Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Side 58

Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Side 58
56 ONCE WERE MEN is practically impossible to live completely anonymously, and lonestars cannot change identity - become Atlantic cowboys or urban youth - without patience and big efforts. Lonestars can only be invisible at home, be- cause as soon as they go out and enter any social gathering they get categorized and even stigmatised. For some lonestars it is easier to get life success if they take a big step and move out of the country, to a com- pletely new environment, and get a fresh start with tabula rasa, than to try to integrate into local society. Glocal pragmatics Pragmatic young men are persons that move, easily and unimpeded, between the main groups - Atlantic cowboys and urban youth - according to personal strategies, even if they find it difficult to take the old- style macho-values of the cowboys seri- ously. They are flexible and practical men taking advantage of both groups depending on the context in question. Pragmatics should not be interchanged with persons po- sitioned in the grey border zone between cowboys and urban youths. Pragmatic boys are not mixing groups, neither dissolving borders, because they are negotiators or bricoleurs dependent on both groups and their bipolar contrasts in order to enhance personal social status and reputation. They are clever postmodern opportunists without substantial ideologies to define their mas- culine identities. Some pragmatics are cul- tural chameleons avoiding threatening op- ponents through strategic harmless ‘outsider ‘positions. Many pragmatics are foreigners living in the Faroe Islands, but also Faroese men retuming home after years in exile are to be found in the category. Glocal prag- matics are often persons in an unusual tran- sitional phase of life - changing job, reli- gion, residence, friends, etcetera - that emancipate them temporarily from strong social and family ties. Pragmatics might be foreign exchange students staying in the country for a year or less. Faroese pragmat- ics are very often career-oriented adventur- ers establishing untraditional alliances in their business ventures. They are spiders with invisible ever-changing social web sys- tems. Pragmatics are solution-oriented career- minded people, often very independent, self- confídent and economically well-off, that combine local and global cultural identities and build bridges in Faroese society. Some of the pragmatics are aggressive material- ists smelling money at long distance. The concept ‘bricoleur’, as Levi-Strauss defines it, fits very well to the pragmatics, as they have the necessary cultural capital and prac- tical skills enabling them to move around in society and even trigger deep societal changes. They are entrepreneurs with suc- cess in periods of societal growth and fail- ure in depressions. Their curriculum is a roller-coaster. Their strength is, so to say, also tbeir weak point. They are flexible, still very sensible. Pragmatics are in general pro- gressive key-players in the formal and in- formal decision-making processes in soci- ety. The border region between the urban youth and pragmatics is quite fluid as many young people could be placed into both cat- egories. Young academics, people with
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