In: Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 3 (1986) nr. 2: 1-19.

Formalization and Informalization:

Changing Tension Balances in Civilizing Processes

Cas Wouters 1

1. Informalization Revisited

In the sixties and seventies, there was increasing "permissiveness", together with growing

leniency in codes of social conduct in western societies. Many modes of conduct that had

formerly been forbidden were now allowed, particularly in matters of sexuality, and conduct and

emotions became less formally regulated in such spheres of behaviour as the written and spoken

language, clothing, music, dancing and hair styles.

In an earlier article I attempted to explain the increasing permissiveness in terms of

informalizing processes.2 In these processes more and more of the dominant modes of social

conduct, symbolizing institutionalized power relationships, come to be ignored and attacked,

with the result that the standards of social conduct change towards greater leniency, variety and

differentiation. At the same time this signifies a shift in power relationships between social

superiors and subordinates in favour of the latter.

These developments can be interpreted in terms of Norbert Elias's theory of civilizing

processes as increased varieties or nuances in the codes of conduct.3 Ever since the turn of the

century, the life styles and standards of social conduct of the middle classes and the working

classes of Europe have come to be more and more alike. In that process, the range of differences

in conduct, emotions and morals has been diminished, and the sensitivity to varieties or nuances

in between has been intensified. In one sense this development did not seem to be in accordance

with the theory of civilizing processes: according to some formulations of this theory, more

lenient standards of social conduct go hand in hand with more lenient patterns of self-control,

with lower requirements in regard to emotional controls on the part of the people involved. In

1 This paper was written for a workshop in Bielefeld, Germany, 1984, Joop Goudsblom, Bram van

Stolk and Abram de Swaan read the Dutch manuscript and made valuable comments. Special thanks goes to Sheila Gogol who translated it into English and to Stephen Mennell who helped me to improve my arguments and to "Churchillize" my English.

2 See Cas Wouters, Informalisation and the Civilising Process, in: P. Gleichmann, J. Goudsblom and H. Korte (eds.), Human Figurations, Amsterdam 1977, pp. 437-454.

3 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Volume I and The Civilizing Process: Volume II, New

that case there would be reason to conclude as some people argued – that a change in the very

direction of civilizing processes had occurred.4

In my earlier analysis of these informalizing processes, I attempted to show how the

different pattern of self-restraints that came into being demanded not only greater sensitivity to

varieties and greater flexibility in social conduct, but also a higher level of self-control.

With changes in power relations between parents and children as my main example, I tried to

demonstrate that the new standards of social conduct implied less imperative use of constraints

exercised by others (Fremdzwänge, external constraints) in the relationship between social

superiors and subordinates, inducing a stronger development of constraints exercised by oneself

(Selbstzwänge, self-restraints), especially among the subordinates. Furthermore, according to the

newer, more lenient and differentiated social standards, people from both groups became to a

greater extent able to think about expressing or repressing urges and emotions. They became

more conscious of social and individual options and restrictions, and this heightened

consciousness enabled them more than former generations both to restrain and express their

impulses and emotions. In the course of this development, most of the restrictions became more

flexible and differentiated, although on the other hand, the social ban upon self-aggrandizement

and the social requirement of mutual consent became all the more significant and imperative.5

In recent years, the informalization process seems to have come to a stop, and a process

of formalization has once again come into effect. The sexual revolution has been pronounced

over and done with,6 there is renewed respect for discipline, for law and order, and in order to

help people to orient themselves toward these values, it seems, new etiquette books are now

being published. In this article, I would like to try to comprehend these recent changes within the

framework of two successive phases of civilizing processes since the turn of the century. The

emphasis lies on developments since the close of World War II. First I shall draw attention to the

York 1978 and 1982. 4 In The Civilizing Process Elias said that the "relaxation of morals" in the twenties and the thirties

was limited and temporary (Vol. I, p. 187). In 1970, teaching in Amsterdam, he was beginning to have doubts whether the trend was only temporary and many discussed the implications fo the increasing 'permissiveness' for the theory of civilizing processes, with Elias and with each other. My article on informalization emerged out of these discussions.

5 It was A. de Swaan who noted these conditions to the greater leniency in codes of conduct. They not only specify the borders of this leniency, they also serve as a prerequisite for any degree of permanence on its part. (For whoever is so inclined, the "message" of this development boils down to the old moral, "love your neighbour and do as you please", which in todays more permissive language might be expressed as: "Fuck the rules, watch the traffic.") A. de Swaan, Uitgaansbeperking en uitgaansangst; over de verschuiving van bevelshuishouding naar onderhandelingshuishouding, in: De Gids, vol. 142 (1979), no. 8. pp. 483-510.

