Karl-Olov Arnstberg in the text Swedish Patriotism discusses the issue of identity and
national consciousness in Sweden. The starting point for his reflections is the interview he had the opportunity to conduct with a doctor from Sri Lanka. He approached him as if he was
a Swede, they both had a similar worldview, but his approach changed when the subject of
conversation became the history of Sri Lanka. Arnstberg felt as if his interlocutor was so
rooted in the past that the past, not the present created who he is now. The author of the
text notices a parallel linking this situation with how the national consciousness of the
Swedes was described at the beginning of the previous century by Selma Lagerlöf and Verner
von Heidenstam. However, he notices certain regularity that “when the history of Sweden is
written in a scientific and objective way, with a keen pursuit of truth, it is not only the history
of Sweden that loses its social grounding, but it is also much harder to build a national
identity on it”. What affects most the nation are fantastic heroes and fantastic events.
Arnstberg emphasizes that he does not need his country’s history to build his identity. He
refers to Peter Englund, a member of the Swedish Academy, who on the one hand wrote
that ignorance of history may cause a lack of sense and identity, and on the other hand, he
believed that historical events and heroes should not be used as justification for nationalism.
His interpretation of Englund’s words includes two approaches to history. The first – modernist,
which does not look at history in the identity context, and the second – nationalist,
according to which knowledge of history is important for a sense of community with the rest
of the nation. Further, the author of the text analyzes the concept of Swedishness, referring
to the articles of other researchers. The examples he gives more blur the term than allow us to
understand what it really means. He demonstrates, on the basis of nationalism, the paradoxes
of Swedishness and even undermines its existence.
Progress and Historical Reflection in Philosophy
