Of course one should use generative AI, but …

Is it acceptable to use generative AI to write texts? And if so, when and in what way? Are you “authentic” if you let AI generate a text based on your own ideas, and does authenticity even matter? Is it a democratic and inclusive tool that gives everyone a voice, or is it simply “cheating”? Does it impoverish discussion or broaden it? Positions are taken on what is reprehensible and what is permissible. The tone is heated, the moralism evident.

Much less attention is paid to what writing actually is and the function it serves. For the point of writing is not merely to produce text – nor, for some, the exquisite pleasure of finding the right words and arranging them in the right order. The point is also to understand things a little better than one did before. In the process of writing, thoughts are tested, broken down and replaced.

It is through writing that one discovers where one is wrong, where one is unclear and where one lacks sufficient knowledge. It is in writing that opinions change, understanding deepens and new patterns emerge. It is in writing that the obscure becomes clear. As Tegnér might be paraphrased: That which is obscurely written is obscurely thought.

This is why writing is often strenuous and involves resistance. Resistance from the train of thought, resistance from the content, resistance from the words themselves. Filling a page with text is not difficult, but filling a page with the right text may take as long as it takes. The resistance is not inefficiency, however much it may feel like it, but the very mechanism that develops understanding in the writer. This makes resistance essential: writing takes time because it must take time.

We often speak of independent thinking as a right, something contained within the formal recognition of freedom of thought and opinion. In practice, however, independent thinking is more accurately a discipline. It requires repeated effort, resistance and a certain willingness to stand apart. It cannot be handed out as a gift. It must be won, step by step, by each individual.

Freedom of thought and opinion may sound grand, but without independent thinking they amount to very little. In an age where technology offers shortcuts to ready-made answers, independent thinking therefore becomes both more difficult and more decisive.

None of this means that generative AI lacks value. On the contrary. As a tool, it can in many ways improve productivity, structure and clarity. The problem arises when its use shifts from support to substitution.

Cognitive discipline in complex systems

When one hands over all or large parts of writing to generative AI, one does not merely outsource production. One simultaneously outsources parts of one’s own thinking. One gives up practice. One reduces the cognitive effort required to develop analysis and judgement. What one gains in return is, at best, a more polished text and a higher rate of output. What one loses is harder to measure, but undoubtedly more important.

At its core, the mechanism is simple: those who abstain from cognitive effort become worse at it. This applies to understanding. It applies to analysis. It applies to judgement.

Historically, education, research and qualified professional work have been built on the assumption that individuals must develop this discipline themselves. Slowly, and often with frustration. The shortcut that generative AI now offers is naturally attractive, but it creates a structural dilemma: short-term efficiency stands in tension with long-term individual – and societal – capability.

In knowledge-intensive societies, the collective ability to reason, weigh alternatives and make decisions under uncertainty is a critical resource. If this ability gradually weakens, institutions and organisations are affected, and ultimately every political decision. A society in which people cannot formulate their own thoughts and make reasonably independent judgements is a society in which freedom and democracy have been reduced to empty words.

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself.” – Coco Chanel

The paradox of efficiency and the logic of dependency

It is not difficult to see why generative AI is so appealing. Organisations typically reward rapid output and visible results. Producing more text, more analyses and more supporting material appears rational. Generative AI fits this logic extremely well.

In English, a distinction is drawn between efficiency and effectiveness. The former concerns doing things right – minimising waste of time, resources and effort. The latter concerns doing the right things – actually achieving the goals and outcomes one claims to pursue. Ideally, both are combined. In Swedish, this distinction is lacking, and we often settle for optimising the process and calling it success.

Yet one can be highly efficient in the sense of being fast and productive without coming any closer to what one truly seeks to achieve. And one can reach certain short-term goals while undermining long-term capability. Producing more texts more quickly may appear efficient, but when increased output comes at the cost of reduced understanding, the system becomes more efficient on the surface while its underlying competence – the ability to think independently – is gradually eroded.

Such a development can scarcely be called “success” in any serious sense of the word, regardless of what people choose to label it.

This is not a new phenomenon. Similar dynamics have accompanied other technological shifts, where automation has reduced the need for certain skills while increasing dependence on systems. The difference now is that this concerns not merely manual work, but cognitive processes themselves.

If one writes utilitarian texts – advertising, copy or communications – the consequences may be more limited, as these activities are more concerned with production than with understanding. There is, of course, a risk that writing competence will erode over time, but whether that is a problem is largely a matter of preference. Not everyone wants or needs to be skilled at producing text independently. Thinking, however, I would argue, matters to everyone.

By outsourcing analyses, positions and the development of ideas to generative AI, we outsource our own understanding and judgement. These are extremely difficult to rebuild once weakened. They require experience, effort and exposure to uncertainty. They require mistakes, and the correction of those mistakes. They require time.

Autonomy and intellectual freedom

The ancient Stoics were already clear: no one is free who does not master themselves. In a modern knowledge society, this translates into the ability to think independently. Those who lack this ability are, in practice, never free, regardless of how free the surrounding society may be. Formal freedom of expression, access to information and democratic institutions mean very little if individuals lack the capacity to evaluate, weigh and draw their own conclusions.

Dependence on the analyses of others entails a subtle but real asymmetry of power. Those who do not understand cannot question. Those who cannot evaluate information are at a disadvantage in relation to those who claim to know. Those who cannot formulate their own arguments lose influence to those who can.

Cognitive outsourcing thus creates a divide between those who develop understanding and those who consume ready-made conclusions. The question of generative AI is therefore far larger than matters of efficiency or the importance (according to some) of authenticity when posting on LinkedIn.

Ultimately, it is a question of individual freedom and autonomy, as well as of the very functioning of democratic society.

A choice with consequences

The central question, then, is not whether generative AI should be used. The question is how. If the technology is used to augment human thinking, it can be a powerful tool. If it is used to replace it, it will gradually weaken the intellectual discipline on which modern societies rest.

The issue has technical and organisational dimensions, but at its core it is individual. Systems change only when people change their behaviour. Those who do not take responsibility for their own understanding, who consistently avoid thinking for themselves, should not be surprised when the capacity eventually disappears. The choice is, in principle, free.

But this freedom is formal, not neutral.

Foucault wrote:

“Knowledge is a spiritual adventure and a transformation of the self. The one who knows differs from the one who does not not simply by knowing certain things, but by no longer being the same person. In other words, knowledge is that which transforms the very subjectivity of the knower.

