, but not exclusively mediated through compulsive and determinate technologies we must pay for.

Several people I know have iPods. I have no interest in getting one. I also lack the money. I do however have a favorite function on the iPod and it is not the click wheel, nor the library functions, nor the trendy alternative value and “credz” it gives you. My favorite function is the cowbell. Why? Because it is so grotesque. It is the epitome of the unnecessary and for that reason it is the crowning achievement of the iPod. In that sense I relish that certain cell phone companies sell us more communication, because this in all its excess is grotesque enough to enjoy. My second most favorite iPod function is the very exponential function that the buyers perform when they are seen with iPods on town, at concerts, at the university, chatting about upgrades, the latest models and who’s going to buy them.

Many argue that cell phones caught on earlier in Sweden than elsewhere because of the text messaging functions. Swedes are reserved and unspontaneous and text messaging is a way to keep contact without being dragging into the immediate fright and decision that an actual telephone call or run-in would require. All this is reflective of a tidy, but perverted Scandinavian sexuality: the cell phone is for the orderly people who like to be alone, but pursued at a distance; it’s perfectly designed and innovated by Finns and Swedes who savor long negotiations, especially those “binding” one for 12 to 18 months. The cell phone operator is like the Swede’s one night stand that became a year and a half of boredom in front of the TV watching Melodifestivalen and Big Brother. Cell phone companies tell you how you like it and how long you like it for. In other words u OWND.

The sexual overtones are not to be underestimated. On the homepage of the phone company that published the ad I found at Kungsportsplatsen it says “Organize your contents so it’ll be easier to later synchronize your iPhone 3G” (“Ordna ditt innehåll nu så blir det lättare att senare synkronisera iPhone 3G.”). Now that sounds kinky. That is, in a Kraftwerk kind of way. Remember, communicate more and rearrange yourself how they’d like you to. Are you game? Of course you are, you’re a sublimated sex slave!

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For the past few years discussions about freedom of speech have focused on political topics that might interfere with this statutory human right. The so-called Mohammed drawings, the Social Democrats possibly forbidding anonymous internet connections, and internet surveillance and registration of opinions through the recently passed FRA-law.

Historically freedom of speech and freedom of the press are codependent. In the 15th Century the printing press gave many Europeans the ability to quickly and more freely spread their opinions. Reading printed books was also a way of acquiring and creating new ideas. The printing press lead to a many centuries’ long struggle with censorship that we still partake in. I’m reminding you of this because the Swedish government’s earliest encounters with the printing press were despotic, but in 1766 Sweden was the first country to legally secure the freedom of the press.

The internet, like the printing press, spreads information quickly, gives us new ideas and gives rise to new ideas. Like the printing press the internet has had rough times in its primitive stages. The essential similarity between the two is an introduction of new information technology that, in its freest use, infringes on the knowledge monopolies of churches, government, record companies, the film industry and publishing houses.

Sweden has a high-tech profile. Internet use is comparatively high. The population is well-educated, literate and relatively well-informed. Since the weather is often inclement and it’s difficult to get to know people AFK the internet has become a more important means of entertainment and gathering than in most other countries. Consequently there is a fierce and well-informed public that protects any infringement on internet exchange.

The current controversy about freedom of speech and surveillance on the internet, as well as the Swedish government’s and American corporations’ reactions to The Pirate Bay’s boastful services, are the issues flooding the Swedish blogosphere. Also due to recently introduced laws (FRA and IPRED) and the trial against The Pirate Bay, the most quarrelsome area of the dispute is whether copyrighted material should be free on the internet, and consequently how this ties into individual privacy.

Basically the issues are the same as elsewhere. The difference being that Sweden is a very small country where low profile politicians are being pummeled by international corporatism. To anyone who sees this they deflect attention and pathos with rhetoric about “terrorism” and “enemies of the state”–the two reasons why we “really” need surveillance. In this state Sweden now has symbolic responsibility for the world to make legal precedents about copyright. That all this is happening in Sweden, a country in the world’s periphery, is something that interests me and reminds me that the situation itself reflects the internet: decentralized and pluralistic, with an ever-growing ability for the periphery to take part in and affect the whole.

The guys behind The Pirate Bay will unlikely be physically reprimanded for their eventual assistance to copyright infringement like William Tyndale who was strangled burned at the stake for publishing the Bible in English and thus assisting common people to share knowledge the Church wanted to retain its monopoly over. Instead it now seems that Swedish internet users as a whole are suffering more than people behind The Pirate Bay: the media fury has incited a polarized debate and influenced ill-informed politicians to let moralist inclinations punish all Swedes for what some see as the unlikeable behavior of a few internet pirates who wanted to spread information.

