The Finnuit

Edward Dutton

The Finnuit

Finnish Culture and the Religion of Uniqueness

ISBN ISBN 978 963 05 9099 0

© Edward Dutton, 2009

Published by Akadémiai Kiadó

Member of Wolters Kluwer Group

P.O. Box 245, H-1519 Budapest, Hungary

www.akademiaikiado.hu

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

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without the written permission of the publisher.

I dedicate this book to my beloved wife Mimmi

Hungry for the true religion.

Then will Suomi need my coming,

Watch for me at dawn of morning …

Väinömöinen in Kalevala (Rune L).

(Lönnrot 1888)

Then he called to me, “Look! Those going toward

the north country have given my Spirit rest in the

land of the north.”

Zechariah 6:8

PREFACE

This study is an examination of the idea that Finnish culture is somehow uniquely unique. This “unique” idea is propounded in popular and even academic literature on Finnish culture both in Finland and abroad. To be “unique” implies that Finnish culture is an incomprehensible mystery. This study will aim to make sense of this “mystery” and to “understand” Finnish culture in greater depth.

Defending the anthropological method, the comparative method and the “culture” category, this study will argue that the term “unique” has strongly religious dimensions and reflects a functionally religious discourse. It will further note that “understanding” tends to be gained through comparison – or academic metaphor – and it will propose two comparisons in order to “understand” Finland’s “mysterious” culture. Firstly, it will compare Finland to Japan – another culture which has successfully propounded the idea that it is “unique”. It will argue that Finland and Japan have developed uniqueness for the same reasons: most prominently as a means of holding society together at a time of defeat. Equally, it will observe that “uniqueness” has been accepted by foreigners for the same reasons (such as the perceived “otherness” of the ethnicity), implicitly questioning the uniqueness of both “unique cultures”.

Secondly, it will argue that Finnish culture can be “understood” if regarded as an Arctic culture. Drawing upon detailed fieldwork in Finland, Finnish culture will be compared to that of the Greenlandic and it will be argued that Finnish culture – in terms of what differentiates it from its Nordic neighbours – is not a mystery. Rather, it is a kind of diluted Greenland. It will note that this is a rich metaphor, drawing upon our discussion of academic metaphor, which can be built upon to further understanding. It will argue that the analogy works in terms of many profound and inter-related dimensions such as modernisation, nationalism, social class, religion, language and race. In terms of what differentiates Finland, it tightly demonstrates that it is usefully understood as an Arctic culture.

In making these points, it will argue that Finnish “uniqueness” – especially the extent to which it has penetrated academic discourse – is of wide significance. The belief that something is unique – and cannot be understood – reflects an anti-scientific discourse of submission to mystery. Science is in the tradition of refusing to submit and constantly striving to understand the world. The acceptance of Finnish culture as unique evidences this very submission and the influence in science of the religious false-rationalists. The study of Finnish culture, and its acceptance as “unique” as well as the acceptance of other false-rationalist dogmas, reflects this problem and this study hopes to contribute by attempting to confront it and open-up a deeper discussion of this important subject.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I first came to Finland in July 2003 to visit my Finnish girlfriend and I would never have dreamed at the time that I would end-up living there let alone writing a book about it. I would not have discovered Finland’s “unique” culture had it not been for my now wife Mimmi and I cannot thank her enough for everything. The comments and recollections of her family (Matti, Riitta, Reetta and Eliisa Hänninen) have also been invaluable and are much appreciated. I have asked them so many questions about Finnish culture and language and they have always been happy to answer.

I would like to thank Dr Tarja Laine for kindly writing the Foreword and for her ideas on Finnish culture. Vice-Cllr Veli-Pekka Kortelainen has provided insight about Finnish culture throughout my time in Finland and it was, partly, conversations with him that persuaded me to begin writing the book. Mr Matti McCambridge has given me thought-provoking criticism for which I am grateful. Discussions with Prof David Kirby and Mr Tom Mills have also been productive. In addition, I am indebted to Prof Timo Kaartinen who read a tentative rough draft of this book and suggested how it might be developed.

Prof Mark Nuttall’s advice on Greenlandic culture has been very useful as has that of Miss Katherine Kjaergaard, especially in relation to Greenlandic religion. Also, thanks are due to my former housemate at Leiden University, Miss Fuka Sasahara for her help with the Japanese sources. A number of people have forwarded me or directed me to literature which has been valuable in this research and, accordingly, I would like to acknowledge Prof Karen Armstrong, Prof Susanne Dybbroe, Dr Keith Hayward, Prof Juha Janhunen, Dr Karla Jessen Williamson, Dr Tarja Laine and Mr Peter Kjellberg.