To know, in this sense, is to change. It is a process that requires time, resistance and uncertainty. If we systematically opt out of this process, we also opt out of a part of the person we might otherwise have become.

The question, therefore, is not only what generative AI does to our productivity. The question is who we become when we grow accustomed to not thinking for ourselves.

The choice is free. But not without consequences.

The post The road to unfreedom is paved with good intentions – and generative AI appeared first on Subversivt.

Yet in an era in which the justice system is simultaneously investing in powerful analytical tools capable of mapping connections across vast datasets, a question of legitimacy arises. How is the citizen to understand and relate to the distinction between serious investigative failure, prioritisation, and negligence when it is never clarified?

“Over the course of a single day, a man repeatedly sent me (grossly) sexual images and video clips, of course without my consent. The material was not sent from an anonymous account and the sender was clear and highly identifiable,” writes the politician Jessica Stegrud on Facebook.

Nevertheless, the reasoning provided by the justice authorities reads: “Continued investigation is not expected to lead to the offence being substantiated. It is not possible to prove who committed the act.”

She concludes rhetorically: “Is that reasonable? Is it a sign of a functioning justice system, in your view?”

No, people decidedly do not think so. Her own comment field, and later many others, fill with angry and outraged individuals. What she describes is interpreted as negligence, disinterest, and general incompetence on the part of the police.

That may of course be the case; I do not know what the police have or have not done (I shall return to that problem), but it is not a foregone conclusion based on the information available to us.

What do we know – and what can be proven?

One must distinguish here between what feels self-evident and what one actually knows, and what can be proven in law. The perpetrator is not known simply because Jessica Stegrud or anyone else believes they know who it is.

It is entirely possible to create social media accounts in another person’s name. An existing account can be used unlawfully. Telephone numbers can be spoofed so that a text message or call appears to originate from a particular person when in fact it does not. Moreover, variants of generative AI and techniques such as deepfakes can produce videos and images that appear authentic but are not.

It is therefore insufficient that it appears a certain person is the sender, or that a specific, identifiable person features in the material, for us to know that this individual is the sender. The justice system does not operate on belief but on evidence; even what seems obvious must be investigated and proven.

Sexual harassment as an offence is normally regarded as sufficiently serious to allow the police to request logs and other technical information. It is therefore entirely possible—perhaps even likely—that they did so.

The fact that the case was discontinued does not automatically mean that the police refrained from gathering information. It may mean that the information obtained was insufficient to identify a specific individual.

What are the police actually doing?

When the police request data in such cases, they receive technical information such as IP addresses, timestamps, account names and details of the type of device used. This rarely equates to an identity.

An IP address may lead to a mobile network or a shared address used simultaneously by many people. An operator may sometimes only be able to indicate which subscription had access to the connection at a particular time. VPN services and other anonymisation solutions can render tracing even more difficult or impossible.

Even if the police trace a subscription, it is not self-evident who actually used the phone or computer at the relevant time. Subscriptions may be registered to someone other than the suspect; multiple individuals may have had access to the device. It is therefore not straightforward to link this to a specific person. Something appearing probable is not the same as being provably true.

If there is no supplementary evidence – such as seizure of a device on which the account is logged in, a confession, or other digital traces pointing in the same direction – the investigation often reaches an impasse. One may then have information, but not evidence in the legal sense.

In such circumstances, it is not remarkable if the police assess that it is not possible to prove who committed the act. And if they cannot do so, they will naturally discontinue the case.

That said, none of this demonstrates what the police did, or reasonably ought to have done, in Stegrud’s specific case. Nor do we know how common it is for such data to be requested, or how often the information obtained is sufficient to proceed. For some reason, this is not something the police choose to communicate. Nor do they communicate that this is roughly how their work proceeds and the difficulties they may face.

One may debate whether that is the correct choice, but it undoubtedly leads many people to form views about the police that are neither well-founded nor flattering.

What about prioritisation?

One of the things people “know” when discussing the matter is that unsolved cases are about prioritisation, with perceptions of what is not prioritised and what is prioritised instead. They are at least half right.

The police and the prosecution authority always have more cases than they have resources to investigate fully. This means that even when an offence is formally serious enough to justify certain measures, they must in practice weigh how far it is reasonable to go in each individual case. How much time should be devoted to technical analysis? How many leads should be pursued? How long should a case remain open before concluding that further work is unlikely to yield results?

Two cases may be legally equivalent yet receive different investigative depth depending on workload, available expertise, competing serious crimes and organisational priorities at that particular time.

“Reasonable measures” is therefore very much a relative concept.

Perception, legitimacy and communication

From a systemic perspective, this is central, as it contributes to the arbitrariness perceived by citizens. For the person affected, it does not appear as a question of prioritisation within a portfolio of cases, but as a valuation of their own offence: “Was it not important enough? Was I not worth more effort?”

Even understanding that prioritisation occurs, or accepting it in principle, does not mean one feels secure that the prioritisation is correct in general, or in one’s own specific case.

It is, however, communicatively delicate. If the police were to state openly that a case was discontinued due to (relative) resource constraints, this would likely be perceived as an admission of systemic failure. If they say nothing at all, it risks being interpreted as negligence or indifference, the disadvantages of which are obvious.

In practice, citizens often receive a standard response that explains very little and makes no mention of prioritisation.

When harsh realities are neither articulated nor explained, people form their own interpretations, often negative ones. And when cases spread – as here on social media – further questions arise: what was prioritised instead, and why? Many believe they know, reinforcing the image of a police force more concerned with drink-driving checks and “prosecuting pensioners for hate speech” than with “real crime”.

A closer review of police work, based on available statistics and data, might well demonstrate areas in which public perception is mistaken. But those engaged in heated discussion do not conduct such reviews. They rely on what they believe they see and draw conclusions accordingly. This is facilitated by the fact that the police have left the field open to speculation.

An information vacuum as information strategy

When a case is discontinued with a very brief standard justification, an information vacuum arises. For an outsider, it is impossible to determine whether the investigation was thorough but fruitless, or superficial and swiftly closed.

The lack of information about where in the process matters stalled – or whether there was a substantive process at all – makes it difficult for the individual to decide how to proceed. Should one contest the decision? Seek a review? Complain to an ombudsman? Approach the media? Or accept it? If the police have done everything reasonably expected, it is better to learn to live with the outcome than to expend time and energy contesting it. But if they have not, failing to fight becomes a betrayal of oneself and of the protection the justice system, under the social contract, promises.

