FROM CONFORMITY TO NON-CONFORMITY

Speech given at the annual festival of the North Ostrobothnian Student Corporation in Helsinki, 4 February 1967

Changing generations belong to the natural order of things. Conflicts between old and young are not exactly a natural thing, but they are almost the rule. There may be centureis of static, stagnated society with no disagreement between the old and the young on the surface. But in a dynamic, developing society the open differences of view between the generations cannot be suppressed, not even by force.

Never before in the history of mankind have conditions pointed up so compellingly the contrast between the old and the young, the old and the new, as they do today when the world is entering the nuclear era. Although the phenomenon is not due to one variable only, physical age, this continues to be the most important factor together with the complete change in the way of thinking that follows on the embracing of new knowledge. Technological development has already meant a revolution in many spheres. One example is the military means of annihilation. For no other purpose has so much work and money been used in the history of the world as on preparations for killing people, for teaching how to kill and for killing itself. Weapons, the most effective method of slaughter if we disregard the gas oven, were based until the 1940s on the principles of the stone sling and the javelin. Only the invention of guided missiles and the atomic bomb around the same time made available to the earthly lords of creation sufficiently effective means of removing the obstacles to total killing and mass destruction.

It is quite natural that the revolutionary development of technology should also produce important changes in our idea of the universe and in our thinking. We live in a time of change when the old has not yet lost its position because the new is just taking shape. But every one realizes that the future will destroy many values which are still important today.

`A rising power always crushes in an inexplicable way the obstacles in its way. Public opinion, as a child of the past era and thus favouring the views that have grown with it, crumbles when it has lived its life, giving way to a new, more vital way of thought.`

The words are Santeri Alkio`s. He said them in 1896, in Tampere, at a meeting of the representatives of Finland`s Workers` Association. I quote them here only to show that appraisal of the disappearance of the old and emergence of the new did not start in 1967, even in Finland.

In times of great change, the old positions can be held only in a few walks of life. I want in this speech to review -- partly in the light of my personal development -- the series of changes in Finnish society which evidence a transition from conformity to non-conformity.

To begin with, perhaps I may review the findings of modern social science on these points.

In a predominantly agricultural class society of modest supply and demand, the norms and modes of action are based on established methods and customs repeated from one year to another: this is how it was done before, this is how it shall be done now; it is decided by the weather, the fields, forests and water from which come the necessities of life. In that society even individual outward differences were regarded as something to be ashamed of. The people of neighbouring parishes who were dressed differently and spoke another dialect were sneered at, to say nothing of neighbouring nations speaking another language who were almost simpletons, hurreja or rysseä^1. This old deliberate bond with tradition, which was created by habitual attitudes, gave the community the firmness, stability and solidarity it needed. Opposition to this rigid form of life was difficult, for man aspired to conformity, not disagreement, since it is easier to fall in with the great majority than to fight it.

When society rids itself of the natural mode of life, changes to the new conditions created by industrialism and begins to develop vigorously and to diversify, the bond with tradition no longer holds: we need more and more knowledge, schooling, research, and conscious deliberation for our activities. It is simply economic and technological development and the steady growth of education that convert a rigid class society into a pluralistic community, in which diversification can appear and in which the citizens have a chance of influencing society in many ways. The capabilities and inclinations of men and their social dissimilarity are taken into consideration more and more. Differentiation and specialization progress further, but the need for co-operation grows at the same time. In this way we free ourselves from the strong unifying pressure of norms and the traditionally tight social dependence. Now there is voluntary co-operation and solidarity which is more humanly developed and helps to bring about flexible adaptation to different problems and situations.

Liberation from the external and internal pressure of norms means not only mental independence but also the growth of voluntary activity. In the modern sociological view, activity and communication promote mental independence; passiveness and isolation retard it. The most resolute opponents of reform are generally persons who lack social contacts and whose social reality is reduced to values and beliefs inherited in childhood.

1 Derogatory Finnish terms for Sweden and Russians.

If we examine the development of Finnish society, we see that the old class society, which should have ended with the parliamentary reform of 1906, persisted in many of its basic features right to this side of World War II. Our school system is an example of this. The social education it imparts has been principally that of the class society, and probably because of this the upper-class pupils of today have been obliged themselves to start creating ways and opportunities for studying social conditions and problems.

We must admit that important social changes occurred before the suffrage reform. The national awakening from the middle of the 19th century onwards meant liberation from unconscious restraint, and through it an unprecedented release of intellectual forces in our country. The radical movements of the 19th century, such as the workers` movement, the suffragettes, the co-operative movement, the youth society movement (which was accused of spreading `red liberalism`) also infused new intellectual vigour and activity into society. These reform movements were, however, unable to overcome the attitudes which had developed in a predominantly agricultural class society, and persisted in different social classes. Much must be attributed also to the complexes and uncertainty of the youth of the leading stratum of Finnish-speaking Finland; it often sought to mask its uncertainty behind strict and stern principles.

