Interesting. And on the flip side, you have the law of Jante. Or is it OK to proclaim one's self as super happy? Maybe Jante is more about material success?
In many other cultures, success is celebrated. Janteloven is the opposite of that, ensuring that success is criticized an seen as undeserved or lucky.
I find it to be one of the worst aspects of Scandinavian culture, which is full of other good things, that I love.
http://denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Litteratur/Nyere_mo...
Also, the Law of Jante made him kill a sailor at a deserted bay in Newfoundland. So we should be careful when understanding the book as some universal sociological study.
In the book he states the law is a way for the lower classes to keep each other down, and he explicit states the law of Jante exists among the proletariat everywhere and is stronger in Brooklyn than in Jante (the fictional Scandinavian town in the book). He was a socialist, of course.
I do think a "soft form" of the law can be used to understand Scandinavian culture to some extent.
A colleague of mine has a childhood friend who owns a grocery store. Sensing that business was good, he opened a second grocery store in a neighboring town. It went great until the rest of the town knew he owned two stores -- then they started boycotting the second store, which was quickly forced to close its doors.
Janteloven, the climate and the institutionalized introversion are the worst aspects of Scandinavian life. Other than that, things are all in all very good.
I suspect something else was going on with your friends second store, since successful stores growing into chains is a pretty common. Did people officially boycott the store or is it just his interpretation of events?
Obviously there is some geographic and socio-cultural variation; you wouldn't see the same degree of skepticism among most people in the biggest cities, but I am pretty confident I haven't misunderstood what Janteloven says. It's not a positive thing, and not conductive to an environment of high performance.
Granted, things might be better now than when I went to public school 15 years ago, but back then this attitude was practically institutionalized. I eventually went to private school after 3 years of being forced to sit through science classes of stuff I already knew, that were regardless torpedoed by uncontrollable classroom clowns. In private school, we had "choose your level" classes, and things improved. Many friends in university had similar experiences.
It was quite a surprise to hear of high schools in the US that actually cultivated students who wanted to learn more than the minimum.