For the victim, this often has tangible emotional consequences. Beyond the original violation comes a secondary burden: the feeling of not being taken seriously, of being left alone with the outcome, of suspecting that the justice system did not even try but simply moved on.

The lack of transparency also shifts the burden onto the individual victim to have the strength to challenge the decision. Those without resources, knowledge or stamina fall away. That is hardly satisfactory for authorities expected, according to every policy document and value statement, to treat citizens equally.

There is also a clear asymmetry of cost. For the justice system, a discontinued case is one decision among many. For the victim, it may be the endpoint of a long and distressing process.

This opacity therefore has consequences – not only for the individual victim but for trust in the justice system as a whole. When people cannot distinguish between a serious investigative failure and mere passivity, they tend to interpret matters in the worst possible light, especially where trust is already low.

Responsibility and transparency

Ironically, it is therefore the police’s own choice not to render their decisions more comprehensible that causes good work to be perceived as bad, and trust to erode as a result. It is the police, not the citizen, who have actively chosen not to be more transparent about their processes and priorities.

Ultimately, however, citizens pay the price. However one turns the matter, both individuals and the collective lose when they lack confidence in the justice system to which they have ceded their right to protect themselves.

All this would be troubling enough in itself. But the picture becomes considerably more problematic when one simultaneously considers the tools the police in fact use.

Great power. Very little insight.

The police are not necessarily as helpless in the face of technical difficulties as my initial description suggested. While discontinued investigations are often justified by stating that it cannot be proven who committed the act, that the evidential chain does not hold, or that the link between technical information and an individual is insufficiently strong, the police use one of the world’s most advanced systems for large-scale data integration, analysis and pattern recognition: a system designed precisely to connect fragmented information into coherent decision-making material, specifically developed for intelligence and surveillance purposes—namely Palantir Gotham.

Palantir Technologies’s Gotham platform enables the linking, visualisation and analysis of vast quantities of data. Concretely, information previously dispersed across different registers, reports and tips can be automatically connected and analysed as a whole. The system can display connections between persons, telephone numbers, vehicles, addresses and events, presenting them as network maps, timelines or geographical overviews in which patterns become visually apparent. It is not merely a matter of storing large volumes of data, but of identifying relationships that might otherwise be difficult or impossible for an individual case officer to detect.

In practice, the system may identify that a person appearing in a traffic stop also has links to an address associated with suspected activity, that the same telephone number recurs in multiple investigations, or that a particular pattern of events repeats in different parts of the country – or, at least in theory, map in detail a person suspected of sexual harassment.

AI and machine learning are central components of Gotham. Through Palantir’s AIP platform, generative and analytical AI are integrated into existing data processes, enabling predictive analysis, pattern identification and automated decision support.

This means the system does not merely show what has already occurred, but can assist in assessing what is likely to occur. Predictive analysis may, for example, identify areas at heightened risk of certain crimes based on historical patterns. Pattern recognition can detect anomalous behaviour – such as unusual transaction flows or communication patterns – warranting closer scrutiny.

Automated decision support implies that the system may suggest priorities or measures – such as discontinuing a case—based on aggregated data, although formal decisions must legally be taken by human officials.

To suggest that such a system could not succeed where more traditional systems fail strains credulity, whatever the police’s practical use of it.

Technical capability and political consequence

When the police employ systems enabling broad analysis of extensive datasets, yet simultaneously inform victims that “it cannot be proven who did what”, a crisis of legitimacy arises.

We face two principal possibilities: either Palantir’s capacity is utilised fully – raising serious questions about proportionality and legality – or it is used selectively and restrictively, prompting the question why such a controversial and powerful tool was procured at significant expense.

Palantir Gotham is about as far from a neutral technological choice as one can come.

Technology on a collision course with the rule of law

Swedish law rests upon clear principles: legality, proportionality, purpose limitation and transparency. Coercive measures and intrusions into personal integrity must be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence and the concrete investigative need. Data collection must be necessary, specific and controllable. These principles are expressed in procedural law, police legislation, public access and secrecy legislation, the GDPR and the EU AI Act.

Palantir’s systems, by contrast, are designed for a different paradigm: maximal data integration, broad cross-access to linked information and analysis at population level. Criticism of Palantir in other European countries has therefore centred precisely on legal and democratic oversight.

Palantir is a US company subject to the Cloud Act, which in certain circumstances may compel disclosure of data to US authorities even where the data are stored in Europe. This stands in direct tension with Swedish and European law and cannot be resolved merely by contractual arrangements.

There is also the issue of opacity. The source code is not open. The algorithms function as a black box. There is no external scrutiny of how data are weighted, how patterns are identified or how risk assessments are conducted. For Swedish authorities, this poses real challenges in relation to the GDPR’s transparency requirements and the AI Act’s demands for documentation, traceability and verifiable reliability in high-risk AI systems.

Constitutional conflicts in practice

In Germany, this has led to open conflict. In 2023, the Federal Constitutional Court held the use of Palantir Gotham unconstitutional, particularly criticising uncontrolled data integration from multiple sources, insufficient transparency regarding whose data were analysed, and inadequate safeguards against profiling individuals not suspected of crime.

What was deemed unlawful was, concretely, that individuals not suspected of any offence could have their data compiled, analysed and assessed by police without their knowledge, without the opportunity to object, and without clear legal limits. The state acquires a tool that sees connections everywhere, while the individual has no insight into when, how or why they have entered the system.

How is an authority unable fully to explain how a system functions to demonstrate that data processing has been necessary, proportionate and correct? And if the system is used in decisions to discontinue cases, how can the reasoning be explained to citizens?

Cost, dependency and digital sovereignty

Palantir licences are also extremely expensive. Adapting the system to European and national law often requires key functions to be disabled or restricted. German experience indicates that substantial functionality remains unused while IT departments are heavily burdened. Exit strategies are often lacking, creating vendor dependency difficult to reconcile with long-term public administration – an issue sharpened by increasing awareness of digital sovereignty. After five years of use, could the police change system even if they wished?

The political dimension

Another problematic aspect concerns Palantir’s political and ideological context. The company’s co-founder and principal owner is Peter Thiel. He has not only expressed far-reaching criticism of liberal democracy, but has also argued in favour of elite-driven societal models in which popular influence plays a subordinate role – a view of society in which political power ought to be concentrated in a technological and economic elite rather than legitimised through broad democratic participation.