6 The cover of the April 9, 1984 issue of Time said: "Sex in the 80's. The Revolution is Over".

question of what informalization amounts to with respect to people's individual emotional life, in

order to clarify its contours as a social process. This process is here mainly described in terms of

movements in collective feelings, images and experiences. After the description of

informalization as a long-term process, I shall give a more detailed account based on a

distinction into phases. This will be followed by an elaboration upon the differences in the ways

in which people perceive themselves and each other in these two phases, and how they view and

feel about their own position in society. Lastly, these differences will be illustrated with

examples from the alterations in written and spoken language, with a view to giving a measure

of insight into the structure of the development of these two phases.

2. Informalization as a Psychological Process

What changes in the pattern of drive and affect control are linked to informalization? In the

psychological make-up of individual people, what this process mainly amounts to is becoming

aware of deeper feelings and learning to surmount hidden fears, a prerequisite for the

"emancipation of feelings." 7 With this new awareness people become conscious of emotions

that, as a rule, in their past were either ignored or concealed, for fear of parents and others on

whom they were dependent. Together with the fears and anxieties linked to them, these more

primary urges, impulses and emotions were muffled up and constrained. Thus, deeper feelings

and hidden fears are closely linked in the mind. Just as they were once excluded from one's

consciousness at the same time, they come out into the open at the same time. Whether or not

they were experienced consciously, these primary urges and impulses were once quite actively

present and gave rise to the fear of not being able to constrain them in accordance with the code

of conduct applied to people growing up. By banishing urges and impulses from one's

consciousness, one also excluded the connected fears and dangers or – in Elias' terms – they

were internalized and transformed into more or less automatically functioning fears and self-

constraints.

The social origin of this banishing process lies in the fact that giving in to these tempting

impulses would provoke social degradation, loss of respect and self-respect. At the extreme

there is the threat of virtually total social expulsion and consequently, the destruction of one's

social existence. In order to eliminate this possibility, and the fear of it, the exclusion of the

7 I use this term, 'emancipation of feelings', with certain reservations. Its charm is that it links the

word emancipation, which refers to social processes, with a term for mental processes. The references to mental processes, however, are so dominant that the term not only does not exclude the limited homo clausus line of thought, it would even somewhat tend to encourage it.

memories of one's inner life as a child from one's consciousness, as well as the banishment of

those primary urges and impulses which to the present day are operative in some unguarded and

secret moments, has become an important and common way of controlling these fears. In this

way many people draw a carefully guarded borderline between their childhood and their life as

an adult. (Sublimation is probably another way of controlling these fears). In this light

informalizing processes are also voyages of discovery into one's own closer or more distant past,

in pursuit of the reasons why and the ways in which impulses and emotions were led into the

paths they took. It is mainly an intermediate generation that ventures towards experiments of this

kind. For their children, the fruits of these expeditions may already be perceived as "normal

procedure". In other words, they are incorporated (formalized) into the modes of conduct which

have become valid at the later time.

The discovery and analysis of the channelling of fears, urges and impulses can provide a

more precisely detailed and more systematically elaborated self-image or autobiographical

continuity. From this one may derive a more meaningful and valuable interpretation of one's

own life. But on the other hand, there is always the danger that stirring up such feelings as

violent rage, anxiety, lust, greed or aggrandizement might arouse so much bewilderment that one

may no be able to control them according to the prevailing standards. This particular risk of

loosing (self)control is demonstrated in proverbs like "don't trust the cat to keep the cream", but

also by some people who suffered from acrophobia: their fear of falling had become so

intolerable that they jumped, just to escape from this fear. Nevertheless, with a more realistic and

stronger realization of one's autobiographical continuity, there are increasing chances of bringing

deeper and more concealed feelings up to the surface, along with the fears linked to them, and of

dealing with and controlling these feelings in such a way that one not only learns to express

them verbally, but also ventures to transform them into acts at the appropriate place and time.8 In

so far as this has been put into practice, as it has, on the whole there has also been an increase in

people's knowledge of themselves (and of people in general), and in the varieties of social

conduct and of life styles.

At one time, Norbert Elias referred to what was later to be called the process of

informalization as social experiments towards "controlled decontrolling of emotional controls."9

In this sense, informalization is a factual process as well as an ideal, a guide in individual and

8 See for example the history of a nudist beach as it is described in: Paul Kapteyn, Taboe, Macht en

Moraal in Nederland, Amsterdam 1980, pp. 200-205. 9 Elias used this expression in lectures he gave at the University of Amsterdam in 1970/1971.

social experiments.10 For example, according to this ideal parents provided their children with a

wider scope for living in accordance with the emotional and libidinal urges of the moment,

treating them more as equal human beings. Their attempts to build into children no restraints that

merely have the function of bolstering up the (peremptory) authority of certain ruling groups,

including that of the parents themselves, corresponded with their increased desire also to free

themselves and each other from that kind of restraint. This attempt, or so they hoped, would also

enable them to cope with life in a more open-minded and detached way, at the same time

bringing them more stable and enduring emotional gratification.

