Excellent!

We do not come to Henrik Ibsen's social context easily because we are Americans. And here in the Gulch we are self-selected from the self-selected. To us, "Pursuit of Happiness" is a good reason for a revolution. But not in Sweden, or Norway, or Denmark. Read about JANTE.

"... the idea that there is a pattern of group behaviour towards individuals within Scandinavian communities that negatively portrays and criticises individual success and achievement as unworthy and inappropriate." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jant...

IKEA brags about it. I have asked rhetorically about patronizing your destroyers.
Read below about the Ten Rules of Jante at IKEA and other firms. (Lots of ads, gotta X em when you can. Sorry.) But scroll down to see this artist's work, totally unremarkable, uninteresting, unchallenging.
http://www.ibtimes.com/law-jante-how-swe...

I learned about JANTE In the John Stossel program from 1999, "Is America Number 1?" Andy Bechtolsheim, founder of Sun Microsystems said that he came to America to escape jante.

Very good!
"To thine own self be true"

There are two thoughts that immediately come to mind:
An understanding of the concept of selfishness needs to become more prevalent in our society. Selfishness can be two-fold, in the first case and the one that a majority seems to be stuck with is that of self centeredness - that being a condition of the belief that the world orbits the one and whatever the one can grab for himself is the right thing to do and no one else has the right to interfer. Self centeredness is not reasoned, but is emotion based.
The second, and more correct for Objectivist is a condition of thoughtful or reasoned self interest in which decisions and actions that follow are made in the interest of the self, but everyone else has the same right to action in their own self interest. Self interest is reasoned and is based on the concept of protection of the self derived from natural rights.

The second thought is of an idea introduced to me 30 some years ago, of an emotional vampire. I expand that idea from the purely emotional feeder to that of the emotional manipulator as well, Both can be thought of as parasitical in nature. In the first, the emotional feeder can be thought of as a person lacking real emotional energy of their own. They must attach themselves to one with a normal emotional life and feed from those emotions.
The second and more threatening , the emotional manipulator is one that lacks some ability or characteristic that makes their life difficult. In order to ease their own life, they will attach themselves to one with the ability or characteristic needed and manipulate the victim's emotions in order or generate or obtain the lacking ability or characteristic.

From those two thought paths emerges a philosophy of life, not easily recognized in historical Western philosophy, -- That it's OK to be a human being, and make all the mistakes that human beings make, as long as one does not purposely harm another or moore importantly, one's self. I think that an Objectivist can quite easily see the connections between a life of reasoned self interest and the need of self protection from an emotional vampire/manipulator. I think that it places Nora's actions in a fairly positive light.

It's very easy to confuse quality with quality. Less can be more in many cases.

The scenarios for good loving choices that we find in the world's literature are often deceptive and false guilt producing. The way of the Creator is through balance and equality. We are to love our neighbor equal (not more nor less) to ourselves. We love our neighbor by respecting his/her equal rights. This prevents either one of us from trying to be our brother's/sister's keeper by claiming the superior right to force him/her to do what we/they think is right/best. Historically the world has chosen to live by the way of Cain which is right is decided by might. When someone makes him/her self superior, his/her neighbor becomes inferior and the balance of love is broken and peace fails and war/death wins.
If we freely choose to live by the Creator's/ the Christ's "Law of Liberty" (Jam 2:12 KJV), all behaviors, that do not significantly harm another or infringe on his/her equal rights, are lawful and consistent with loving your neighbor equal to yourself. All social/economic contracts made by mutual consent and causing no harm/infringement to others is lawful. (10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Rom 13:10 NKJ))

There is an inherent danger in referring to works of art as though they are reality. Remember that art is a SELECTIVE RECREATION of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgements. You only mention that Scrooge was better liked and seemed happier because Dickens wrote it that way. He wrote it that way because those were HIS metaphysical value judgements. The people who claim to be happy serving others selflessly rarely actually are happy. They confuse the sort of blissful emotion they feel when they blank out as happiness. That somewhat carefree, ebullient feeling is simply one in which the mind is temporarily relieved of the function of considering future consequences. But those consequences are always very real. One cannot wipe out reality, rather reality will wipe out the wiper. (John Galt). The best metric by which to measure one's happiness is by its longevity, is endurance across life events and crises. The feeling of confidence that comes with knowing one is capable of handling any situation, including the unknown ones, is a powerful contributor to MY happiness. The understanding that I am the true master of my own destiny gives me enormous satisfaction, and it is a very enduring satisfaction. I live for myself, and in doing so, I am generous, caring, empathetic, and honest to THOSE THAT I CARE ABOUT. It is true that I also am generally caring and generous to some that I do not know, that I value their lives, that I respect their property, that I protect their pursuit of happiness, but there is no contradiction. You see, if I value those things for myself, then it must be that I value the things themselves. If I value concepts such as property, freedom, happiness, and above all life, then I cannot only value them for myself, I must value them intrinsically, which means that I value the fact that others can have them as well. In this way, the argument that Objectivists are heartless baby eaters is as far from reality as possible. Rather, we consider life precious. We revel in the successes of others, we don't brood on ways to take away their successes. We catch the boy before he runs into the street because we value life. The moral twisting that artists create in order to project their own metaphysical values is simply a glimpse of the contradicted turmoil of their inner machinery, which means their code of ethics. These answers are simple and powerful, and potentially dangerous, but very constructive if fully understood.

Happy Holidays, and watch out for stories like "It's a Wonderful Life".

excellent post straight.
Dickens has always bugged me.

My son just read, 'A Doll's House' in his English class. He didn't like it initially for the very reason of giving away everything to all, to the detriment of one's self. Why should someone live only to please others?

Fascinating, the Law of Jante. Never heard of it, read the background at the links given. In a nutshell, it involves deriving one's self-esteem from the extent to which self-esteem is denied.

This one law in particular, "You're not to think you are as good as us," is a contradiction, because it implies that "us" is better than you. How does that compute if you are not to be better, but the others are therefore better than you? Is a large number of inferiors cumulatively allowed to be regarded as superior? A new definition of democracy?

Jante can be seen as nihilism in social action. So, supposedly, terminal humility of each prevents the emergence of envy in anyone, and that keeps the social peace. Notice, though, that Jante is not a commandment for utter inaction and sloth, only for not taking credit. This is a naked look at a perverse meme, where the absence of reward is the only reward required.

Very strange evolution in their psycho-epistemology, but clearly the result of a survival process of that society that has worked for them for a long time.

I do like the minimalist approach in my own life as well, which keeps balance and harmony and a stable economy. Each step of growth comes organically in a self-sustaining pace, like DNA unfolding. No borrowing, no debt, no reckless jumping off the scaffolding. Just think--it's how the mind integrates information and defines values, eliminating contradictions and building on sound premises.

Now if we can just understand how ego fits into all these matrices of thought.