This book by Helen Russell is a journalistic diary charting her experience of living for a year in rural Denmark, a country which has in many surveys and studies on general happiness in different countries come out on top - and so she seeks to delve into their lifestyle, culture, and social systems and stuff to work out whether this is robustly true, and, moreso, she and her husband* put into practice as many of the Danish quirks and habits as possible to see if they have an impact on their happiness. From hygge to communities coming together at the start of spring to watch how excited cows get when they get let out of the barns to joining clubs to having an excellent work-life balance to pastries to bizarrely-specific traditions to excellent state support for parents empowering women to - there seems to be a great many of these quirks and habits that constitute what it means to live 'Danishly', but Russell places them deftly within a straightforward and cohesive view of roughly what kind of society it's like to be in, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether such a life seems enticing. It certainly seems so - there are aspects that strike me as slightly bonkers, but I'd probably say the same about any culture (especially Englishness), though also warmly endearing and conducive to carefree and well-grounded lifestyles that I imagine would make one pretty happy once you found your feet in it. Happiness is something I write about quite a lot on this blog (cos I read quite a lot of books about it I suppose) - it's the essence of what I think everyone is on some pragmatic everyday level pursuing with their lives, and yet our sociocultural climate is one that sends us incredibly mixed signals about how to get there.** So it's nice to have something not abstracted out of statistical research or philosophising or psychological theory, but reported first-hand from a befuddled self-deprecating Englishwoman trying her best to experiment with the happiness homegrown in Denmark - she interviews quite a few relevant people to flesh out these insights, and honestly from reading this book I am more or less convinced that Denmark has pretty much cracked (not completed by a long shot but got enough of the gist to be currently leading and probably continue making strong progress) the socio-politico-cultural-economic recipe for making a country full of people happy. I learnt a lot from this book, and also enjoyed it a lot - Russell writes with an adroitly wry humour that pervades everything, and the largely anecdotal format makes her and the Lego Man's joint pursuit of Danish-style happiness read like a holiday memoir that turns out to be highly informative. And, if you're anything like me, makes you want to visit Denmark as soon as plausible.
* Whose getting a job at the Lego factory was the prompting reason for their moving to Denmark - he is referred to throughout the book as 'the Lego Man' and seems pretty happy all the time, which I imagine you would be if you worked at the Lego factory.
** Is the pursuit of happiness a quest for finding true spiritual meaning? Or the reasonable development of social and relational perspective so we feel at ease with our place in the world? A delicate neo-utilitarian balancing act between finding purpose and deriving pleasure from our lives? Or is it just a matter of just not caring about stuff that isn't helping us feel like things are swell? Even after Helen Russell's move to Denmark, the objective jury is still out on this one, because happiness is, first and foremost, subjective, and so studies of specifically-happy mindsets (such as Danish) are probably the best way to further develop insights into how we can make societies happier. A big part of the Danish case seems to be highly effective public services - with great work protections, social care, welfare, education, healthcare; basically just having well-oiled effective apparatus for dealing with the kinds of problems that commonly make people's lives worse and for improving the kinds of potentials for people to make their and others' lives better. Personally I think true (as in solid dependable unshakeable joy) happiness is an introspective metaphysical state to be reached by insight and mindset, one which cannot be replicated or brought upon people en masse - but the basic steps for providing good systems for people to live their whole lives in with as little worry as possible can be observed empirically and so give clear indications as to the effects of such investment in society. Secular liberalism's primary quest is to provide good free lives for people, and Denmark is (as are the other Scandinavians) literally doing that better than other countries by operating a political economy that is pretty much a democratic semi-socialist model. Capitalism doesn't make people happy as equitably or reliably.
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