Some thoughts on book prices..

Every month, I get an email from a book club that I joined some years ago, telling me which book is this month's title. The reason I joined the book club was pure and simple to get the "welcome present" of five free books, which I thought was a pretty good deal. The only drawback is that every month, I have to go through the hassle of canceling the book of the month. That I invariably do. Most often I don't find their monthly "recommendation" very recommendable, and besides I always have a sizable stack of books waiting to be read anyway.

But from time to time, there will be a title worth adding to my growing pile. That happened to be the case this month, with Geert Mak's In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century (hardcover) to the respectable price of NOK 375 (roughly 33 GBP or 42 Euros). But even though I find the title interesting, I would not consider for a second to buy it from the book club. Instead I head off to Amazon to find the same title for the much more appealing price of 6.54 GBP or NOK 74. (That is the paperback edition, but for the time being the title is not available in paperback in Norwegian.)

I do not think that I am alone doing this. A lot of people who, like me, are not too hindered by the (lack of) fluency in English, will opt for the English alternative even though they might have preferred to read it in Norwegian. That can not be good for our language, which some already perceive to be under pressure from English.

Another point is that it is not everyone who have a high enough competency in English to be able to go for the cheaper alternative. I would assume that for the "educated classes," the proportion of people having a high enough English skill is far higher than among the "less educated." To me, to keep the book prices in Norway so high does not seem to be good social policies. If we are so egalitarian as we claim to be, would it not be fair to make knowledge equally available to all?

The reason that book prices in Norway are so high is because there is a minimum price for books imposed. This is done to prevent online booksellers etc. from using their advantage to squeeze more provincial bookstores out of the market. If customers can get the same books cheaper from the online bookseller, they will not buy it dearer from their local bookstore. I do see the argument. But with international online booksellers available, this only serves to prevent Norwegian books from being sold at reasonable prices, one effect being that people buy English books instead. Isn't there a better way of promoting Norwegian books (both in original and translation) than pricing them so high that people can't afford to buy them?

Worries in the High North

In this week's issue, the Economist is featuring an article that highlights Russia's conduct in the Arctic areas. It describes this area, "cold, empty and rich in fish and minerals", as "a tempting prize for a big, confident country." Russian fighter jets have been frequently flying very close to Norwegian territory, something that while not illegal sends some worrying signals. The recent €4 billion emergency loan to Iceland is also a bit worrying - not in itself, but with regards to whatever Russia wants in return.

I have written some posts about this issue already; "The Bear and Us - Russia and Norway" and "The Bear and Us Revisited". My point in those articles was that although the Cold War is over, we should be very wary with regards to our Eastern neighbor.

As a tiny little country of only four and a half million people we are not in an ideal position if we should get into a conflict with Russia. But we still need to do everything in our power to stand our ground, and send clear signals of our own standpoint. Also, as I see it, we have no other choice than to keep both of our feet firmly grounded in NATO. It may be pointed out that "NATO presence is fitful" in the High North, as the Economist does. Still, it is a grave mistake to argue for us to distance ourselves from NATO and our Western allies, as some of our socialist parties do. We cannot afford to stand alone, and NATO is our best bet not to do so.

It has been sad to see that even our dear former Prime Minister, Haakon Lie, has been arguing against taking our share of responsibilities in NATO operations around the world. His rhetorical point is that Norway's borders are not running next to Afghanistan. That is of course true. But it is equally true that most NATO members do not have a border to Russia along the Pasvik River in Northern Norway.

Social levelling

If you follow the debate in Norwegian media about schools, you will frequently come across the term "sosial utjevning". The term, which can be roughly translated as "social levelling", digs straight into the strong egalitarian attitudes in Norway.

This term has got two sides to it. On the one side, we want to pull up the pupils and children that are struggling at school, and that have trouble learning important skills like reading, writing and arithmatics. This is of course right. To help struggling children to learn is an obligation we have as an inclusive society, and we need to try as hard as we can to help children that for some reason or other have problems learning. We need to do everything we can to help them acquire the skills needed to be successful in their lives. This goes for social skills, "hard skills" like reading, writing, calculus, and for instilling in them an understanding of what it entails to be part of a society.

But the term has also got an ugly back side, and it is this back side that I always react to whenever I come across this term. When you are levelling something out you are mending the dumps and holes, but you are also removing the bumps sticking up. Transferred onto the school system, this means that you pull up the struggling pupils, but you also pull some down, trying to make an average out of every pupil.

The idea behind this social levelling is to give every child the same opportunities to learn, indepentent of his or her parents' standing or financial resources. On the face of it, that is noble enough. But when this levelling is done by pulling some down, that is in my opinion inherently wrong. From my brief experience as a teacher, I know how many resources go to children with learning problems, and how much academically gifted children tend to be much more left on their own without much extra stimulus or extra challenges. As long as they master the curriculum, we are satisfied with that, and do not encourage them to reach further.

To be perfectly clear, I do not mean that we should stop making an effort to help children that struggle. But we also need to make an effort to help the children that display a gift for the traditional school curriculum to strive further. We should not try and level the children out and try to make them all equal by pulling some up and some down, but borrow the slogan of the American military and encourage every child to strive to be all that they can be.