Like RIAA, Gustav Vasa (King of Sweden 1523-1560) couldn’t control the dissemination of knowledge. Gustav Vasa’s reaction was to shut down all but one printing press in Stockholm (within reach of the Royal Palace). He argued that several printing presses would cause the printing industry to collapse. Sound familiar? His impaired reasoning parallels the argumentation we see today against the free propagation of information on the internet. The same principle of control is also invoked by the FRA-law: this law channels all international internet transmissions through a handful of state controlled nodes.

The recently passed FRA-law, called a STASI-law by some of its opposition, gives NSA-like surveillance authority to the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment. In 2008 Swedish protesters reminded us that the world’s electronic communications are already surveilled by Anglo-Saxon computer systems like Echelon, but that we Swedes had the chance to influence and prevent the surveillance locally.

The nationwide protests against the FRA-law in 2008 had little impact. In 2009 the shady law came into power. Critics have pointed out that the press’ informant protection is thereby revoked: in practice the surveillance of anyone means that the press no longer has right to choose which sources it discloses. All sources are already disclosed.

The argument goes: if the National Defence Radio Establishment is surveilling all traffic that goes beyond Swedish borders how can journalists’ freedom of disclosure be secured? Simple answer: it can’t. As a representative of the National Defence Radio Establishment commented about the theoretical situation where a journalist’s sources were revealed in a communication that got caught in the search word dragnet, and then read by a defense specalist, the FRA-specialist would kindly discard the message and pretend like they never saw it.

In June of 2008 the Pirate Party of Gothenburg held a wake for the press’s freedom to informant protection. On a plaque on the stairs beneath a statue of the autocrat Gustav II Adolf (King of Sweden 1611-1632) it said:

“Our beloved

Informant protection

16 jul 1812
-
18 juni 2008

has been taken away from us.
Mourned and missed by all democrats.
-The Pirate Party”

Despite all this, the aspect of freedom of speech I am more interested in is not the legal, but the social. Therefore, I admit, I went through the historical and current events to lead up to this.

Freedom of speech is upheld by law in Sweden–to what extent is now questionable. But is freedom of speech upheld by the moral code? I am not so sure. Swedes, although more liberal than many others, are exceptionally cautious about saying what might be incongruous with the mentality of the company they’re in. Many are often so careful about saying what they think that foreigners doubt they think anything. A friend who recently moved he from Canada said, “I feel like I meet the same person with the same opinions over and over and over again”–true or not it is a precious observation.

Swedes have been noted for disagreeing by taking up their disagreement either very rationally, or by censuring what they want to state, because “så kan man inte säga”. (This expression translates to “you just can’t say that”. Unfortunately the translation conceals the very invocation of the resounding, rational, conversationally diplomatic cacophony of Swedes saying “så kan man inte säga”.)

In Swedish the freedom of speech is called “yttrandefriheten”: the freedom to say or utter. What is meant by freedom and what is meant by saying, by uttering?

At a seminar I was recently at, the Swedish idea-historian Sven Eric-Liedman quoted (Rosa Luxemburg, if I remember correctly) that “freedom is for those who think differently”. Is freedom of speech thus not only a freedom of the press but also a freedom of thought?

Is the freedom to utter a freedom that makes you think you can teach something?
Is freedom thus something un-Swedish? Something that goes against Jantelagen?

“Att yttra” (“to utter”) comes from German’s “äussern”, to declare. Many find Swedish a very direct, declarative language. But anyone who knows Swedes also knows that politically declarative statements are not common here.

I can’t shake it. What is it to utter? Have Swedes’ utterings changed since they founded the right to free speech? The internet certainly did not exist in 1766. New ways of uttering have arisen–how are they used? How are they controlled? Yttrandefriheten, the freedom of speech, should also be expansive, encompass new mediums and most importantly the new horizons that Swedes wish to explore in thought and declaration. The freedom of speech should almost be an imperative: you who are free, speak!

More info
S vill förbjuda anonymitet på nätet
(S) vill täppa till Ipred-luckor
Förbjud anonyma tidningsköp, brev och samtal – Nya Socialdemokraterna
New law increases demand for anonymous web surfing
IPRED: S vill förbjuda anonymitet och öppna nätverk
Socialdemokrater och de Rödgröna vill införa något som är värre än IPRED
Den barocka rättegången mot TPB
FRA hotar inte yttrandefriheten
FRApedia
EU-nej till övervakning på internet
Pär Ströms nya blogg: Stoppa store bror
“FRA-lagen medför massiv kartläggning av oskyldiga”‘
Friheten krymper på internet

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In Sweden a republican is someone who opposes the monarchy. In that case I am an armchair republican and a mouthy one at that.

Sweden’s monarchy has long been stripped of real political power, which is fine by me. Additionally, the monarch, Carl XVI Gustaf, does noticeably little to make my life uncomfortable, so I don’t find his presence all that bothersome. However, if I become flustered about it, I displace my anger at Swedish royality by joking about it with my friends. Thereby I push the blame onto them. It’s their sympathies for Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria and their despondency in the matter that keeps us in this absurd situation. A situation in which we (while standing in the shopping line or eating lunch at work) are inundated with magazine images of a monarchy that only lives on as a vestige of old times, a symbol of Swedish temperance and reluctance to radical change.