It is therefore hardly surprising that he is often described as an almost archetypal “Bond villain”: an extraordinarily wealthy technology entrepreneur with openly system-critical ambitions and direct influence over political power. Thiel is a key financier behind Donald Trump and JD Vance, and has also funded candidates and networks linked to national-conservative movements in the United States.

This affects public acceptance – and thereby the legitimacy – of its use within a Swedish rule-of-law state. In the current geopolitical climate, the matter is far from straightforward. Given the prevailing situation, do we wish to allocate more of our taxpayers’ money to someone who supports Trump with substantial financial contributions?

It is, of course, possible to debate how such questions ought to be approached – both in general and in this particular instance – but at some point the public sector should ask itself which organisations it is supporting, directly and indirectly, and what the long-term consequences may be. Sweden does not exist in a vacuum; recent statements and developments in the United States have undeniably affected us, for example.

There are therefore many question marks surrounding the use of Palantir.

For citizens, the cumulative result is ambiguity and contradiction, which in the long run erodes their trust. If the state collects, analyses and cross-references data on a large scale, yet still cannot – or will not – explain how it operates and why it fails, trust is undermined. And without trust, neither legal certainty nor the rule of law functions effectively in practice.

The importance of transparency

The justice system is rightly bound by high standards of proof; it must not operate on suspicion, intuition or social consensus. It is also bound by prioritisation and resource constraints, which are practically unavoidable. It is increasingly dependent on complex, opaque technical systems that are difficult to explain – even to their users.

None of this need necessarily be problematic in itself. But when these factors combine with an almost total absence of intelligible feedback to the individual citizen, a serious problem arises.

For the victim, the entire process is reduced to a brief statement: it cannot be proven. What was tested, what was weighed, what was possible but deprioritised – all of this disappears. What remains is the sense that the state either did not care or could not cope. In practice, it scarcely matters which is true, as the experience is the same.

In Stegrud’s case, it is entirely possible that the police did everything reasonably possible. It is also entirely possible that they did not. The point is that we do not know. And that uncertainty is not an unfortunate by-product – it is a consequence of how the system has chosen to organise its work and its communication.

This is the core of the problem: not that the justice system sometimes fails, but that it does not explain its failures. Not that all offences are not solved, but that it is impossible to determine whether they were even examined in a manner proportionate to their seriousness.

Trust is not built on the state always succeeding, but on its being comprehensible, reviewable and, to some extent, accountable. When that possibility disappears, trust is replaced by speculation, and legal certainty by suspicion.

In that sense, increased transparency is not a benevolent concession by the police but a systemic necessity. Only when citizens can distinguish one thing from another can they accept that the state sometimes falls short. And that, in turn, is a precondition for maintaining the trust upon which legitimacy rests.

Jessica Stegrud’s question – Is it reasonable? Is it a sign of a functioning justice system? – cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. But so long as the system makes it impossible to understand why a case is discontinued, the answer for more and more people will be no. And that is a far greater problem than any single discontinued case.

The post “It is not possible to prove who committed the act” – on standards of proof, Palantir and the silence of the state appeared first on Subversivt.

“Do you want to make a difference to society and contribute to Sweden’s independence in the world? We are now looking for an Azure technician with a focus on the development, operation and management of FRA’s cloud solutions. Does this sound like something for you? Apply now!”

This is the wording of an advertisement issued by the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA). The FRA is a Swedish intelligence agency under the Ministry of Defence, tasked with collecting and analysing signals in electronic communications.

Organisational infrastructure is rarely as well protected as one might imagine. Through open sources – such as job advertisements, technical requirement profiles and procurement documents – it is entirely possible to gradually construct a clear picture. Each individual detail may be harmless in isolation, but their combined effect is far more revealing.

When a public authority requests expertise in specific technological ecosystems, such as cloud platforms or vendor-specific identity solutions, it becomes possible to make reasonable assumptions about dependencies and architecture, for example. This may not reveal everything in exact terms, but one does not need complete information in order to conduct strategic analysis.

Thus, organisations’ own requirements for transparency – or simple carelessness, for that matter – create opportunities for infrastructural mapping. This does not, of course, mean that classified information has been, or will be, exposed. But it does make matters considerably easier for anyone with such intentions, all else being equal.

Microsoft is subject to US jurisdiction

If we assume that Azure is being used by a security-conscious authority, we must also assume that such use is restricted. That it concerns support functions, development environments or application hosting without any interaction with classified information, rather than the cloud storage of such data.

This does not, however, change the fact that Microsoft (which provides Azure) is subject to US jurisdiction. This means that political decisions in the United States can affect the room for manoeuvre of a Swedish authority, regardless of where data is physically stored or how well it is encrypted.

Consequences of non-compliance

In the event of a political conflict between the United States and Sweden – for example, if one party seeks control over Greenland – consequences may arise both with and without active coercive measures. Uncertainty regarding future access, changes in contractual terms or limited support all create a structural vulnerability.

If we further assume that the authority has a technical dependency on Azure (or other Microsoft services), this can, of course, be used as a means of political pressure. The ability to rapidly replace or dismantle such dependencies is limited, particularly in terms of time.

I do not wish to believe that the FRA stores classified data via Azure. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the fact that Azure has data centres for cloud storage in Sweden does not alter the ability of the US authorities to gain access to that data under the Cloud Act.

Without digital sovereignty, there is no sovereignty

Open sources thus enable reasonable assumptions about infrastructure and vendor lock-in, while legal and political control over those vendors creates risks that simply cannot be mitigated through technical safeguards alone.

It is difficult not to note the irony that this advertisement appears on the very same day that Trump openly expresses his dissatisfaction with Sweden and threatens punitive tariffs in order to force compliance in the Greenland issue.

What will be the next step if we do not comply?

The post Sovereignty as a Service – on the Security Policy Implications of Frictionless Technology Choices appeared first on Subversivt.

Principally right – but the wrong problem is identified

The Director of IT at the Swedish Public Employment Service has been suspended. He appeared in advertising for Capgemini, one of the agency’s IT suppliers.

That is, of course, both right and proper. In principle, at least.

Parul Sharma, Secretary-General of the Institute Against Bribery, says in an article:

“Even without financial compensation, appearing in advertising can mean that a private actor gains an undue advantage by using the civil servant’s position and the authority’s standing for marketing purposes.”

There is nothing, in principle, to object to in that statement either.

The Swedish Public Employment Service as a quality stamp? Hardly.

But in this particular case, it was the Swedish Public Employment Service that was involved.

It is therefore unreasonable to speak of using “the authority’s standing” or to suggest that the Director of IT’s participation in the advertising would have given Capgemini an “undue advantage” – at least not in the way Sharma intends.