Parts of this book have been published in various journals and I am beholden to the reviewers of Sociological Research, Anpere: Internet Journal of the Anthropology of Religion, Anthropology Matters, Siirtolaisuus-Migration, Antrocom: Online Journal of Anthropology and Contemporary Review for their criticisms. I am grateful to Akadémiai Kiadó for publishing this book and to the peer-reviewers for their ideas. Finally, I would like to thank everybody who took the time to be interviewed. This is primarily an academic book but I hope it will be of interest to anybody as fascinated by Finland as I am.

Edward Dutton

17th June 2009

Oulu, Finland

FOREWORD

Finland is a country that is often considered to be on the periphery with regard to its geographic, linguistic, political and cultural position; “so sadly neglected and often ignored”, as the famous Monty Python line goes. Often characterized as a unique “cultural lone wolf”, Finland is internationally known by its oddities such as Wife Carrying and Air Guitar World Championships. Recently Finland has been in the news because of the Columbine-like school shootings in 2007 and 2008 and sex scandals at ministerial level.

This intriguing study sheds light on Finland’s cultural specificity by understanding it through analogy with other cultures such as those of the Japanese and Greenlandic. By arguing that considering some cultures unique can become a hindrance to understanding, this study challenges the myth of Finnish uniqueness through a remarkably direct approach. Dr Dutton shows that when cultural understanding is set in motion it can both be shared across cultures and push the limits of nationality. By making a case for non-uniqueness, the study itself becomes unique by means of an original and distinctive kind of argumentation.

Dr Tarja Laine

University of Amsterdam

CHAPTER ONE

THE ODD ONE OUT

“Finland is home to a unique culture” claims the website Finland Travel. “Unique” is possibly the commonest word used to describe Finnish culture. Finland is “unique” because it is sometimes classed as a “Scandinavian” country but speaks a language that is unlike any other mainstream language in Scandinavia. It is “unique” because it reflects influences from both “East” and “West” – it was ruled by Sweden but also by Russia. Finland is in Europe yet its communication patterns have been compared to those of the Japanese (Lewis 2005, 73) and until relatively recently Finns were widely believed to have originally migrated from the “East” (see Chapter 7). And adding to this uniqueness, Finnish culture is often regarded as obscure. Geographer W. R. Mead (1993, 5) calls Finland “overlooked”. It is perhaps partly because of this obscurity that many popular writers on Finland conclude that Finnish culture is “unique”. It is “very different” from “other cultures” to the extent that terming it “unique” rarely even raises the accusation of hyperbole. It has been described as a “Cultural Lone Wolf” (Lewis 2005) by one commentator on Finnish culture and “the odd man of Europe” by another (Torkki 2006, 18). It is a mystery that cannot be compared and cannot be understood.

But it is important that Finnish culture be “understood”. It is vital to “understand” the culture of this stereotypically “quiet” yet technologically significant nation that has produced Nokia – the largest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world. Many foreigners find themselves trying to research, study and work in Finland without any real comprehension of the culture in which they are operating. Popular and even academic articles looking at Finland may engage in descriptive assessment of Finnish culture but few go further and attempt to ‘make sense of it’ and some academics even assert that Finnish culture is “unique” (see Chapter 3). Mead (1993, 6) reports that many “Europeans” in Finland are hit by the shock of expecting a country fairly similar to Sweden and yet finding themselves confronted with a culture that is supposedly “very different”, one that “felt foreign in a way that the Scandinavian countries did not”: a culture that does not seem to make sense.

Making Sense of Finnish Culture

This book will attempt to make sense of it. It will argue that the acceptance of Finnish culture as “unique” raises significant questions for all those interested in furthering our understanding of the world. The acceptance of “uniqueness” evidences a religious or functionally religious reaction – whether nationalistic or of some other kind – to the awesomeness of “mystery”. While a comparative volume on Finnish culture may seem obscure to the more general reader, attempting to engage with Finland’s “unique culture” raises crucial philosophical questions. Challenging it involves far more than simply cross-referencing different sets of metaphors and labelling phenomena, as Edward O. Wilson (1975, 574) has characterised social science, useful as this may be in developing a thoughtful and stimulating atmosphere. It involves defending science itself from a particular manifestation of those who would return us to the wilderness and I will look at these philosophical issues in greater depth in Chapter 2.

