h/t Instapundit
Want proof that the liberal social-democratic society works? Look to Denmark, the country that routinely leads the world in happiness surveys.
In the American liberal compass, the needle is always pointing to places like Denmark. Everything they most fervently hope for here has already happened there.
So: Why does no one seem particularly interested in visiting Denmark? ("Honey, on our European trip, I want to see Tuscany, Paris, Berlin and . . . Jutland!") Visitors say Danes are joyless to be around. Denmark suffers from high rates of alcoholism. In its use of antidepressants it ranks fourth in the world. (Its fellow Nordics the Icelanders are in front by a wide margin.) Some 5% of Danish men have had sex with an animal.
Let's look a little closer, asks Michael Booth, a Brit who has lived in Denmark for many years, in his new book, "The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia"
Those sky-high happiness surveys, it turns out, are mostly bunk. Asking people "Are you happy?" means different things in different cultures. In Japan, for instance, answering "yes" seems like boasting, Booth points out. Whereas in Denmark, it’s considered "shameful to be unhappy," newspaper editor Anne Knudsen says in the book.
Moreover, there is a group of people that believes the Danes are lying when they say they're the happiest people on the planet. This group is known as "Danes." |