No procurement officer or buyer saw the advert and thought: “The Public Employment Service, being so competent and discerning, must have made an excellent choice of supplier.” That simply did not happen.

Consequently, Capgemini has not attempted to use the Swedish Public Employment Service’s exceptionally weak brand to persuade procurement professionals to choose them as a supplier. The idea collapses under its own implausibility.

If the advert was not aimed at procurement officers – who was it for?

So why was advertising produced that could potentially even harm Capgemini’s brand? Marketing and undue advantage, is my qualified guess.

However, the target audience was not procurement officers in general, as Sharma suggests. The target audience was, more likely, a procurement officer in particular – namely, the Director of IT himself.

The Director of IT who is so pleased to appear in advertising that he does so without remuneration. The Director of IT who feels selected and special. Perhaps even grateful.

I do not begrudge the Director of IT the pleasure of enjoying his work or building relationships with suppliers; a certain amount of give-and-take is inevitable. But his experience and behaviour matter, because recognition, affirmation and symbolic inclusion create loyalty in people – a kind that is difficult to defend oneself against. The effect is often stronger than money, precisely because it does not feel like influence.

Advertising as a vector of status, not marketing

What we are talking about, then, is not marketing in the traditional sense. In this case, advertising functions as a vector of status – status as a carrier of influence.

The problem with this kind of influence, and the loyalty that follows, is that it can unduly benefit Capgemini. For example, because the Director of IT (like everyone else in the public sector) naturally knows how to design public procurements that favour – or even ensure – a desired supplier.

So yes, undue advantages – but of an entirely different kind from those described in the article.

Why symbolic influence is hard to see – and hard to regulate

The explicit nature of the advertisement is probably what caused it to be noticed. But since it was not a bribe in the traditional sense, it was not identified as symbolic influence on the civil servant in question, but rather as reputation exploitation – which is something else entirely.

While the system can relatively easily identify and regulate influence through explicit transactions such as money, gifts and remuneration, it has considerable difficulty dealing with the kind of influence that operates through status, recognition and social reciprocity.

This inability to identify and manage symbolic influence means that all the influence that occurred before the advert – and its potentially concrete effects – is overlooked.

Within complex organisations, it is often precisely these informal, loyalty-generating actions – visibility, affirmation, belonging – that constitute corruption. A form that is far more elusive and insidious than explicit, overt corruption.

A textbook example of corruption in complex systems

This is not an exception specific to the public sector or to this particular authority, and the decisive factor is therefore not who the Director of IT is. What matters is his role, and the incident as a textbook example of how symbolic influence and corruption function in complex systems – and, not least, how difficult they are both to resist and to regulate.

But it is clear that if we are to have any chance of addressing this, the first step must be to identify it correctly. We cannot have symbolic influence right in front of us and call it “reputation exploitation”.

The post The Most Dangerous Influence Feels Like Appreciation: Overlooked Corruption in the Public Sector appeared first on Subversivt.

In May 2025, Stockholm City Council rejected a request from the US Embassy that the city dismantle its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

I do not know precisely which applications Stockholm uses or where its data is stored. However, it is far from unlikely that, like many public-sector organisations, it has become dependent on American companies and services such as Microsoft, AWS and Google.

Stockholm’s refusal to comply with the embassy’s request could therefore, in theory, have led to those companies receiving instructions from US authorities to restrict or disable certain services on national security grounds. Such measures are entirely possible under US law.

That did not happen. But the scenario I am describing is neither implausible nor far-fetched.

Because it has already happened.

The most recent example is Microsoft’s decision to block the email account of the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague following sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. His bank account in the United Kingdom was also frozen.

For Sweden, this vulnerability extends to large parts of the country’s digital infrastructure: the systems that enable public institutions to function. It includes school platforms, healthcare records systems, financial administration, social services data and municipal budgeting. It also encompasses everyday workplace applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Teams.

In short, the current US administration possesses the practical ability to disrupt large parts of Swedish public administration if it chooses to do so. Such an action would make the 2024 ransomware attack on Tietoevry seem relatively minor by comparison.

This represents a far greater threat to the functioning of society—and, I would argue, a far more plausible one—than the prospect of Trump ordering troops onto Swedish territory.

(Although that judgement admittedly rests on the assumption that his actions remain rational and reasonably predictable, an assumption that may itself be questionable.)

This is therefore not primarily a technological issue. It is a matter of national security.

Sweden finds itself in this position because it has prioritised operational convenience over secure and independent operation. That approach will work perfectly—right up to the point at which it no longer does.

And that point could arrive at any moment, particularly given the volatility of the current US administration.

It is remarkable, though perhaps not surprising, that the Swedish government, along with much of the public sector, continues to bury its head in the sand.

Further Reading

Opinion: Europe Needs Digital Sovereignty

“The United States can instruct its technology giants to withdraw from Denmark unless Greenland is handed over, effectively paralysing Danish society. Today, there is no meaningful distinction between digital sovereignty and sovereignty itself.”

Read the full article here: Europe Needs Digital Sovereignty

The post Swedish Public Administration in American Hands appeared first on Subversivt.

This trend threatens not only to erode our individual capacity to handle crises, but also to weaken society’s structural self-confidence and diminish our collective moral courage, writes Hanna-Karin Grensman.

“The safety chat is proving a success on public transport.” That is how the impact of the chat service, which since 2020 has enabled passengers to communicate directly with SL’s safety control centre, has been described. In concrete terms, it has doubled the number of contacts with passengers.

It is, of course, excellent that such a chat service exists. It is also clearly useful in far more unsafe situations than a telephone number would be, since contact can be made without drawing attention to oneself.

At the same time, we are seeing an ever-growing tendency to hand the problems we encounter over to “someone else”, often some form of public authority. And when someone else is formally responsible, I am relieved of responsibility. I do not need to overcome any discomfort or uncertainty I may feel about taking action.

I do not need to act firmly against someone who is disturbing or harassing another person, because there are staff for that. And when I do not act myself, I also do not gain the experience of dealing with difficult people, for example in public spaces.

The less experience I gain, the more uncertain I become in such situations. My confidence in my ability to protect myself, and others, diminishes.

My dependence on staff therefore increases. On the day when no staff are available, I may be almost entirely unable to handle the situation independently. This is how “learned helplessness” is created: the experience of being unable to act in a specific situation, even though, objectively speaking, I should be able to learn how to do so.