3. Informalization as a Long-term Social Process

As an ideal as well as a factual process, informalization has had a long history as an offshoot of

the western civilizing processes. As Norbert Elias showed in his main work, in the course of

several centuries the more basic functions of life, such as eating, drinking and sleeping, and the

more primary urges and impulses have become overlaid with fears- particularly fears for the loss

of respect and self-respect. In this process the basic functions became increasingly regulated

(formalized), while the more primary inner life was increasingly hidden and expressed only at

unguarded moments or behind the scenes. For the rest, impulses and emotions were channelled

into the more and more detailed formal paths of the prevailing modes of social conduct.

Especially since the turn of the century, with Freud as the leading spokesman, successive

generations have come to recognize more and more of these fears in themselves and each other,

and they have had to surmount them in order to allow a less rigid channelling of impulses and

emotions into more varied and informal paths. This informalization was provoked and made

possible by the changes in the interdependencies between people, by rapidly advancing social

differentiation and integration, especially since the 1880s. In these processes were rooted the

conditions for further democratization. They also implied the levelling intermixture of modes of

conduct and life styles. Moreover, with the exception of the violent intervals of the two wars, on

the whole people in Europe gained greater physical safety and material security. These processes

10 In his article on a conference on civilizing processes in Amsterdam, Nico Wilterdink commented on

informalizaton that it involves an ideal "and should be acknowledged as such." Why not. However, besides being an ideal informalization is also a factual process. Bram van Stolk made the following comment on the term women's liberation: "It refers to an ideal as well as to an actual development", and added in a note that this distinction was earlier made by Elias with respect to the term 'civilization'. Nico Wilterdink, Die Zivilisationstheorie im Kreuzfeuer der Diskussion, in: P. Gleichmann, J. Goudsblom, H. Korte (eds.), Macht und Zivilisation, Frankfurt-on-Main, 1984, p. 297. Bram van Stolk, Verlaten Mannen: angsten, eigenwaarde en inschikking, in: Maandblad

Geestelijke Volksgezondheid, 1984, no. 7/8, pp. 755-785.

implied the growing possibility of, as well as the growing social pressure towards, removing

from the prevailing rules of conduct and sentiment those specific modes of conduct whose

function it is to indicate something that is not a personal quality or merit, but a superiority

inherited quite independently of such qualities, and of removing the necessity to distinguish

oneself from other individuals and from lower groups not only by way of individual achieve-

ments, but also by way of instruments of possession and prestige.11

The more people felt constraint to make use of these possibilities from the turn of the

century onwards, and the more people pressed each other in this direction, the higher has

become the scope and the level of fear control and detachment. After all, in the course of this

process the individuals involved have come to constrain themselves and each other increasingly

to curb their desires and fantasies regarding their own superiority, and to restrain their fears of

inferiority and the loss of respect and self-respect.

These developments may help to understand what has been said about the changes in

ideals and practice in the relationship between parents and children. What has been said implies

that the self-respect people (want to) derive from their family life has risen, together with their

respect for women and children. Parents have come to expect more from their family life; the

mutual emotional and moral pretensions and expectations have risen together with the pressure

to treat each other more as equal human beings under conditions of mutual consent. Within the

borders of family life, people gave rein to their fantasies of aggrandizement in the specifically

controlled way of wanting to be "grand" with and for each other: a figuration ideal. The more

this desire to be "grand" with and for each other became widespread and more strongly mutual,

the more immediately was the exertion of authority - in the sense of issuing commands or

expecting special treatment on the grounds of some inherited superiority - experienced and

exposed as an unnecessary humiliation. The growth of (the desire for) closer and emotionally

more satisfying bonds thus heightened the sensitivity to modes of conduct that were not based

upon personal merits and qualities but on some inherited superiority and on the use of violence,