I was born in 1900 when Finland was still formally a class society. Thanks to the understanding attitude and sacrifices of my parents, I was able to continue my schooling. When I entered the University of Helsinki at the beginning of the 1920s, Finland was an independent state. What were we to do in order to safeguard the country`s independence? National unanimity, that was the requirement and watchword of the time. The power of the nation thus lay in conformity, and nonconformity was a weakness. Conformity was effectiveness and security. This being so, political and linguistic dissimilarity was perhaps a danger, and it had to be fought. We were not very ready to debate and exchange views with different opinions, as our world seemed to be plain. To conform was a social virtue.

There were circles in the student world of the 1920s who spoke of the unification of the nation. This expression meant accord between the social classes. However, the unification of the people, I now understand, remained a fine phrase to which we did only lip service. Through the unification of the people we wanted to guide the working population towards the same unanimity and conformity which was our programme. `Unification` was not sought in co-operation with the left wing, `unification` was offered to it. Although I have always felt myself personally to be a radical in the centre, I did not have, in spite of my unification ideology, any noteworthy contacts with the politically organized workers. And what was worse then and is incomprehensible now, I was not conscious of this failing.

The programme for `national unification` in the 1920s was an unsuccessful effort to raise social issues in the student world and to heal the wounds of the civil war. The effort was initiated and led without understanding, without a sense of political reality. In addition, it lacked an intellectual basis among the university youth. This was realized at the end of the 1920s when the majority of young undergraduates were carried away like driftwood on the spring flood of the extremist right-wing Lapua movement. This meant that the ritually patriotic students subsequently had no chance at all of practical co-operation with the left-wing circles. The situation was similar on a broad scale in the other bourgeois circles.

The demand for conformity, of course, had not only a national but also an international background: the Russian revolution, the civil war, the reactions of fear to the Bolshevik government and the fascist movement in Central and South Europe also served to deepen the rift between the Finnish right and left wing.

I have described how unrealistic was the demand for conformity in the early years of our independence and the intellectual attitudes and difficulties it led to. It is, of course, clear that an explanation of social phenomena resting on a single motive cannot wholly correspond with the facts. Simplification always results in bias. I have not been able to avoid it here, nor have I tried to do so. I believe that through this narrow view I shall be able to explain to those who did not live in the 1920s and 1930s how and why those times were what they were.

I am no exemplary exponent of the 1920s as I was a liberal, which the young university students were not. But I have identified myself with the university students of the 1920s because I was with them, to a small extent even leading them. I have emphasized the complete absence of intellectual contact between the young undergraduates and the workers. I and those like me were sincere when we spoke of `national unification`, but our idea was still-born because we failed to understand that co-operation -- which we certainly intended -- cannot come out of dictation. We should have accorded the left wing the right to hold to its own ideals and ideas, just as we had our own. We should have admitted that non-conformity comes first and then, after debate and compromise and co-operation between the non-conforming, comes unity. To agree to disagree. I began to understand this only after the foundations of our democracy were threatened by the Lapua movement and the Popular Patriotic Movement; when an endeavour was made to achieve conformity by force, the justification of the entire doctrine of conformity became questionable.

I fought against the Lapua Movement and the Popular Patriotic Movement. I worked for co-operation between the Agrarian Party and the Social Democrats, which was realized in 1937 by the formation of Cajander`s `Red-Green` coalition cabinet. I spoke and worked for recognition of the workers` sports movement. In my own intellectual development I had arrived at a new concept of democracy: that the acceptance of differences of opinion is a characteristic of democracy. A vital, dynamic society is characterized by diversity of opinions on important topical issues, and the strength of democracy lies in accepting the emergence of different points of view.

Starting from there, I would say that the political and social organizing of our workers, which in the 1920s and 30s was regarded generally in a bad light, has provoked a great number of our citizens into social and cultural activity. Because of this organizational work, the attitude of countless citizens to the community has become one of participation; society has become a living thing of importance for them. The fact that the workers` own organizations have been accepted as equal negotiating partners, has not only improved the workers` material conditions of life but has also meant a great deal for their self-esteem. The Workers` Athletic Union has spread an interest in sport to broad strata of the population, who without it would probably have remained outside active sporting life. Our Swedish-speaking minority has added to our contacts and widened our culture westward, especially in Scandinavia. It also offers a rich source of cultural history from which we can still draw. Our Orthodox Church broadens the cultural background of our people in the vitally important East European direction.

In our relationship with our national, linguistic or religious minorities, we should not insist on formal rights when the safety, comfort, even existence of the weaker party is at stake. I mean by this that the majority in its relations with the minority should not be satisfied with observing only the formal statutory minimum; it must show proof of tolerance and generosity.

I want to sum up what I have just said in the following way: as the Finnish nation, one among many nations, we have only one common task, but as Finnish citizens we have our own groupings and lines of thought. A nation `where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free,` to quote St. Paul`s words, in their time revolutionary.