Learned helplessness makes individuals weaker and less secure, which increases the demands placed on the very staff in question. They, in turn, require more resources in order to cope with this increase.

In concrete terms, then, this chat service will lead to fewer people intervening in various situations, which will increase the need for security guards, and therefore the costs. Learned helplessness spreads into yet another area. Already weak moral courage is weakened still further, with potentially disastrous consequences.

That said, the solution is of course not to remove the chat service. I may possess all the moral courage in the world, but it is not always reasonable or appropriate for me to intervene on my own. There is a difference between courage and recklessness.

The value of the chat service is beyond dispute. But how do we counteract the learned helplessness that comes with it? How do we move forward in a way that increases individual capacity to handle crises, while also strengthening society’s structural self-confidence and our collective moral courage?

By each of us taking personal responsibility for maintaining moral courage as both a norm and a practice. In other words, by actively and consciously exercising it whenever the opportunity arises.

Developing such a capacity is good for the individual. It also reduces the risk of later feeling ashamed for not having acted when one believed one should have done so, but did not dare. It is good for the person being targeted, because the experience of having stood alone can have a greater and more lasting psychological impact than the violation itself. And it is good for society, which becomes a safer place when we take responsibility for one another.

So there are, quite simply, no excuses. At least not if one hopes to receive help oneself when the moment comes.

The post Outsourcing Responsibility Undermines Our Moral Courage appeared first on Subversivt.

“I have a very high sex drive and need good partners to be satisfied. I’d never risk developing feelings for someone who later turned out to be bad in bed or poorly endowed.”

Some people have a habit of describing others as “bad in bed”. In effect, they assign ratings to the people they sleep with, directly or indirectly, and often take pleasure in sharing those ratings with others. Those who hear such judgements tend to interpret them as objective characteristics of the person in question—something the person is—rather than as expressions of subjective experiences and preferences. Because sexuality is emotionally charged and deeply personal, such labels can have far-reaching consequences.

There is, of course, nothing unreasonable about wanting good sex. The problem is not preference, selectivity or standards. Human beings are not charitable institutions, and no reasonable person argues that anyone should have sex with someone they do not enjoy being with.

The problem is the assumption that there exists a universal scale on which people can be ranked as good, average or bad. The scale itself is a social construct, and one that bears remarkably little resemblance to how sexuality actually works.

Sex is fundamentally a relational and dynamic process. Whenever two or more people have sex, an interaction takes place. Whether that interaction works—or fails—depends on a range of factors: preferences, pace, trust, bodily communication, prior experiences, power dynamics, nervousness, attraction and timing. Most of what is experienced as “good” or “bad” is therefore not a property of the individuals involved, but a property of the interaction itself.

The dynamics of a sexual experience are created jointly, not by a single individual. This implies something many people seem reluctant even to consider, let alone admit: every bad sexual experience one has ever had is something one has contributed to oneself. Reducing it to the competence of the other person obscures one’s own role. More than that, it elevates one’s personal preferences to the status of objective standards. That is both unfair and analytically indefensible.

Sexuality is not, in practice, a one-sided phenomenon. Presenting it as such is a simplification that creates more problems than it solves.

The Consequences of Insecurity

Once people are categorised as “good” or “bad”, it becomes clear that performance is being evaluated, that reputations can be damaged, and that behaviour can become the object of social assessment. A system of norms—and a logic of performance—is established around the most intimate aspects of human life.

The result is insecurity in relation to sexuality. This insecurity is not an individual condition but a social phenomenon. It spreads, affecting far more people than those who are directly discussed. It affects those who have not yet slept with the person making the judgement, as well as those who never will. And, perhaps most ironically, it affects the person making the judgement themselves—the person who says, “He’s bad in bed.”

People tend, often without reflection, to assume that others function much as they do. Those who judge others therefore tend to expect—or believe—that others judge them according to the same logic, that they too may be evaluated and ranked.

Few people enjoy being judged negatively. In an effort to avoid such judgement, self-consciousness and fears of failure emerge. The ever-present possibility of evaluation diminishes spontaneity, experimentation and presence. Who dares try something new when there is a risk of being marked down for it?

Judgement therefore constrains everyone’s freedom to act. It makes sexuality more controlled, more strategic and less free than it would otherwise be.

Safety and trust, by contrast, operate in the opposite direction. When people do not feel at risk of being judged or exposed, they are more willing to communicate, experiment and adjust. That, in turn, creates better dynamics and ultimately better sexual experiences.

It is therefore hardly surprising that people perceived as safe and non-judgemental often have more sexual experiences. Not necessarily because they are “better” according to some scale, but because others feel more comfortable with them.

Informal Power and the Creation of Moral Hierarchies

By saying that someone is bad in bed, a jointly created experience is redefined as an individual deficiency. Responsibility shifts from “we” to “you”, norms are established, and insecurity is created.

Judging other people’s sexual abilities according to a logic of performance obscures the fact that such assessments are always rooted in the subjective preferences of the person making them. Certain bodies and forms of sexual expression come to be seen as legitimate, while others are cast as deviant. An ostensibly universal and objective standard for what counts as “good” is established, and deviations from that standard are treated as shortcomings.

In this way, language becomes more than a means of describing experience; it becomes a mechanism for regulating behaviour. It narrows the range of acceptable variation and makes people more cautious. It influences who dares to take initiative, who withdraws, and who adapts.

This diminishes people’s perceived agency. Agency is not merely the right to choose; it is the experience of having room to act without being immediately judged. When that space contracts, behaviour changes, often without people noticing it themselves. They avoid things that may be misunderstood, things that fall outside the norm, or things that could lead to negative judgements.

The statement therefore functions as a form of informal power, reproducing a moral hierarchy around sexuality. This may happen without reflection or intention, but it nevertheless alters the dynamics.

The greatest paradox is that the logic of performance is often justified as a means of achieving better sex. Yet by introducing standards and hierarchies, it tends instead to make sexuality poorer, narrower and more regulated than it needs to be.

“But Some People Really Are Bad” — Honesty Without Precision Is Not a Virtue

A common objection is that this is simply a matter of honesty, that adults should be able to handle directness. But honesty without precision is not a virtue. Telling someone “you’re bad in bed” attributes to them a fixed and enduring characteristic. It falls well outside what is normally understood as constructive criticism.

Another common objection is that specific and detailed feedback has been provided, yet the person in question has failed to change. This, it is argued, proves that they are bad.

