Hør dog hvad de siger - Note-to-Self: Trials & Errors

things, what has become decisive is not who you are but the market value of your production
and consumption. Rational arguments take over; with globalization we are, in fact, back to
positivistic thinking. Thus, when in this study we speak of ‘rationalism’ or ‘rational ideolo-
gies’, we do not refer to the 18 th century school of intellectuals, but to the paradox of ‘ideolo-
gies’ that construe themselves as not smitten by ‘ideology’ but as being able to grasp the
world as it really is – typically measured by market value. And in that set-up there is no need
to worry about (any other) ideologies. 27
The very concept of ‘ideology’ itself has in this process become watered down, from sig-
nifying an ideal, a vision to live and die for, to approaching a common-sensical impression of
the world, ‘the way things just are’. Within linguistics, and as something of the official view
of the International Pragmatics Association, its Secretary General, Jef Verschueren (1999: vii)
phrases it as follows:
‘Ideology’ is interpreted as any constellation of beliefs or ideas, bearing on an aspect
of social reality, which are experienced as fundamental or commonsensical and which
can be observed to play a normative role. 28
The expected counter-reaction to globalization has already been around for some time: gloca-
lization. Glocalization incorporates the global, and appropriates it to various degrees. The na-
tional and the global are not either-or views, but parameters that have lives of their own – so-
metimes in collaboration with each other, sometimes not.
Glocalization is a regionalization process, where the local perspective is given more atten-
tion than in processes of globalization. In this study, we will suggest that in the larger scheme
of things glocalization is taking the form of an ideology that aligns itself with romanticism.
This means that the Nordic countries have recently embarked on what we can call a third sta-
ge of ‘romanticism’. This third stage is not primarily one in terms of nation-state nationalism,
but a more local movement, one in terms of ‘extended locality’ (cf. Östman 2004).
To reiterate, our line of argumentation is as follows. (1) ‘The ideology of the Nordic’ is
inscribed with the values of (national-)romanticism from whence it came. (2) Over the last
decades, the pendulum has swung in favor of (economic) rationalism rather than ideology, viz.
globalization. (3) We are now beginning to see the expected reaction against globalization, viz.
glocalization. (4) In the search for a viable reaction to the pressure from Anglo-American glo-
27 In this line of thinking, globalization is a wave against romanticism, and – more interestingly – globalization is
not a ‘new’ thing: as a phenomenon, it is a hermeneutically enhanced counter-movement against previous states
of affairs. This also means that what we see as a present-day lack of interest in ideologies is nothing new.
28 On ideology, see further, e.g., Thompson (1984).
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