Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.08.2016, Síða 8

The villain of the issue this issue is
“freedom of speech,” a concept that
has been getting the shit kicked out
of it lately. And by that we don’t mean
the actual legal definition of freedom
of speech, i.e., that everyone is free to
express themselves or criticise the ex-
pression of others. We mean the kind
of “freedom of speech” that bigots refer
to whenever met with the mildest criti-
cism. Local xenophobic call-in radio sta-
tion Útvarp Saga is especially guilty of
this kind of hypocrisy—they are the first
to cite freedom of speech when they claim,
with zero evidence, that asylum seekers
have ties to Daesh, and the first to claim
that their freedom is being oppressed
whenever someone points out they’re rac-
ist shitbags. Freedom of speech has be-
come a cudgel with which to bludgeon and
stifle criticism and critical thought, and is
used instead to give a platform for hateful,
unexamined bigotry, and it’s for this rea-
son that freedom of speech is this issue’s
Villain of the Issue.
The hero of the issue this issue is Lí-
monaði. If you have not yet tried this
Icelandic lemon soda then you are truly
lacking goodness in your life. Icelan-
dic soft drinks are always a roll of the
dice, some far better than others, but
Límonaði is lightyears ahead of some
of the ubiquitous standards out there.
For one, it contains triple the amount
of lemon juice compared to more ex-
pensive, imported, hipster lemonades
with names like Mr. Tweed’s Inscru-
table Cloudy Lemonade Beverage,
while costing far less. Second, it is lit-
erally, and without hyperbole, the best
summertime drink ever created in the
known history of the universe. It re-
minds you that yes, some Icelandic soft
drinks aren’t actually ambiguous syrup
with soda water dumped into them, but
are actually delicious and refreshing.
Límonaði represents everything right
about Iceland, and it is for this reason
that it is this issue’s Hero of the Issue.
HERO OF
THE ISSUE
VILLAIN OF
THE ISSUELímonaði “Free” Speech
Andrew Rich/iStockArt Bicnick
Fish Unaware
Of Water
What America Can Learn
From Iceland About Creativity
Psychologist, teacher of counselling
psychology and endowed chair at the
University of Kansas Barbara Kerr spe-
cialises in the psychology of creative
individuals, with a particular focus on
adolescents and young adults. In the
course of her research, she discovered
firsthand some stark differences be-
tween Icelandic and American public
policy towards creative people, and
shared what she’s found with us.
What drew your attention to Iceland in
particular?
My personal story is that my daugh-
ter was dissatisfied with the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago. After
seven years there, she found she was
not finding the community that she
needed. We had taken a short trip to
Iceland, and she said, “I need to move
to Iceland.” Which she did, in 2011, and
plans to stay. She found her creative
community here and I don’t think
she’ll ever leave.
What were the main differences she
noticed between Iceland’s creative
community and Chicago’s (which I
would’ve expected is vibrant)?
It’s a rich creative community [in
Chicago], but more like rich in terms
of wealth. There, the emphasis is on
competitiveness instead of collabora-
tiveness. In Iceland, she found a spirit
of collaboration. In Chicago, she found
an increasing interest in elitist art;
performance art that was accessible
to very few people; an increasing em-
phasis on the interests of the afflu-
ent. In Iceland, she found that art was
much more grounded, more earthy,
more connected. Ordinary enjoyment
of beauty and surprise. There was also
the ease with which artists can find
one another, and find a sense of com-
munity in Iceland.
Now, like a lot of people who come
to Iceland, I had an idealised version
of the country. You know, happiest
people, safest country, that kind of
thing. What I found is that, as Politi-
fact would put it, this is mostly true.
I learned rapidly, from talking to my
daughter’s friends, that young people
spend an extended time here in their
“first jobs”: coffeehouses, tourism,
that sort of thing. It’s hard to live in
Reykjavík; the cost of living is very ex-
pensive for young people. It was clear
that her life, and those of other artists,
musicians and writers was just as fru-
gal here as it is back home.
Another surprise is that we thought
everyone would acknowledge how cre-
ative Iceland is. They would disagree,
and then immediate launch into a
complaint. Usually because they have
no idea what it’s like in the United
States. One interesting conclusion
that my students came to was the “cul-
ture of complaint” in Iceland. This
idea that it’s never good enough. This
actually spurs people on, to do better,
to do more. So you don’t find the com-
placency that you might expect.
Was your daughter’s experience the
impetus for putting this together and
bringing your students over here?
That was part of it. Another part of it
is that in the US, creative people—es-
pecially creative young people—are
losing hope. This isn’t an opinion;
this is the result of our research at the
University of Kansas Department of
Education. Comparing 2006 and 2016
cohorts, we found that young people
now experience a much higher level
of anxiety, hostility, and introversion.
We started seeing, for the first time,
enormous increases in young people
who had suicidal thoughts, that they
had lost all hope. I felt we needed to do
something to help these young people.
A way to compose a life in what I con-
sider to be a deteriorating capitalistic
society.
And what have you found so far on this
latest visit to Iceland?
We met with an extended Icelandic
family and asked them questions
about their experiences with the edu-
cation system here. We asked them,
for example, about “innovation educa-
tion,” something that has been in place
in Iceland since the 90s but isn’t very
widely found outside of Scandinavia.
This means giving children hands-on
work, such as learning to knit, wood-
working, being able to use power tools.
But these Icelanders we spoke to acted
like fish in water who are unaware of
the presence of water—to them, this is
all completely ordinary.
One young man we spoke with
downplayed matters by saying, “Oh,
we’re just having a poetry craze right
now.” The idea of a “poetry craze” in
America would be something for The
Onion.
How many of these differences
between Iceland’s education system
and America’s education system do you
think are culturally or politically based?
I would say they are politically based.
Americans suffer from a false populist
belief in the intellect; the idea that we
all start out equally, we all have equal
ability, and anybody can be creative.
In the US, the idea is to slow down the
kids who are doing well, so that they’ll
get along socially with the other chil-
dren. There’s only one field in which
American children are allowed to
move as fast as their skills will take
them, and that’s athletics.
What was the most surprising thing
you encountered in Iceland’s creative
scene?
The casual acceptance of creativity
as a part of life, and the celebration
of creative people. I think people saw
with their own eyes what encourag-
ing creativity did for the country after
the crash. There’s somewhat of a cli-
ché that after the crash, all Icelanders
learned how to knit. However, what I
saw is, the country experiences a fi-
nancial crash, and a nation searches
desperately for any way to bring in dol-
lars and euros, and found the best way
to do that is to encourage arts, culture,
science and technology.
What can the US learn from Iceland
when it comes to public policy towards
the creative arts?
First, all policymakers need to accept
that individual differences are real.
That creative children should be found
early and encouraged. And by encour-
aged I mean not cutting funding for
arts and music, or technology. The
funding needs to increase for that. But
we also need to celebrate and appreci-
ate creative people, like they do here.
But another really important point is
this: leave them alone. I find that Ice-
landic kids have so much more time on
their own. That alone time is so criti-
cal to the development of the imagina-
tion. Here, social solitude is not seen
as a sign of social failure, but as a
choice. I think that in the US, we need
to let kids play, leave kids alone, don’t
force them to do activities they don’t
want to do, and don’t be too concerned
about them being alone. Social skills
are not all they’re cracked up to be.
“One young man we spoke with
downplayed matters by saying,
(Oh, we’re just having a poetry
craze right now). The idea of a
(poetry craze) in America would
be something for The Onion.”
INTERVIEW
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2016
8
Words
PAUL
FONTAINE
Photo
YOUTUBE
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