11 This sentence, which is certainly not easy to read, is based on the following passage in Ueber den

Prozess der Zivilisaton, Vol. II, p. 453: "Erst wenn sich diese zwischennstaatlichen und innerstaatlichen Spannungen ausgetragen haben und überwunden sind, werden wir mit besserem Recht von uns sagen können, dass wir zivilisiert sind. Erst dann kann aus der Verhaltenstafel, die dem Einzelnen als Über-Ich eingeimpft wird, mehr von dem abfallen, was die Funktion hat, nicht eine persönliche, sondern eine von ihr unabhängige ererbte Überlegenheit zu markieren, und aus den Zwängen, die sein Verhalten bestimmen, die Notwendigkeit, sich nicht durch die individuelle Leistung von anderen Individuen, sondern durch Besitz- und Prestige-instrumente von minderen Gruppen zu unterscheiden." I think this is a pretty precise formulation and the Enghish translation (p. 332) is so different that I stuck to the German sentences.

possession, sex and other criteria of prestige. With this heightened sensitivity, people also

became able to detect this kind of conduct at an earlier stage, inside the intimate circle of

relatives and friends as well as outside (where, as we shall discuss, numerous injustices were

exposed as such, and were more and more sharply criticized). Moreover, people have developed

a sharper eye for restrictions and for possibilities of expressing their objections to conduct of this

kind. Since parents pass this sensitivity on to their children, this process of social inheritance

seems to be a strong force in collective changes in sentiments and mentality.

The higher level of consciousness and the intensified sensitivity, like the sense of justice,

have given rise to an aversion to claims to authority that are not based upon personal merits. On

the other hand, they also gave rise to and intensify the attractiveness of more personal, informal

and spontaneous ways of dealing with oneself and others. These were the personal merits that

came to be more and more highly appreciated. The behaviour of workers and children for

instance, was clearly more outright, spontaneous, straightforward and direct, all of which were

features that charmed and fascinated the members of the old and new middle classes, the

bourgeoisie. They themselves had learned to behave in a more reserved, inhibited and indirect

manner.12 This attractiveness acted as a catalyst to the "emancipation of feelings", the

psychological counterpart of what on the social level might be referred to as the "proletarization

of the bourgeoisie."13

The attraction of this greater directness, vitality and spontaneity, exerted across the

barriers of established class differences, has been given an extra dimension in Orwell's

description of the "proles" in his 1984: "The proles had stayed human. They had not become

hardened inside. They had held on to the primitive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by

conscious effort."14 Indeed, informalization is also the conscious effort to re-learn more primal

and more concealed impulses and emotions. Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, the ideal spread

that precisely the more primary impulses and emotions were the ones it was most necessary to

discover and bring to the surface. As the chains of interdependency between the various classes

12 J. Goudsblom, Dutch Society, New York 1968, p. 30: "An important characteristic of the

bourgeois standards of speech and etiquette is that they generally encourage "civility", that is, conduct which never indulges in an open display of emotions, but conceals the actor's innermost feelings behind a restrained observance of conventional forms."

13 The intermixture of life styles not only made the workers more bourgeois, it also worked the other way round. An important part of the new leniency in the middle class form of social intercourse can be attributed not only to 'proletarization' but also to 'Americanization'. After the Second World War, the U.S.A. became a dominant super power, and as such it served more easily as a model.

14 George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Penguin Books 1954, p. 135.

had become longer and stronger, in the sixties and seventies the life styles of these classes grew

closer to each other and a growing number of people came to view the discovery and expression

of hitherto concealed emotions as a prerequisite for knowing oneself and (consequently) being

mentally healthy. In some circles, it sometimes looked as if hard battles were taking place in the

competitive struggle for the reputation as the people who had the best and most authentic

knowledge of their inner selves. There was the "culture of narcissism", the "Me Generation" and

so forth. But in all these circles, the inhibition and suppression of feelings were frowned upon

and thought to be harmful; one could get a heart attack that way.

Among sociologists, this kind of manifestation of informalizing processes mainly

manifested itself in an increase in "sociological self-reflection" and in the "sociology of

sociology".15

4. The Spiral Movement of Informalizing Processes: Two Currents

Informalizing processes did not develop in one straight line. Waves of informalization have been

followed by new waves of formalization, but in a long term perspective from the end of last

century onwards a spiral movement can be discerned in which informalizing tendencies had the

upper hand. Since then, social life in general has become less strictly regulated, more

multifarious. In following currents of formalization, apparently not all the informalization from

the previous period was undone, and certain informal modes of conduct and life styles or certain

aspects of them, were formalized. In other words, in one way or another they were incorporated

into an established and dominant code of conduct allowing more behavioural alternatives and

nuances, but with stricter rules as to self-aggrandizement and mutual consent.

The dangers and fears against which the former formal codes were meant to protect had

diminished or could apparently be avoided or controlled in more varied and subtle ways - ways

in which both social superiority and inferiority were less explicitly and less extremely expressed.