The trait which today dominates international polities is peaceful co-existence. States with opposing goals own to being advocates of peaceful competition. After all, the other alternative is war. Co-operation between so-called Capitalist and so-called Communist Europe is growing continuously, trade is expanding and cultural relations are getting livelier. This means non-conformity, pluralism in the international sphere. I have repeatedly stressed the point that we have no rational alternative to neutrality and good neighbourly relations. This does not conflict with the demand for nonconformity since our policy of neutrality is based on our readiness to increase co-operation and contacts with all peoples, even those that have quite a different social system. Such contacts provide the most varied stimuli for our own cultural and social progress. Only those who are intrinsically free and ready for interchanges with both East and West are useful debating partners in the task of applying our foreign policy.

Domestic politics in Finland have been based much more than in the other Scandinavian countries on emotional reactions. This has naturally made matter-of-fact exchange of opinions and the co-operation that might follow from it difficult. It is just this emotional trait of our politics that has raised high fences and made it difficult to build up national solidarity. How often have we heard the plaintive cry `Finland needs hard times, danger from without, to achieve unanimity.` The sigh actually seems to conceal a hidden wish that the bad days would come so that the old, longed-for unanimity could be attained.

But we are not seeking this sort of conformity and unanimity. National solidarity must be achieved and can be achieved by stretching out an open hand and by the co-operation that this brings about. The autumn of 1937 is an example. President Svinhufvud had declared that as long as he was president the Social Democratic Party could not take office, as it would not work for the country in the Government. Soon after President Kallio had assumed office, a cabinet was formed in autumn 1937 in which the Social Democrats were well represented. There cannot be many Finns today who fail to regard this decision, much criticized in its time, as correct and even necessary.

We are now faced with a task which, although a beginning has been made, appears to be perhaps as difficult as the great question at issue in the 1930s to which I have just referred. I mean the integration of Communists in the Finnish community as citizens with full civic rights.

The Communists emerged from `underground` after the war and organized large political, trade and cultural movements. There are Communists in the factories, local government councils, science and art, Parliament and parliamentary committees, now even in the Government. They participate in the founding of universities and when the funds are made available they go abroad representing their country, and they are written about even in the columns of the so-called bourgeois press. Is all this harmful to the country? On the contrary, have not Communists through their own organizations and by the force of their own idealism infused the country with national spirit and vigour, a new belief in tomorrow, and worked for its good? With the help of these organizations wider circles have been offered an active social life.

This question was most recently discussed by Professor Erik Allardt in his book Finland 1975. He says that the other parties have opposed the participation of the People`s Democrats in office because they profess to fear that the People`s Democrats will not abide by the rules of the game accepted by the other parties. As election analyses show that the supporters of the People`s Democrats are on an average poorer, more often unemployed and have less schooling than, for instance, those who vote for the Social Democrats, keeping the People`s Democrats out of office means that the inhabitants with the smallest means do not have the same political rights as the rest of the population and that their political influence is reduced. The political conflict between the People`s Democrats and the others helps to maintain and sharpen class distinctions and to prevent the settlement of class conflicts.

Allardt says, further, that political history shows that the countries in which the participation in politics of new politically conscious groups was prevented in the early 20th century have later become politically unstable and easily dominated by totalitarian parties. And we need go no further than home to see this. Our own experience at the end of the 1930s proves that confidence shown in a group that was once looked at askance fosters a reciprocal confidence and loyalty. Continuous isolation, on the other hand, leads to grudges and opposition. Isolation can be felt so strongly that simply overcoming it is not enough and activity is aimed against the entire community.

I agree with what Allardt has written. It is important for peaceful social development that the right of the People`s Democrats to participate on an equal footing with others in the affairs of the country is accepted. How it is to be realized in practice is another matter. Finland is a country with a multi-party system and the parties must agree among themselves about programmes and co-operation in Government. If they cannot negotiate an arrangement acceptable to the People`s Democrats, they remain in opposition according to the rules of the parliamentary game. I should add that peaceful social development in the climate of political pluralism naturally presupposes abiding by mutually agreed rules of the game, while the drawing up of new rules or changing of existing ones can only be done by mutual consent and in a way foreseen by the existing rules.

The World Youth Festival was held in Helsinki in summer 1962. I listened to its programme on the radio. A group of young Finnish singers rendered the Finlandia hymn. The participants were declared to be Communists and there probably were many of them in this choral group. I heard them sing with bright voices: `Arise Finland, raise high your head crowned with great memories, arise Finland, you showed the world that you rejected serfdom and that you did not succumb to oppression, your day will dawn, oh native country.` I admit that I have seldom listened to the Finlandia hymn in a more receptive mood. I wished at the time that as many Finnish bourgeois as possible were listening to the festival programme.

In speaking of Finnish patriotism, it is my belief that Finland is held equally dear by Finnish Communists as by other Finns. Finland would in fact be very weak if every fourth citizen were an enemy of the native country. Communists have, no doubt, other ideas than their opponents about social and economic justice and its political implementation. Cooperation with the Communists for the building of Finnish society thus means a clash of ideas with those who think otherwise. The man who believes in the fitness and vigour of his own idea will have the courage to follow it.