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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Those men aren’t Swedes because they don’t care about being Swedes. They probably wouldn’t become Americans, either (though I guess our cultural products are a lot stronger than the Nordics).

Arguably many immigrant-background gang criminals etc. in Sweden and other European countries have assimilated - they just haven't assimilated to the European mainstream cultures but to the omnipresent, America-originated (though these days somewhat detached from that root, ie. UK roadman subculture becoming more common as a point of reference) global underclass subculture, or subcultures.

Many of the biggest issues in Sweden re: immigrants are due to outlaw biker gangs (Saturadah is known to be immigrant-oriented), but biker gangs have been an issue in the Nordic countries even before immigrant crime really became a thing. There arguably is not a single form of organized crime more American, both regarding its origins and cultural signifiers, than outlaw biker gangs.

Furthermore, of course, there are a plenty of immigrants in Sweden and immigrants who have assimilated completely to Swedish mores, even if these might be liberal Swedish mores. During my career in left-wing youth politics here I visited Sweden to meet the local left youth organization a few times, and saw little difference between members coming from native Swedish or immigrant backgrounds; often both types were able to trigger an automatic Finnish "goddamn Swedes..." reaction somewhere in my subconsciousness.