Except for calamities such as a third world war or a dramatic decline in wealth, this spiral

movement in the direction of informalization may be expected to last. Anyone who brings to

mind what life was like before the most recent informalization phase might find it difficult even

to imagine that people with today's knowledge, mentality and level of consciousness would ever

again be able to live with the power inequalities of the 1940s and 1950s, the rigid code of

conduct, the inflexible morality with its condemnation and suppression of many of the feelings

that are nowadays accepted as being perfectly normal. The example of the following table may

suffice as evidence:

15 In this specific field, see particularly Johan Goudsblom's Sociology in the Balance, Oxford, 1977.

Freedom in upbringing in 1965 - 1983 (in percentages)16

_________________________________________________________

1965 1966 1970 1975 1980 1983

The time on which a 20 year old

daughter has to return home:

leave that to daughter 17,2 17,0 30,7 29,9 41,6 43,1

determine together 30,0 48,6 51,9 57,6 52,3 47,8

parents fix the time 52,8 34,5 17,4 12,8 6,2 9,1

(1490)(1312) (1891) (1745)(1819)(1716)

Are boys and girls of 18

years old allowed to read

everything ?

Yes, they may 48,4 46,9 71,8 77,9 86,8 85,7

Some books are unsuitable 51,6 53,1 28,2 22,1 13,2 14,3

(1488) (1305) (1879) (1746) (1813)(1723)

_________________________________________________________

The long-term process of informalization is part of the civilizing process. During this century –

as well as before – there was a further differentiation and integration of social functions. Due to

this division of functions, and also to automation, there was a rise in the productivity of labour

and, consequently, in the standard of living of the various social strata of the population. Their

(functional) interdependence increased, directly because all the functions that were now

differentiated also had to be co-ordinated, and indirectly via the state by way of the introduction

of state-organized and subsidized social care. Private and government organizations expanded,

and the increasing differentiation of functions within them made the chains of interpendence

longer and its links shorter. So in general there was a reduction of power differentials between

social strata, the contrasts or more marked differences between their life styles and codes of

16 The table is taken from Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport 1984, Staatsuitgeverij, 's-Gravenhage 1984,

p. 310. For further evidence see also C. Brinkgreve and M. Korzec, Feelings, Behaviour, Morals in the Netherlands: 1938-1978, Analysis and interpretation of an advice column, in: The

Netherlands' Journal of Sociology, vol. 15, no. 2, Amsterdam, 1979.

conduct diminished, and (sensitivity to) the varieties and subtleties within the modes of conduct

increased, as did the level of consciousness, of detachment, self-knowledge and social

knowledge.

These civilizing processes did not develop in a straight line either: the two phases or

waves of expansion that Elias distinguished within civilizing processes largely coincide with

moments of formalization and informalization. In Elias' terms, there are the following waves of

expansion: In the phase of colonization or assimilation, the lower and broader social strata might

very well rise, but the emphasis is on individual upward social mobility. The (status) differences

between the higher and the lower strata are still clearly acknowledged and accepted and the

members of the lower strata, particularly the individuals with upward aspirations, strongly orient

themselves toward the example of the life styles and modes of conduct of the higher strata.

There is an even greater incentive to do this because of the tendency on the part of the higher

strata to colonize and discipline de haut en bas.17

In the phase of differentiation or emancipation, the upwardly mobile strata have risen in social

strength and self-awareness to such a clear degree that their members orient themselves more

toward each other and toward their own life styles and modes of conduct, and reject attempts

from above to colonize or discipline them as being overly patronizing or imperialistic. Members

of the higher strata are forced to adopt an attitude of greater restraint, and withdraw in joint

defence. In this phase the tensions in society become stronger.18

Elias referred to these phases, but he did not elaborate upon them. I should like to make

an attempt to do so here with respect to the period from the Second World War up to today,

concentrating upon the developments in the west, particularly in the Netherlands.

In our research monograph "Vrouwen in tweestrijd", Bram van Stolk and I distinguished two

phases in the post-war period up to about 1980 that bear a resemblance to the phases

distinguished by Elias with respect to the period ( 1400-1800) his research was focused upon.19

17 Ali de Regt devoted half of her Ph.D. thesis, Arbeidergezinnen en Beschavingsarbeid

(Meppel/Amsterdam, 1984) to the activities of bourgeois groups in an effort to discipline working-class families. In a note she refers to the same Elias phases as I use here, but she does not make further use of them there. See p. 150 and p. 283.

