It’s time to embrace Dugnadsånd – the Norwegian concept we all need right now | Emma Beddington

A new Hygge It has decreased, but you will need to take off your comfortable soles and put the cinnamon cake to try it. There is a real risk of getting the wrong end of the stick when we are enthusiastic about the lifestyles of other countries – such as when the New York Times writes about contemporary British who enjoy Boiled lamb For lunch, or “The cavity” in the swampsAnd we all express – but this comes directly from the mouth of the Vikings.

This is Meik Wiking, the CEO of Happiness Research in Copenhagen. Writing in the designerWiking suggests that we think about adopting a Norwegian concept that requires any blankets or candles: DugnadsåndIt was almost translated as “the spirit of society”. Similar Dugnadsånd To link the barn in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, describing “people’s collective readiness to meet in the context of society projects-with a focus on cooperation and self-denial.”

Can it pick up here? Somehow, she already has. There are not many barns that need to be raised in 2025, but our societies certainly need teamwork. Through bare budgets, general services and discounts are already highlighted in Threadbare, lowering, and community spirit, at least partially than ensuring hungry children feeding, and liquid waste in our waterways (why this thing?) And refugees are welcomed, among other things.

There is a very fair question that must be asked if it is, really, Individuals and societies must connect these gap holes. To the British ears, Dugnadsånd It can spark awe of the “Great Society” of David Cameron – the use of external sources appropriate to the state’s obligations towards a group of charitable and voluntary institutions when what really needs wealthy and companies pay a large tax.

But if you realize Dugnadsånd Correctly, than Wiking writes, it is often more modest: neighbors help neighbors or societies to cleanse garbage or create stadiums. Anyone can be the beneficiary, as well as the donor. He says: “Helping each other through reciprocity has made the entire society stronger and more flexible, and I would like to claim, is happier,” he says.

I can believe it well, because there is difficult evidence that volunteering is useful for you. Review 2023 of 28 studies on volunteering He concluded that there is a “fixed guide to support effects on public health, luxury and the quality of life”; There is even evidence of “decreased deaths”. Social descriptions refer customers to volunteering opportunities, because the belief that you have something to contribute and act on, feel satisfied. Treatment like bread, because everyone benefits.

I know how to feel it. I have been secretary of a local environmental charity during the past few years, and while I rarely feel I feel particularly help and sometimes the opposite (especially facing budget data schedules), I always feel less despair when I am there – not the least of them because it has shown the number of people who will get pseudo -thugs and monster cans of freezing, or show sweating, sweating. My husband (who has already beneficial skills) gets something similar to his holes in the local reform cafe: not every lamp or toaster is fixed, but there is a feeling of building something.

It seems as if it is a training for what awaits us. When the government in Britain is bitterly disappointing, and elsewhere, it is actively enhanced by the end of the world, there will definitely be more natural, worse and worse disasters. Do we really want to try to survive from its peak, and sit on stocks of canned goods? In the New York Times, explore how The current terrifying political climate has an intellectual interest in the idea of ​​solidarity She included a stuck description with me: “A distinctive shape and sensation of intimate relationship.” He – she He is Intimate, weak, for acceptance and expression when we need help; You want to present it but you don’t know how, or to feel efficient when we do; To accept, we need each other.

Dugnadsånd Practical solidarity, in fact, appears to be a way to practice this, to train our collective thinking, our teamwork, as well as our collective weakness. It is either that, or it is something completely different – ends with you, Norway.

Emma Bedington, a guardian writer