With this background, I will attempt to make sense of Finland through the prism of social anthropology and the comparative method. I am unaware of any in-depth attempt to do this previously. I can already hear the criticism that it is impossible to fully “make sense” of something such as a “culture”. Any attempt will inevitably lead to further questions. Nevertheless, it is surely possible, in social science, to make more sense of an object of study, often by examining it through analogy, and this is what I propose to do. That such an analogy might raise further questions – possibly answerable through the analogy – may, as we will see, be evidence of the usefulness of that very analogy. In trying to “make sense” of something, I mean taking information and demonstrating its inter-connectedness by means of a simile as is the case with making sense of anything scientifically. Before looking at these important theoretical questions, let me set out first what I propose to do in the body of this book.

I will argue that Finnish culture is not “unique”. It is not a “Cultural Lone Wolf”. Rather, it is part of two “cultural packs” to follow Finnish-language expert Richard Lewis’ (2005) metaphor. The first is the pack which we will call “Unique Cultures” and this is composed of Finland and Japan, though there are a number of other cultures that might be examined here as well. I will argue that both cultures promote the idea – and have successfully promoted the idea amongst popular writers, social scientists (native and foreign) and the public – that their culture is “unique”. Though the issue of “unique culture” has been discussed before – specifically in relation to Japan (Dale 1986) – this book will aim to go beyond this by examining what makes a culture become accepted, both by itself and outsiders, as being “unique”. As I will demonstrate, both cultures are perceived as “exotic” and “mysterious”, show evidence of suffering from a form of national low self-esteem[1] which may have led to developing “uniqueness” as a play for status and are relatively tribal which tends to lead to the subsuming of the individual into the group and a strong sense of group difference. I am unaware of any previous research which has examined what makes certain cultures “uniquely unique”.

And in challenging this “myth Finnish of uniqueness”,[2] I will argue that there is a second “pack” and if Finland is placed here – rather than in “Scandinavia” or the mysterious border zone “between East and West” – then it begins to make far greater sense. In relation to what makes Finland distinctive from “Scandinavian” countries,[3] it is best understood in terms of Arctic cultures. Finland will be shown to be highly comparable to Greenland and, in many ways, Greenland is a kind of exaggerated Finland. It might be countered that Finland is far more advanced and complex than Greenland and I do not deny this. It should not be forgotten in examining the Finnish “difference” that there are, of course, many similarities between Finland and Sweden (just as there are to a lesser extent between Denmark and Greenland) but there are, nevertheless, considerable and profound differences and it is the question of how we can “understand” Finland in light of these differences that I wish to address. I will thus argue that Finland may well be the world’s most highly “advanced” Arctic culture; so this “complexity” – this comparison between a “big culture” and a “small culture” – would be encompassed by the metaphor that Finland is a “diluted Greenland”.

But before moving on, let me respond to some of the popular criticisms I have received of this analogy. A number of Finnish correspondents have asserted ideas to the effect of, “I certainly don’t feel anything like the Greenlandic. Being Arctic is nothing to do with my culture, so I don’t agree with you.” This kind of argument is fallacious. It is an appeal to incredulity and intuition, drawing upon no evidence. Equally, some foreign critics have asserted, for example, “I lived in Helsinki for five years and I don’t think they’re Arctic. They’re just like the Swedes.” Again, this is fallacious. It is another appeal to personal incredulity and intuition. It draws upon no systematic evidence whatsoever, in no way attempts to refute my argument and to the extent that it draws upon experience it may reflect a limited engagement with Finland – Helsinki is no more representative of Finland than New York is of the USA. These kinds of arguments are akin to me saying, “Finland is analogous to Greenland. I believe that. I’m right. So there.” I might even assert that “These critics are just self-important, stupid fanatics with black and white views and thus they are potential killers in the right circumstances.” If these critics were to counter, “This is outrageous!” they would be hypocrites because they have used equally fallacious arguments so what is to stop me from doing the same? This is why we must keep to strict standards of what is an acceptable, logical argument. I hope the arguments repeated above appear not even worth countering for most readers and, to be fair, they have not come from peer-reviewers. But similar fallacies are found in some peer-reviewed social science works as we will see later.