18 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Volume II, New York 1982, pp. 311-317. 19 We noted this resemblance, although we did not go into it in any further detail. Not that it would

have been possible, since we had not done any research pertaining to the extent to which these phases could be viewed as an extension of the phases in civilizing processes distinguished by Elias, and because a research monograph is not the proper place for an essay on a question of this type. What I am presenting here constitutes a continuation of what we wrote about these phases in our book, so that to begin with I shall more or less quote from it.

Bram van Stolk and Cas Wouters, Vrouwen in Tweestrijd, tussen thuis en tehuis, Deventer 1983,

We described a phase of stabilization and resignation that went on up to the sixties, after which

there was a phase of emancipation and resistance up to the end of the seventies. In the eighties a

new current of stabilization and resignation seems to be manifesting itself with increasing

clarity. Today members of rising strata again orient themselves stronger toward the example of

the more formal life styles and modes of conduct of higher strata as there new and old

established groups succeeded in stabilizing and asserting their power and their distinctness. In

this process changes in the balance of power and in the social construction of status hierarchies

are accompanied by changes in the general feeling of life: in the dominant perspectives on past,

present and future. This includes the social definition of the most important social dangers and

fears, of the most necessary and aspired social controls and self-controls, as well as the social

definition of human ideals.

5. Figuration Ideals: Harmony Model and Conflict model

In our book, we classified the two phases or waves of emancipation and stabilization mainly on

the grounds of changes in the dominant ideals about how people or groups of people, who are

interdependent and between whom an unequal power balance exists, deal with each other. We

described them as changes in figuration ideals,20 particularly with respect to how husband and

wife deal with each other, the subject of our book. Up to the sixties, we noted a tradition of

harmonious inequality as the figuration ideal. That tradition made for a feeling of social

continuity which served as the basis for an expectation of biographical continuity: people got

engaged, got married, had children, raised them and then grew old together. This was a ready-

made plan and many people viewed it as the "natural order" of social life. This does not mean

that the memory of earlier phases of emancipation and resistance had faded, but any individual

who found himself on the subordinate side in social relations was thought to be a victim of bad

luck rather than of injustice.21 In 1939 the emancipatory struggle of the past as well as the

resignation prevalent at the time was formulated as follows:

"Women's yearning for freedom has been heard throughout the ages like a deep sigh, and

even though the woman of today might have a degree of freedom that she hardly could

particularly pp. 160-170. The book will be published in German by Suhrkamp, Frankfurt. 20 The main reason why we introduced the term 'figuration ideal' is to emphasize the fact that the

ideals of both the partners are complementary: for every I-ideal, there is a complementary You-ideal. To a certain degree, in every individual's youth an I-ideal and a You-ideal with respect to a marriage or steady relationship are internalized in one pattern of mutual dependence.

21 The distinction between bad luck and injustice has been taken from Ralph Turner, The Theme of Contemporary Movements, in: British Journal of Sociology, 1969, p. 400 ff.

have dreamt of fifty yaers ago, the acquisition of this freedom has only made the

yearning for even greater freedom increase. ... But ... if you can not have freedom (not a

little bit more freedom within the framework of your subservience, but a more complete

freedom to do as you please), do not let it get you down, because in most cases the

advantages of freedom do not counterbalance the worries and the heavy responsibility

that go hand in hand with it."22

Up to the sixties, the same mentality and similar figuration ideals of harmonious

inequality were also characteristic of all kinds of other relations besides those between men and

women, for example relations between parents and children, between teachers and pupils,

between religious and political leaders and their followers. Even in the more controversial

relations between employers and employees (and their organizations), this ideal of harmonious

inequality was more dominant than the more radical ideals which held (class) struggle to be

inevitable as is evident, for example in the Netherlands, in the emphasis on mutual co-operation

and pride in the relatively peaceful state of the labour market. Of course this does not necessarily

mean that there were no conflicts at all, but ideally speaking, according to the prevailing

figuration ideals, there should not be any. In general, the unequal balances of power between all

kinds of established and outsider groups were accepted. Attempts to bring about any drastic

changes in these relations were virtually non-existent. There was not enough faith in the chances

of such attempts being successful, so there was not yet any pressure on the established groups to

substantiate their authority. That pressure began to build up in the mid-sixties, when the faith in

the chances for success became stronger than the fears of failure, when the strength of the

figuration ideals of harmonious inequality underwent such a rapid decline. Using both old and

new organizations, groups of outsiders took advantage of the increased opportunities of attaining

more power. How this happened is well known. A phase of emancipation and resistance had

commenced.

