The Case for Civilization (and Silicone Spatulas)

A domestic philosophical dispatch from the global frontlines of civilization, Part 1

Markus called Thursday night just as Julian was pulling a sheet pan of broccolini out of the oven.

This was not unusual. Markus’s calls often coincided with a roast or a reduction. It was unclear whether Markus had an internal clock set to dinnertime or simply preferred to monologue to the rhythmic backdrop of clattering pans. Julian finished putting in his earbuds, freeing his right hand to grab a pair of tongs.

“I think I’m moving to Sweden,” Markus said.

“Oh-kay,” said Julian. Here we go again, he thought.

This wasn’t the first time Markus had said this. But it was the first time he said it with the low, theatrical calm he reserved for declarations of real consequence—the same voice he used to announce his breakup with Omar (“It’s done. I’m free. Also, he kept the copper stockpot. Bastard.”) and, more recently, to describe an especially bitter saffron from Marseille (“It was like chewing on regret.”)

“Where in Sweden? When?” Julian asked, setting the broccolini on a trivet.

“Stockholm. I got an offer from that immunotherapy lab I told you about. They’ve got real funding. None of this venture-back nonsense. And the PI actually read my paper on neoantigen escape. All the way through. So it could be right away!”

Julian leaned against the counter, trying to remember which paper that was—Markus published with a velocity that defied casual tracking.

“That’s fantastic,” he said. “So... are you serious?”

There was a pause. Markus flipped the pages of his leather planner—his dry, daily habit in place of a glass of wine. “I schedule my anxieties,” he once joked.

“I think so,” Markus said. “I mean, why stay here? America is in free fall. We’re two bad weeks away from authoritarianism. Some say we’re already there. Half the country would cheer it on. Civil discourse is dead. The other day I saw a guy on Reddit arguing that ‘nudity is Marxist.’ Who needs this? America has peaked!”

Julian raised an eyebrow. “And Sweden’s going to save your soul?”

“I want to go somewhere people act like adults,” Markus said. “Where government works. Where a surprise trip to the emergency room doesn’t mean you can’t get your teeth fixed. You know Sweden spends about half of what we do per capita on healthcare—and gets better outcomes?”

Julian could picture him pacing barefoot across the tiled kitchen in Palo Alto, waving a highlighter like a baton over his week-at-a-glance planner.

This was Markus. Rational to the bone—by his own account. A man who once created a weighted scoring system to rank farmers' market peaches, factoring in acidity, fuzz, and what he called “nostalgia density.” But beneath the charts pulsed a flood of raw, almost operatic feeling. His outrage was always underscored by heartbreak.

Julian, for his part, was more of a porch-swing philosopher. Married young, father of five, moderately conservative without trying to be, he had the kind of personality that Europeans might call “bubba”—though not unkindly. He was no fool, just habitually cheerful. A touch naive, perhaps. He once told his kids that America was a “noble experiment,” and meant it.

They had met years ago at Williams & Sonoma, when Julian was comparing spatulas and Markus—who had just returned from a sabbatical in Austria, his home country—swooped in and insisted on the French silicone paddle, dismissing the German model as “rigid and joyless, like their customer service.”

That was the beginning.

Now, Julian tapped his wooden spoon on the edge of the pot.

“I mean, I get it,” he said. “They’ve got a good thing going. But aren’t you worried it’ll be... boring?”

Markus gasped. Not dramatically. Theatrically.

“Boring?”

“I just mean—it all sounds so optimized. No chaos, no contradiction. A certain amount of homogeneity. Is that really where you thrive?”

“Thriving is for stock portfolios. I’m looking for sanity. Peace. A society where you don’t have to explain that the word ‘infrastructure’ doesn’t mean socialism.”

Julian grated parmesan into his risotto thoughtfully. He was struck by how easily Markus tossed it off—America had peaked; Sweden as the superior civilization. That word: civilization. It hung chased around the pot of risotto—a little smug, a little smug. But what did it even mean anymore? Was it comfort and fairness? Or invention and drive? What is civilization, really?

