Every time you look away society becomes a bit harder and colder.

 This is something I wrote about 5 years ago. I have since that time grown up a bit and changed view on some details, but the core of this stands. It seemed still actual and therefore I am posting this, partially inspired by recent events and how society has developed over time. 5 years seems short, and it is short, but it's still quite some time.  

It's not that long ago when people abroad saw Sweden as a role model amongst other countries. It was more or less just 20 years ago. And even if Sweden still has a good reputation, as well as the living standard here and the choices an individual can make are many, more free and as it seems better than in a lot of other places, it's not the same as it used to be.

Today Sweden is more similar to the rest of the world. For better or worse.

When you look at the streets it looks more similar to what I have written about earlier and somewhat warned about, the Baltic's during the 90s. There was hypercapitalism accompanied by busted banks, pyramid schemes and other things that were everything but contributing to a stable society. Here we have instead care businesses and education businesses that through more or less advanced methods draw money from some things that even more expressed capitalist countries see upon as something that should be perhaps without the usual form of profit and more to the benefit of the public.

We have had a whole parade of neo-liberal economic "circus" effects that that contributed to many being able feeling themselves rich on loans, all while our infrastructure and our in many cases at least partial independence slowly crumbles and is substituted for a dependence and vulnerability. (Strange tax phenomenons, experiments with fundamental tax that have changed the tax system, reductions, making away with the property tax - which has contributed to a somewhat runaway pricing, etc)

In short - we have all lived on "moms" and "dads" and also our grandparents cash and work results in a sense. That they have made once in the past when the economy was really good, made it possible to build societies, roads, bridges, houses etc that were built for more at that time than there where people in Sweden then, all that has been enough until recently, when it's has started to crumble. Now new things and investments are needed.

Thanks to all this, we've been able to feel us rich the latest decades, and have a affluence that is more or less luxurious.

At the same time we rarely see those individuals that built all this and also brought up current generations and that have had all in all a good life. We hear about the elder ones when the hospital and medical care doesn't work, because they are rarely seen outdoors.

And now - there are beggars in the streets. For different reasons. But with the difference that they are not violent at least.

But slowly, step by step, everyone seems to be getting used to it.  The changes brought by small steps.

But for every time you look away society become slightly rougher ever time.

Every time you get more used to it and soon stop reacting to it. But hope at the same time that it will never be you or affect you.

That life will continue to be carefree, that the inflation will "eat" the loans, that the worth (of your housing) will continue to rise and that the problems can be kept at a distance with more money.

But what happens if you fall ill?

Or if you loose your job? Or your partner does it?

How will you explain to the kids that they are not allowed to play with the poorer children? Or why the other kids parents can't afford those things you can and the poor children behave badly towards your kids because of that?

Or how will you make them (your kids) put an effort in future good education and professions - not at least if they don't have talent for that but for something else, and maybe if they at the same time turn out to be egotistical assholes that will abandon you when you are old and uninteresting? Are you willing to take the risk?

But every time you look away it comes closer. Because you don't take a stand and let it or something else continue having it's (bad) way.  The nation/state/society is after all you, me, the neighbors and everyone else together.

This encompasses everything from not reacting if someone behaves badly, shouts at a beggar,  considers him/herself standing over others, beats his/hers wife/man/child/dog/cat, if the train is on time, mass surveillance, or the percentage that is the difference between politicians A's proposal versus politician's B's proposal - or just don't take the time to put you in a problems by hoping it disappears by itself.

Democracy is not self-evident.

People have fought and died for it.

The laxity that exists today on so many levels with an attitude that democracy is something self-evident and self-sustaining is bizarre. It has come to permeate large parts of society.  If you look away too much and think that everything only happens to others, then you are risking awakening one day in a similar situation or in a dictatorship, that you have plunged you and your kids into yourself.

Think about that next time you look at yourself in the mirror. 

/Teheimar