It is striking that at the beginning of this phase, in the social sciences the distinction was

first drawn between a harmony model and a conflict model, a distinction that rapidly became a

matter of general usage. The two terms became common among politicians, trade union leaders,

the spokesmen of liberation movements and so on, all the way down to schoolchildren. The

distinction gave outsiders the opportunity to formulate the legitimacy of their opposition to

inequality; they were simply "choosing the conflict model", a respectable strategy. The dangers

22 Amy Groskamp-ten Have, Onder vier ogen, gesprekken met vrouwen, Amsterdam, 1939, pp. 114-

115.

and fears that were previously perceived in such conflicts and tensions, a perception reflected in

the figuration ideal of harmonious inequality, diminished and the more rigid and formal ways of

controlling these dangers and fears were attacked as being too stiff, showing conceited

superiority and exaggerated anxiety for loss of power, status and self-control.

In the course of the sixties, it gradually went without saying for more and more groups of

outsiders – women, teenagers, homosexuals, workers – that changes, i.e. changes for the better,

were to be expected. Their position within the existing relations were no longer mainly

perceived as something acquired as a result of a long and hard struggle in the past, as had been

the case in the previous phase. From then on, their positions were subjected to a critical

comparison with more or less utopian images and expectations for the future. For many people,

it became more and more difficult to picture any kind of unequal relation as being harmonious.

In the minds of most of the outsiders who were gradually rising, the figuration ideal of

harmonious inequality was repressed by their preoccupation with humiliation, whereas in the

previous phase they would have tried to repress exactly these feelings of humiliation. Now, on

the grounds of their preoccupation with their humiliating experiences, they put a great deal of

emphasis on the solidarity within their own ranks regarding their "justified demands" pertaining

to "unjust" differences. It appeared to be possible to change the "natural order" of social life and

the dangers of doing so turned out to be small or even non-existent. The success of liberation

and informalization movements led to high hopes for the future in general and to high

expectations of governments to realize and legitimize further changes in particular. The

awareness of the changes that were taking place infringed upon the feeling of social continuity

and, consequently, upon the expectation of biographical continuity. Now the old plan for the

course of a relationship between a man and a woman had become unclear and somehow

questionable. More and more women, and men as well, noted the inequality it implied, and some

of them found it absolutely intolerable. It was no longer true that anyone born a woman was a

victim of bad luck; now she was much more a victim of injustice, and specifically a victim of

injustice on the part of men who held women in a subordinate position, not on the basis of

personal qualities or merits, but of socially inherited superiority.

Ever since the mid-sixties relations between men and women – like those between

parents and children, older and younger people, professors and students, employers and

employees – have been more and more clearly marked by out and out tensions. The lessening of

power inequalities was conducive to greater informality. This lasted until the end of the

seventies, when formalizing tendencies again got the upper hand. A new phase of stabilization

and resignation commenced when old and new established groups became more and more

successful in their attempts to stabilize power balances and to assert their power and their

distinctness through return to greater formality, including forms of accepted informality.

At this time conditions are favourable to further compare between these historical

currents and phases. Anyone above 35 is able to compare from his own experiences the former

with the present phase of stabilization and resignation. In this comparison one does not have to

take serious interruptions like a war between two or more of the western countries into account –

as most, maybe all earlier generations had to do.

In the following paragraphs three further general characteristics of the two currents of

development are described.

6. Common and Conflicting Interests: Commercial Climate and Government Climate

In his book The Court Society, Norbert Elias explains the French Revolution from a growing

diversion between rank and power relationships: "In the course of the development of French

society the latent social power of the different social cadres changed in their relation to each

other. The actual distribution of power among them evolved in a way to which the manifest

distribution of power anchored in the ossified institutional shell of the old regime no longer

corresponded."23 A similar, though less revolutionary diversion of actual and institutionalized

power – institutionalized in social hierarchy and in standards of behaviour – had grown in the

fifties and sixties. The process of further differentiation and integration of social functions

created not only a rise in the general standard of living but also in power chances for groups of

relative outsiders. During the last wave of emancipation and resistance these power chances

were realized. This may help to understand why during the phase of stabilization and resignation

there was a greater emphasis on interests that groups of established and outsiders had in

common, while during the phase of emancipation and resistance the emphasis was on the

differences between their interests. In the latter phase, we wrote, an increasing amount of

conflicting interests were "discovered" and more and more of the old figuration ideals were

interpreted as being based on oppression on the one hand and a "slave mentality" on the other.

The institutionalized definition of national and common interests was recognized as too strongly

favouring established groups. Attempts at promoting the individual and group interests of

relative outsiders were more and more expected to be successful, without endangering common

interests. In many negotiation situations where, in the phase of stabilization and resignation, the

23 Norbert Elias, The Court Society, Oxford and New York 1983, p.

established groups used to be able to appeal successfully to such general interests as as national

welfare and national solidarity, in the new phase they were silenced or scorned by

representatives of outsider groups. These representatives demonstrated the partiality of this kind

of appeal by contrasting it with an appeal to a kind of welfare or solidarity that pertains to a

larger number of people more evenly and equally. In this way they repeatedly succeeded in

gaining the "justified" advantage in negotiations and in putting the representatives of

establishments like the business and industrial world in a posture of defence.