It might also be asked why I should compare Finland to Greenland to look at this issue. I would answer that a comparison to the Sámi would be problematic because the Finns have had cultural contact with the Sámi and are alike in terms of language; the Finnish language being related to that of the Sámi (Campbell 1995, “Finnish”). Branch (1973) looks in depth at Sjögren’s nineteenth century research linking the Finno-Ugric peoples (see below). Finns have had no significant contact with Greenland and this means that a comparison with Greenland – or Japan – allows us to “understand” the structure underlying the culture because “understanding” is something generally achieved through analogy. Gentner (1982, 108) argues that analogy involves structure mapping between systems – between the abstract on the one hand and the visible on the other. Hence, the apparently “known domain” (the visual perhaps) is mapped onto the “domain of enquiry” (the abstract). This is distinct from “similarity” in which the comparable domains are of the same kind. To counter that Finland has had little historically to do with Greenland and should therefore only be “compared” to Estonia or Sweden is to misunderstand what analogy is. Analogy involves understanding a concept by means of another which may be superficially completely different but, nevertheless, the same in many profound ways such that it improves understanding. Such a metaphor should seem, initially, peculiar or even bizarre (and if it does not it is probably a cliché) but should begin to make sense when the different levels are explored. So, Dutch culture is “similar” to Flemish culture but it may be “analogous” to a cheese-slicer and I have witnessed a Flemish historian at Leiden University further understanding of Dutchness through this very (ultimately convincing) analogy. To compare Finnish culture to another Finno-Ugric culture would be “similarity” (even if this “similarity” is only overtly in terms of language) and would not, therefore, aid “understanding” as we will define it. Also, as Jukka Siikala (2006, section 1) puts it, many Finno-Ugric cultures across northern Russia which are linguistically related to the Finns are “white areas on the world map as we imagine it ethnographically” into which relatively little research has been conducted and about which relatively little is commonly known. So, as we will note in our discussion of academic metaphor to compare Finland to these would not help us to understand the “mystery” of Finnish culture. There has been far greater research into Japan and Greenland so these comparisons would specifically relate to furthering our “understanding” of the supposed “mystery” that is Finnish culture. Although this book will examine comparisons with Japan in questioning Finnish uniqueness, it will focus on the idea that Finland is an Arctic culture – and particularly the comparison to Greenland – as this works on many more levels and thus it allows us to understand why Finland more completely.

Finnish Anthropology

There are a handful of articles that have attempted to place Finnish culture within certain categories thus implicitly challenging its “uniqueness”. Laine (2006) implies that Finland is a “Shame Culture” in contrast to Western “Guilt Cultures”, Roessingh (1996) argues that Finland is “ethno-nationalist” in contrast to “civic nationalist” cultures and Levine (1993) finds that Finland is a relatively pronounced example of a “Temperance Culture”. None of these intriguing analyses systematically challenge the myth of Finnish uniqueness and nor do they attempt to present another culture which, on many levels, Finland might legitimately be placed alongside as they only examine one aspect of the culture in each case. But such analyses implicitly challenge the idea that Finnish culture is “unique”.

I also hope that this book will make an original contribution in terms of field research. There is a substantial body of literature written by Finnish academics examining numerous dimensions of Finnish culture in considerable depth. However, there is relatively little comparative literature on Finnish culture and very little by non-Finnish anthropologists (see Chapter 2). That which has been published tends to be articles focussing on eminently interesting but nevertheless quite narrow areas such as Armstrong’s (2004, 2000) examination of one family’s experience in the eastern Finnish region of Karelia during Finland’s Winter War (1939–1940), Roberts’ (1989) article “The Finnish Coffee Ceremony and Notions of Self” or Edelsward’s (1991) examination of the place of the sauna in Finnish identity. William Wilson (1976) has produced a meta-academic history of the study of Finnish folklore and looked at the various ways in which Finnish folklore scholarship has been influenced by various dimensions of Finnish nationalism or other politics. And a handful of Anglophone scholars have conducted local studies in Finland (e.g. Abrahams 1991, Ingold 1988, Lander 1976) making some insightful points about the culture more broadly.

