The Paramount Importance of ‘Bildning’
I read on Twitter that a French bank director said that “at the office here in
Paris we have to ‘force’ people to go for business meetings with Swedes” to
his Swedish lunch date. The reason, according to the bank director, is that
‘Swedish business people don’t have anything to talk about except money,
profi t and golf. They don’t know anything about history, culture, politics or
philosophy. They don’t even have a religion.”
This hugely unflattering quote is taken from a recent article in Dagens
Industri (Sweden’s biggest daily business newspaper), published under the heading, “Philosophy can be good
for business.” The point that journalist Jan Gradvall wants to make is that business people—and Swedish business
people in particular (God bless us … oh, that’s right we don’t believe in God)—are lacking what we in Sweden call bildning…
Read the full article here : In New York
