Social Norms
Playwright and corporate communications consultant Syl Jones suggested that Minnesota nice is not entirely about being "nice" but is more about keeping up appearances, maintaining the social order, and keeping people in their place. He relates these social norms to the literary work of Danish-Norwegian novelist, Aksel Sandemose, Jante Law, and more generally, Scandinavian culture. Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion discusses "Wobegonics", the supposed language of Minnesotans which includes "no confrontational verbs or statements of strong personal preference".
Scandinavia is a "low context culture" whereas Minnesota nice is characteristic of a high context culture. Presumably, the immigrants from Norway and Sweden adapted their low context Jante Law to the seemingly similar but very different Southern United States high context polite society, forming the unique Midwest culture amongst Western cultures that is called "Minnesota Nice." The integration of Jute Law and Polite Society, epitomized by the rules of a Southern belle, likely occurred when the cultures meet and merged during the pre-American Civil War migration of pro-slavery southern farmers north into the midwest territory (for example, documented in the well known Bleeding Kansas conflict).
Read more about this topic: Minnesota Nice
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or norms:
“The value of a family is that it cushions and protects while the individual is learning ways of coping. And a supportive social system provides the same kind of cushioning for the family as a whole.”
—Michael W. Yogman, and T. Berry Brazelton (20th century)
“There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets ours norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)