However, there is no recent field-work-based examination of Finnish culture attempting to “make sense of it” in a broader comparative context conducted by an outsider and in this respect I hope that this book, in addition to its argument and comparison, also makes a contribution to Finnish ethnography. This is important because, as Kapferer (2001, 18) argues, the aim of the anthropologist is to immerse oneself in an alien culture such that one questions the “ontological” presuppositions about that culture. If so, then the study of Finnish national culture is in a problematic situation. It is difficult for an insider to successfully do this, though it might not be impossible. But even Finnish scholars have conducted few comparative analyses of their culture. Jukka Siikala (2006, s. 1) notes that the British and American tradition has tended to involve “Anthropology” and thus studying “native cultures” comparatively and in functionalist terms. By contrast the northern European or German tradition – including the Finnish tradition – has tended to focus on ethnography and ethnology. This has meant describing or, in the latter case, describing analytically[4] specific dimensions of material culture in a given area. The boundaries of these “areas” have generally been “national cultures” as the areas it was possible to study, for political reasons, reflected national boundaries. Finland has focussed on the “ethnology of Finland” and so has not been “asking broad questions in a comparative way” (Siikala, J. 2006, s. 4). Moreover, this ethnology – when first institutionally established in 1921 – was specifically linked to studying Finnish-speaking people (Vuorela 1977, 10) which we might understand to be implicitly nationalistic, even if it occurred for practical reasons. It is “Finnish Studies”, promoting Finland as a distinct cultural entity. Sandall (2001, 46) has summarised this difference more critically arguing that the Anglo-Scottish anthropological tradition is one of “social enquiry” which assumes a system founded on bourgeois values and especially a desire for “order” in answering set, discrete questions. By contrast, Franco-Germanic anthropology is a more literary tradition. It has tended to describe societies. Often it proclaims each society as “unique”, sometimes promotes ideas such as romantic primitivism (that civilization is corrupt and can learn from the tribe), sometimes attempts to radically change society, often derides the desire for “order” and comparison as imperialist and many seem to substantially reject the place of biological science in understanding a society.[5] Sandall notes that this wing of anthropology, already present in the eighteenth century, became increasingly influential world-wide in the twentieth as it was popularised by scholars such as Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) and Margaret Mead (1901–1978). A similar distinction can be noted between the dominant Anglophone philosophical tradition of Analytic Philosophy and the Continental School. Analytic Philosophy attempts to solve set scientific problems. The Continental Tradition has been more inclined towards changing the world as in the Frankfurt School (see Horkenheimer 1974), a view that all philosophical thought is merely a product of its historical or social context and a strong scepticism of the scientific method. For analytic philosophers the key question is whether or not a statement is ordered and logical regardless of who said it and their various influences. These can, anyway, be overcome through critical thinking (see Rosen 1998, Preston 2006 and Popper 1966a–b).[6] Indeed, any examination of the motives or person behind an argument is fallacious – an appeal ad hominem or an appeal to motive. It does not matter if the proponent of an argument is a convicted child-abuser inspired by Stalinism. The only issue, for a genuine scholar, is the logic of his argument.

Nineteenth century Finnish anthropology involved Finnish scholars engaging in comparative analysis, especially in relation to the Finnish language. During the nineteenth century, it having just been discovered, there was an intense interest in the idea of a Finno-Ugric language group. In 1824, A. J. Sjögren (1794–1855) was despatched to Lapland, Karelia and Siberia to collect linguistic and ethnographic materials from Finno-Ugric peoples. In the 1840s, M. A. Castrén (1813–1853) documented these languages further. However, after the Russian Revolution and Finnish independence the Soviet Union was effectively closed off. Finnish scholars concentrated especially on folklore and folk culture within the boundaries of Finland. They tended to focus on tracing the history of specific cultural features without attempting, through comparison, to put them together and thus structure Finnish culture as a whole, to the extent that this is possible. As the twentieth century progressed, Finnish ethnology has involved highly localised studies which, as has been noted, do not tend to engage in substantial comparative analysis. As Jukka Siikala (2006, s. 4) puts it, “native anthropology” has turned into “local ethnology” (or the study of “peasant” culture) by Finns who are cultural outsiders to this. Nevertheless they are not outsiders to Finnish culture. I therefore aim to make a contribution by examining Finnish culture as an outsider in line with the aims of anthropology that Kapferer (2001) highlights. In the Anglo-Scottish tradition, I will examine the Finns as natives, I will employ the comparative method, I will attempt to answer a specific question – “Why are Finns ‘uniquely unique’ and how can we best make sense of them?” I will discuss how and why below and I will also look in more depth at the problems with the Franco-Germanic tradition in anthropology and the philosophy underlying it. I agree with Edward O. Wilson (1975, 547) that we should conduct anthropology “as if we were zoologists from another planet” and we will demonstrate why this view of anthropology is logically justifiable.

In the next chapter I will address a number of crucial theoretical questions. I will examine the issue of the “culture” category and the Comparative Method. I will defend anthropology against this critique and defend the culture category. I will then examine the word “unique” and I will argue that its use takes us into the world of religion and even experience of the divine. I will discuss the fieldwork method employed in the study. Having done this, I will turn to making sense of Finland’s “unique” culture.

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