"Look," he said aloud, “I’m happy they have good healthcare and vacation days. But are they really—alive? Sweden’s birth rate is what—1.5 kids per woman? Ours is low too, sure, but still a bit higher. Civilization isn’t just surviving—it’s handing something down.”

Markus bristled. “Don’t be smug! Maybe they’re handing down a better way to live.”

“Smug?” Julian asked. “When’s the last time Sweden invented something that shook the world? They’re not giving us the iPhone. Or the polio vaccine. Hell, even IKEA is just a furniture puzzle. America’s birthrate might be falling, but our innovation rate still leads Scandinavia by a mile.”

Markus sniffed. “Fine. So we innovate ourselves into oblivion.”

Source: IKEA Retail Stores

“And what about art and philosophy?” Julian pressed. “You love opera, Markus. You love paintings that make people cry. You love Bach fugues at midnight. You think Stockholm will satisfy that? Can you name me a Swedish philosopher?”

Markus didn’t answer right away, then said, “Yes. And half a dozen other major culturally dense cities within 300 miles will help. And no. I can’t name one. Kierkegaard.”

“He’s Danish.”

“Close enough.

Outside Markus’s second-floor apartment, a delivery van rumbled by, blasting a country song about trucks and breakups and something involving sweet tea.

Julian took advantage of the silence.

“Day to day, though, Markus,” he said, “what’s life in Sweden really like? You’ll ride your bike to work, yes. You’ll sit on a clean train with silent strangers staring at their phones. You’ll eat two pieces of rye bread for lunch. Maybe a herring. You’ll drink coffee that’s somehow both weak and strong. And at night, when it’s dark at three-thirty in the afternoon, you’ll light a little candle and... what? Bake cardamom buns alone?”

Markus gave a small, wounded laugh. “That’s already my life, Julian. You make it sound like a monastery.”

“Well, you’re the one who wanted peace,” Julian said, a smile in his voice.

But even as he said it, a deeper thought stirred beneath the teasing: peace could still the body, yes—but did it still the mind? What is peace? Could a civilization survive if it forgot how to yearn and struggle?

There it was. The real question under all the metrics and monologues: Was Markus running toward a better civilization—or just away from a broken one? Markus wasn’t just escaping decay. He was escaping struggle.

But maybe struggle was the only real proof that you were alive.

Julian tasted the risotto for the right al dente he was looking for.

Markus flipped another page in his planner.

“At least they’re not banning AP Biology,” he said.

Julian was quiet. That one landed. He realized it wasn’t his job to persuade Markus either way. They used each other for sounding boards, not for verdicts. Still, he stood there wondering why he didn’t want to move to Sweden himself. Family? Culture? Patriotism? Because he was born here?

Or was it something deeper—an irrational, stubborn hope that struggle itself was not a flaw of the American experiment, but the engine that might still redeem it?

He realized, in that moment, that he was committed to making America work. It’s a great country, and it wasn’t going to die on his watch. But he didn’t voice any of this to Markus, his immigrant friend.

After a beat, he said, “So... you’re really going?”

“I think so.”

Julian could hear the uncertainty behind the words. Not hesitation, exactly, but something else. Maybe it was the sense that, if Markus did go, he’d be leaving something behind that mattered. Not just country, but conflict. That strange fuel of American chaos—the thing they both hated, and maybe needed.

“Well,” Julian said, softening, “go north. Live in the future. I’ll keep the faith down here in the republic of duct tape and barbecue.”

Markus laughed, really laughed, and Julian could hear the decision settling in.

“I’ll miss your jambalaya,” Markus said.

“I’ll miss your pan sauce.”

Then silence. Comfortable, seasoned silence.

Julian stirred. Markus color-coded. The northern lights flickered in anticipation.