Yet a lack of change can result from many different factors: differing preferences, shame, a lack of trust, or simply because the person does not wish to change. That position is every bit as legitimate as the desire for change itself. In addition, the communication may have been unclear. What seems obvious and self-evident to one person may not be so to another. Often, the desired change involves more than can be communicated—or altered—through words alone.

A lack of change is therefore not, in itself, evidence of another person’s inadequacy.

General advice is rarely either truly general or particularly good. To the extent that broad criteria do exist—such as attentiveness, communication and bodily awareness—they must always be translated into the context of a specific relationship. What works in one relationship does not automatically work in another.

Compatibility Rather Than Performance

The prevailing model of performance creates and reproduces the idea that there are universal criteria against which people’s sexual performance can be objectively measured. It reflects a wider culture of performance, in which ever more aspects of life are organised around comparison, optimisation and ranking.

Whatever one thinks of that tendency in general, it reduces variation and freedom when imported into intimate relationships.

There is therefore every reason to shift the focus away from whether someone is good in general, and towards whether and how two people work together. This leads to the recognition that compatibility is the more reasonable model. That may sound trivial, but it changes the entire analysis.

To say, “We were not sexually compatible” keeps the focus on the relational dynamic and on compatibility itself. It begins from variation and subjectivity, recognising the fact that people want different things, appreciate different forms of expression and have different boundaries. For every sexual behaviour, there are people who enjoy it and people who do not.

It also means accepting responsibility as the adults we actually are. It requires acknowledging our own role in the dynamic, our own biases and our own preferences. That is harder than applying a label. But it is also more accurate and, ultimately, more generous.

Taken together, this creates freedom and security, while opening the door to learning and development—should one wish it. These are foundational conditions for a positive sexual experience.

Carefulness — Both a Virtue and a Matter of Self-Interest

When we speak in terms of compatibility rather than quality, we open the door to more ways of being, more ways of connecting, and more ways of understanding one another. There are therefore good reasons to be more careful in how we speak about other people, because language shapes which experiences become possible.

This shift in perspective also changes how we understand failure. Failure ceases to be a deficiency and becomes information instead. It tells us something about what did not work in a particular encounter, not about a person’s worth or potential. It means recognising that sexuality is complex, relational and constantly changing. It means understanding that every encounter is unique.

Speaking of compatibility rather than quality therefore creates greater freedom, greater security and better conditions for positive sexual experiences. Speaking of people as “bad” does the opposite.

And, in the end, it is both profoundly inaccurate and entirely unnecessary.

The post You’re Not Bad in Bed — We’re Just Wrong for Each Other appeared first on Subversivt.

In Sweden, we make a fist and raise our thumb to signal approval. Try the same gesture in parts of the Middle East and it may be perceived as obscene or deeply offensive. A gesture, in other words, is never merely a gesture. It carries connotations and cultural associations that shape its meaning and determine how it is interpreted. Those meanings cannot simply be ignored.

In Sweden, as in much of the world, the handshake is regarded as a significant social ritual. Its origins are obscure, but today it functions as both a gesture of courtesy and a symbol of equality. As the Prime Minister once put it: “In Sweden, we greet one another. We shake hands with both men and women.”

The Handshake as Norm and Symbol

Refusing to shake hands is widely perceived as both an insult and a statement about the person whose hand is rejected. It is sufficiently norm-breaking to generate headlines, whether the individuals involved are politicians, athletes, or people whose religious beliefs prohibit physical contact with members of the opposite sex.

Even if the handshake is not inherently superior to other forms of greeting, it cannot be reduced to a trivial hand movement—easily interchangeable with any other gesture—as some would have us believe.

The unrestricted right to decline a handshake does not automatically entail a right to avoid the social consequences of that choice.

In contemporary society, conflicts increasingly arise from the friction between different cultural perspectives and systems of norms. To manage such conflicts, the state must develop a coherent approach to balancing multiculturalism, secularism and gender equality. Public institutions need to address these tensions rather than sweeping them aside or dismissing them as insignificant, because they are clearly neither.

This issue was recently brought into focus by Trelleborg Municipal Council’s decision that individuals who refuse to shake hands with members of the opposite sex for cultural or religious reasons should not be employed by the municipality.

Several legal scholars criticised the decision, arguing that refusing to shake hands constitutes a religious manifestation protected under the European Convention on Human Rights. Yet the unrestricted right to decline a handshake does not automatically include a right to be shielded from the social consequences of doing so.

Freedom of Religion, Secularism and the Limits of the State

Today, refusing to shake hands is not merely regarded as discourteous. In many cases it functions as an ideological signal, symbolising a desire for gender segregation and separation between Muslims and non-Muslims. Such aspirations largely reflect a particular Islamist interest rather than a universal religious requirement. Refusing to shake hands is an expression of a conservative interpretation of Islam—one that many Muslims do not share—just as it is Hasidic Jews, rather than Jews in general, who commonly avoid handshakes.

Yet while employers are generally entitled to prohibit ideological and religious symbols, no equivalent right exists with regard to symbolic actions. This is despite the fact that refusing to shake hands communicates an individual’s beliefs just as clearly as a political badge, and may similarly lead citizens to perceive representatives of the state as biased or even hostile.

In a secular state, religious beliefs cannot be allowed to take precedence over citizens’ right to neutral treatment.

Indeed, the state’s obligation to uphold objectivity and equal treatment arguably implies a duty not to employ individuals who insist on performing ideological symbolic acts while carrying out public duties, regardless of the reasons behind them.

The alternative—continuing to compromise secular values in favour of ideological special interests—creates an artificial and imagined conflict between diversity and gender equality. The resulting ambiguity undermines trust in the state, makes multicultural coexistence more difficult, and lays the groundwork for escalating conflicts framed in ethical and cultural terms.

This article was originally published in Smedjan (Timbro) on 4 January 2020.

The post Refusing to Shake Hands Is an Ideological Statement appeared first on Subversivt.

Do you believe that you own your body? That it is yours to do with as you wish? That you have a right to bodily autonomy?

It is a popular belief. Yet upon closer examination, one is forced to conclude that it is largely untrue. Although human rights principles emphasise bodily autonomy, the state has established an extensive set of rules governing what people may do with their own bodies—even in matters that affect no one but themselves.

This is a matter of principle. What distinguishes a liberal democracy is that laws are enacted to protect individuals from having their rights violated by other people, not to override an individual’s right to self-determination.

