Saturday, October 14, 2006

Political Science

"There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families".

So said Margrit van Thatcher, Dutch Prime Minister, in 1987.

What's that? She wasn't Dutch? She was British? Her real name was Margaret Thatcher? Boy, do I feel silly!

Imagine thinking that a woman would be allowed to become Prime Minister of Holland!

The more I experience of Dutch society, the more I am reminded of this quote. Again, Holland has done a great marketing job. The received wisdom is that Holland is a lovely, socially cohesive, nice, middle-of-the-road place, in which the extremes of unchecked capitalism, or unfettered socialism, are nicely balanced in a big, orange, fudge.

The reality is that the poor Dutchies are confused between, on the one hand, having a divine sense of personal entitlement in the face of the rest of society and, on the other hand, no clue how to improve their lot and expecting the Dutch state to figure things out for them.

Maybe it's the fact that these 2 irreconcilable concepts are constantly competing with each other for prominence that leads, inexorably, to that Dutch torpidity, resentment and indolence with which we are all so familiar?

Let's look at both sides of the equation.

1. Me, Me, Me!

Each Dutch person believes that they are entitled to whatever it is they want, and that their needs are paramount above everyone else's. Critically, this sense of entitlement does not depend on hard work or knuckling down: it's yours by birthright, simply because you are born Dutch.

The 'me, me, me!' mentality finds its logical expression in the 'live and let live' mantra which the Dutch are so fond of quoting. 'Live and let live' means, in fact, the diametric opposite of what the Dutch marketeers would have us believe. It does not mean 'let's all live together in harmony: I won't get in your business, if you don't get in mine'. In reality, it means 'I'll behave exactly as I please - if you don't like it, tough - and I'll trot out this 'live and let live' bullshit to justify my behaviour'.

Some examples:

Your average Dutch waiter or shop assistant believes that their job is a temporary staging post on the way to something more fulfilling. It's not like in L.A., where many service staff are harbouring ambitions to become movie stars: it's rather more mundane than that. Instead, the key aspiration is to win the lottery; find a load of cash; or get on long-term benefit: some way of turning their dream of sitting on their arse doing nothing into a cossetted reality, that's funded by somebody else.

This is why your attempts to get service or attention are competing with the Dutchie's innate desire to squat on a scatter cushion, eating herring-waffles, and whose idea of dynamism is to shift the majority of their body weight from their left arse-cheek to the right. That is the Dutchie's divine right and is more important than yours, even if you are a paying customer.

Similarly, if a Dutchie in your apartment building decides they want to dine al fresco, they won't contemplate spending money on a restaurant. Rather, they'll carry their crappy old table and chairs onto the doorstep of the building, and sit there, blocking the entrance, munching herrings and farting. 'I'm in the way and you want to get into the building? Can't you see I'm having dinner? Live and let live!'

You were relying on me, your co-worker, to help you out with something? I'd much rather be at home, doing nothing, but getting paid. In fact, I can feel a cramp developing. Looks like I'm going to be out of action for months!

2. State Aid

The other side to the equation is that the Dutchie expects someone else to create their world for them. Although every Dutch person has an innate sense of entitlement to everything, it is never up to them to make their vision of how their world should be into a reality. In short, this is summed up in that other classic, Dutch expectoration 'it is not my resssshponsssshibility!!!'

So whose is it? It doesn't really matter, so long as it's not the Dutchie's. This is a society in which it is perfectly acceptable to do absolutely nothing in your job; go off on long term sick leave for months, on full pay; return to do absolutely nothing; then go out on sick leave again, over and over in an endless cycle. The justification? Because there will always be someone else to cover and take responsiblity (even though there never is).

This is the land of the micro-job, where you have to deal with 7 or 8 people separately, in order to effect the simplest transaction. This structure has not arisen because each person has an important role to play in the chain: it's so that when, inevitably, what you want to achieve is not posssshiboll, or will take too much time, that there are plenty of other people to point the finger at, because "it was not my ressssshponssssshibility!!!"

The Dutchies see nothing wrong or opposite in their twin core beliefs that: (1) they should be allowed do whatever they want and each individual is more important than everyone else; but (2) they have absolutely no responsibility in making anything happen for themselves.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Countdown to Ketjapisdisgusting's comment stating how wrong you are and how NL is marvelous and it is all your fault for not conforming:

3...

2...

Go...

Anonymous said...

wow, you summed up what I have tried to articulate about swampland and its inhabitantsfor a while to the non believers ie people who have never been there who buy the whole 'marketed holland' palaver. Bravo!

Anonymous said...

Is it a sense of me,me,me or are they very good liars with the bright blue eyes?It appears that they do not know that they are lying as they are doing what is needed to accomplish the 'me' objective.