Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Qupperneq 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