In February the biggest local media events for Sweden were the trial against The Pirate Bay and the engagement of Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria to her former gym instructor Daniel Westling. The media frenzy around the engagement unblushingly begged the question when it repeatedly stated that this “has boosted the monarchy’s popularity, a new survey from Sifo shows“. Likewise it wouldn’t be “Dramat alla älskar” (“The Drama Everyone Loves”) if Aftonbladet and similar papers weren’t reporting in dozens of articles each day about this marital union of high and low.

Most of us are probably skeptical about media polls and the motivations behind any journalist’s interpretation of statistics. So do we take it seriously when the newspapers report that most Swedes are royalists? Furthermore, one who knows Swedish culture must ask: upon being asked by a stranger if one supports the monarchy, wouldn’t most Swedes (due to their deep sense of humility and fear of rocking the boat) simply say yes? I believe so. Most Swedes I have known would find it embarrassing to give the answer that might seem offensive. That is to say, things are going well for Crown Princess Victoria and, as Jantelagen‘s superego demands to know, who are you to say you disapprove?

Despite the country’s alleged swelling royalist sentiments, Swedish humility and humanism have flared up in reaction to the engagement. Sweden’s republican organization (RepF) has gotten media attention for criticizing the monarchy and the wedding. RepF plaintively asks a generally uninterested Swedish public whether it wants a fully party-politcal, religiously unbiased system that strives for the ideal of equality, or whether it wants to remain an infantile dolt, charmed by the romance of power through birth right.

Many exasperated Swedes have commented that the timing is perfect. So perfect that conspiracy theories have welled up in reaction to the wedding plans. Even the media has noticed this grain of paranoia. Journalists have written that the wedding date (set for early summer 2010) will also coincide with the 200th anniversary of the founding of The House of Bernadotte in Sweden. Critics have suspected Victoria followed her heart and chose a common man in order to fill Swedes’ fantasy at a time when the economy is draining Swedes’ spirits. Critics have also said Abba was played at the engagement ceremony to neutralize any feelings of inferiority–yet as many of us already know power and snobbery are discouraged from being publicly displayed in Sweden. This engagement, critics imply, is a festival that mixes regality and servility to distract Swedes at a time when nothing good is on TV and Swedish retirement savings are being depleted along with much of the world’s wealth.

Despite the spectacle of Victoria and Daniel’s engagement, economic concerns still keep us grounded. Many royalist fantasies burst with the question of money: who’s going to pay for the wedding? The tax payers? In a time of economic recession? This stinks like Obama’s inauguration–the most costly presidential inauguration and at a time of one of the USA’s worst economic crises.

One wonders if the question would be clearer if it weren’t a question of monarchy: yes or no. Instead we could ask each Swede: what would you like to put 150 million SEK (about $18.3 US) on instead of someone rich girl’s wedding?

According to the law, to retain their right to the throne, the King has to inform the prime minister about the engagement. The government then gets to decide the person who the princess marries. This time it’s a normal man, a Svensson. Something that’s got the royalists riled up. After all, how can the Swedish monarchs continue to sire counterfeit blue bloods? Furthermore, being someone who’s spent months and months waiting for replies from Swedish government agencies, I wonder whether the prime minister’s answer will be filtered through the government, mailed out and arrive in the Royal Family’s mailbox in time for the wedding, which is hastily set for next summer.

American journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken wrote “in every age the advocates of the dominant political theory seek to give it dignity by identifying it with whatever contemporaneous desire of man happens to be most powerful [....] Democracy does not promote liberty; it diminishes and destroys liberty”.

The relevance being that Sweden, one of the handful of countries believed to have fundamentally secured democratic values, is also a country where most of the population is positive to some form of monarchy, be it a political relic, a media spectacle or a functioning government organ. What would journalists do but cite this? What would they do but legitimize the dominant political system by supporting it with populistic sentiment?

From the beginning this engagement has been more than a royal engagement between a Crown Princess and a Svensson. It’s been an engagement between the media and the royalty, the media and its audience, Swedes and the feeling of royalty. For thinkers it is an engagement with the feedback loop of royalist ideology.

More info:
Prinsessbröllp för tiotals miljoner
Striden om monarkin hårdnar på nätet
“Förlovningen blottlägger kronprinsessans dilemma”
Förlovar sig idag
Poll: wedding boosts Sweden’s monarchy
Daniel kommer bli folkkär och respekterad
Vilken succé
Victoria utbildas till drottning
Kunligt bröllop valåret 2010 – snacka om tajmig!
Dramat alla älskar
Daniel debuterade på Victoriadagen
Republikanska Föreningen
Royalistiska Föreningen