The state’s unjustified authority is evident, for example, in the fact that individuals have no right to choose assisted dying. In September, a woman was sentenced to prison after helping her husband to die. His documented consent, and the fact that she had attempted to take her own life at the same time, made no difference. The fact that he had asked for her assistance was not considered exculpatory; his wishes were barely relevant in legal terms.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal in a number of countries, but only under specific circumstances. A simple desire to die is not accepted as justification, regardless of whether it is connected to mental illness. Assistance is generally restricted to those who are terminally ill and suffering severely. The authority that the state has claimed over the individual’s body—and life itself—is thus permitted to override the individual’s own claim to both.

These restrictions are often justified on the grounds that they reflect the moral views of the majority. Few people regard it as a serious problem that sexual relations between close relatives are prohibited in many circumstances, or that individuals have only limited legal capacity to consent to violence against themselves.

Yet failing to defend the principle of bodily autonomy simply because one has no desire to cross those particular boundaries is rather like refusing to defend freedom of expression because one has nothing to say. People have been convicted despite demonstrable consent. For some, these restrictions are not theoretical but deeply consequential. They create a form of moral majoritarianism—a tyranny of the majority—which runs contrary to the principles of liberal democracy.

What distinguishes a liberal democracy is that laws are enacted to protect individuals from having their rights violated by other people.

The state’s role should therefore be limited to ensuring that violations of consent are punished. It should not be taking a position on actions undertaken between consenting adults.

Instead, the state’s authority over our bodies is treated as so self-evident that it is rarely questioned. This enables a wide range of paternalistic and restrictive laws, from compulsory motorcycle helmets to smoking bans and licensing requirements for public dancing. When the state consistently fails to respect individual bodily autonomy, it is hardly surprising that proposals such as the one put forward by Christian Democrat politician Ella Bohlin in October—that all citizens should automatically be registered as organ donors—receive support.

Such a measure would undoubtedly increase the number of registered donors. It would also increase the number of people listed in the register who do not, in fact, wish to donate. Negative enrolment—the practice of binding individuals without their active consent—has precisely this effect, which is also why it is generally prohibited in other contexts.

Ensuring meaningful consent can, admittedly, be legally complex. Doctors’ reluctance to perform assisted dying deserves respect. Reckless decisions by individuals may impose costs on the public sector. The shortage of transplant organs is a genuine problem.

But these are problems that can be addressed. They are not legitimate reasons to curtail citizens’ bodily autonomy.

The role of the state is not to act as an overprotective parent to citizens deemed incapable of knowing what is best for themselves and therefore in need of protection from poor choices. On the contrary, its role is to protect the individual’s right to be unreasonable, irrational and foolish.

Only when a person’s actions infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others does the state acquire both the right—and the obligation—to intervene.

Not before.

This article was originally published in Smedjan (Timbro) on 12 December 2019.

The post Your Bodily Autonomy Is an Illusion appeared first on Subversivt.

People often say that your views on parenting change once you have children of your own. As an expectant parent, I expected as much. What I did not expect was the constant tension between conventional morality and giving my children the tools they need to succeed in contemporary society. Time and again, it becomes clear that the two are no longer aligned. Modern society is full not only of people who benefit from doing the wrong thing, but, more troublingly, of people who do everything right and lose anyway.

A Large Vocabulary Is Valued Only in Theory

We talk endlessly about the importance of knowledge and education. Yet when a friend attended a parent-teacher meeting, she was encouraged to “use less advanced language” with her son. His vocabulary was making the other children feel inadequate.

Unfortunately, it is probably the staff rather than my friend who are responding rationally to the incentives of the system. A rich vocabulary is admired only in theory. In practice, competence often carries remarkably little value. Investment in higher education frequently fails to pay off. Influencers and celebrities are granted the same authority as Nobel Prize winners.

Even governing a country appears not to require formal education. Many ministers lack university degrees. What matters instead is loyalty and ideological conformity. As the old saying goes: “To think freely is admirable; to think correctly is greater.”

When Truth Loses to Narrative

We are often told that children need to learn the value of hard work. Yet research in occupational and environmental medicine suggests that employees who are competent, driven and committed to doing things properly are also more likely to become targets of workplace bullying.

Those who refuse to settle for mediocrity are often pushed aside. Under such conditions, maintaining a strong work ethic can begin to seem almost irrational.

We teach children not to lie. Yet public life repeatedly demonstrates that falsehoods can be rewarded while inconvenient truths are punished. Those who tell compelling stories are often celebrated; those who challenge them are frequently marginalised.

As long as society allows narratives to triumph over facts, should we really be surprised when people conclude that dishonesty is a useful skill?

The Polite Make Way for the Rude

In nursery and primary school, children are taught to wait their turn, show consideration and treat others with respect. Yet in adult life, those who wait patiently are often pushed aside, while the rude and demanding receive attention first.

Public institutions increasingly adapt to disruptive behaviour rather than reinforcing social norms. The lesson absorbed by many is simple: those who make the most noise get what they want.

Perhaps, then, we ought to teach our children to be louder, more demanding and more aggressive in pursuing their interests?

We Punish Whistleblowers

“Some things simply have to be done, otherwise you’re not really a human being,” we tell ourselves.

Yet we also know that people who expose wrongdoing are often punished for doing so. Whistleblowers frequently pay a professional and social price for their integrity. The message society sends is therefore deeply contradictory: we praise courage in principle while penalising it in practice.

We Teach Submission Rather Than Self-Defence

In children’s stories, great strength is usually accompanied by great kindness. Reality is rather different.

Power is often used to intimidate, exploit or coerce. Yet despite this, we rarely teach children how to defend themselves effectively. On the contrary, we often teach them to retreat, accommodate and avoid confrontation. They learn to adapt rather than resist, to endure rather than challenge.

In many cases they are discouraged even from expressing negative judgements about others, regardless of whether those judgements are justified.

Are We Failing Our Children?

There is, therefore, a troubling possibility: that by raising children according to conventional moral ideals, we may inadvertently be placing them at a disadvantage.

Children who develop strong integrity, a robust moral compass and a commitment to fairness often find themselves operating in environments where those qualities are insufficiently valued. Their rights are more readily compromised, their freedom of movement becomes more restricted, and they carry heightened levels of anxiety into adulthood.

At the theatre, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible continues to resonate. Time and again, John Proctor attempts to do what is morally right, only to be accused of witchcraft and ultimately executed. The play’s central lesson remains painfully familiar.

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

Rarely has that observation felt more relevant.

This article was originally published in Smedjan (Timbro) on 12 October 2019.

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