Asking

Books | Films

14 September 2021 - Bergen

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The Norwegian election really has me thinking about the art of asking. Amanda Palmer did a great TED talk on this particular subject and number of years ago.

Asking is harder than having the right to something and it seems like in politics we're looking to take things from other people by and avoid asking. Politics is war by other means and moreover really means taking violently from other people that what you want from them rather than asking them for it. The beautiful thing about trade, free trade, is that two people come together and they ask each other until they come to an agreement on what they will trade. Neither uses violence.

In Norway the Arbeider (workers) party will now likely form a government in a country that for the past 8 years has been ruled by the conservative Høyre (which means right) party. The Arbeider party campaigned on higher taxes for the rich, which they get to define; not people themselves. Inso doing they're making true the old adage that democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

In Norway the tallest nail gets the hammer. I've talked about this before but Janteløven leads to people avoid success, to avoid making a large amount of money, toavoid a lot of things that they would strive for in other societies because you get punished. Norway is full of really athletic people. The country of only five million and they tend to dominate the Winter Olympics. Admittedly we have more mountains and more winter than most countries on the rest of the earth, but when people can't succeed in the economic domain and they still want to achieve greatness they look for it another domains and athletics happens to be the one that Norwegians have chosen.

In my own life I recently encountered this difference between the ease of taking versus asking. My son Maxwell worked for me over the summer. It was an unpaid internship because he's only 17 and we're a small company that doesn't have a lot of money. He did such a great job that we offered him a part-time position for the Fall, but my ex-wife Cara filed paperwork to have part of my salary confiscated and given to him. She filed it on his behalf. He's 18 now. He should have had to file it for himself. I don't know how she was able to file it for him, but nevertheless she did. I talked to Maxwell and said "Maxwell wouldn't you rather work than just steal this money?" and he wouldn't even admit that it was that it was stealing. He said that was "just my perspective". Well rehearsed. Well rehearsed from his mother. This perspective that the money I earned is mine I don't think is one that most people would disagree with. I asked him point blank to his face "Why don't you ask me for the money instead of stealing it" and he averted his eyes; he couldn't look me in the eye. Then he said "Well, I was talking to mom and this is easier than asking. If I do it this way then I don't have to ask." So I think back to what Amanda Palmer said about the art of asking and how important that is to cultivate and to learn because it's so fundamental in human interaction and yet here we have society where parents are even teaching kids that it's easier to take than ask.