In the most important of these negotiations, those on a larger scale, the government was

either directly or indirectly involved: under the continuous upward pressure of rising groups of

outsiders, prosperity was spread to include more and more people and a wide range of (social

and health care) facilities were instituted. This meant that the power range of private enterprise

in the world of commerce and industry was subjected to further limitations, but also that the

power range of the government grew. These conditions made for what can be referred to as a

favourable government climate. Government officials and party politicians were more and more

expected to keep private enterprise within certain morally acceptable borderlines. The exact

location of these borderlines varies to some extent with the degree to which conflicting or

common interests are in the public limelight at the moment. When the public spotlights were

mainly focused upon all kinds of conflicting interests, a great deal of injustice loomed up that the

government was expected to "do something about". The pressure and the temptation to give in to

the interests of the groups of outsiders who were most forcefully and dramatically in the public

spotlight at the moment of decision had grown and continued growing until the government

revenues stopped increasing. It was probably also a result of the limitations that governments

imposed on the commercial and industrial world – in the Netherlands as well as elsewhere in the

west – that the commercial climate declined. In most of these countries businessmen came to

have less confidence in government policies. The decline in the commercial climate went hand

in hand with declining profits and investments, the exodus of capital and a declining supply of

venture capital.24 This was one of the reasons for the stagnation in economic growth and for

governments' shortage of funds. Governments once again clearly referred to general interests

when instituting budget cuts and measures to promote the commercial (and labour)25 climate. In

this process the power chances and the public appeal of trade unions deteriorated. From

24 See for quantitative figures, for example, O.E.C.D. Economic Surveys 1983-1984, Netherlands,

Paris, 1984. 25 The labour climate also deteriorated as a result of automation and the transfer of production

processes requiring large labour forces to countries where labour was cheap and plentiful.

comparing Dutch newspaper front pages in 1972 with those in 1982 it seems that the public

attention for trade unions dropped with more than 50%. Negotiations and consultations between

government officials and representatives of employers' organizations became increasingly

important, for the people involved as well as with regard to public opinion. Politicians and

administrative authorities were (and felt) pressed to win back the confidence of the business

world. Duisenberg, who was once the Dutch Minister of Finance and is now the president of the

Nederlandse Bank, stated it as follows: "But I also put a lot of faith in matters that are not

material ones: the stimulation of confidence on the part of the commercial world in social

continuity and stability."26 Prof. I. van Dam, administrator of the World Bank, made the

following comment: "The new gods are the free market and private enterprise; the new devils

are the governments and the planning agencies."27

If we examine a longer period of time, we see that in the course of the various

fluctuations in "climate", government officials, workers and employers or businessmen have

become more dependent upon each other. One of the ways this interdependence has manifested

itself is in the steadily increasing regulation of the struggle for power and the conflict of interests

they are engaged in. The present "de-regulation" and the alleviation of the financial burdens

borne by the world of commerce, provided by the government, serve to strengthen this picture

rather than weaken it. Greater interdependency also means more common interests. Now that

there is more of emphasis on the common interests shared by the government and the business

world alike, there is also greater emphasis on the special responsibility of individual officials and

on their authority.28 Nevertheless, there has been a decrease in the scope of governmental power,

because in the period of declining economic growth rulers became much more dependent on the

business world and the free market. This means a less favourable government climate.

The stagnation in economic growth and the subsequent decline in prosperity aroused

certain fears. There was also an increasing need for a co-ordinating official agency that could

surmount the discord resulting from conflicting interests. One of the ways to provide for this

kind of co-ordination involved accepting and emphasizing common interests, thus diminishing

fears and enhancing trust or confidence between the government, the business world and the rest

26 Kees Caljé and G. van Benthem van den Bergh, Gesprek met dr. W.F. Duisenberg, president van

de Nederlandse Bank, in: De Gids, vol. 146, no. 6 (1983), p. 427. 27 N.R.C.-Handelsblad, July 1, 1983. 28 One example out of many, taken from an interview with a Dutch Minister: ".. a Minister ought to

have authority. A Minister is not ordinary... the people should see the man who makes decisions. Not Tom, Dick or Harry who is going to rush in and care of things... then I think it becomes more difficult to defend decisions." Vrij Nederland, vol. 44, June 11, 1983, p. 5.

of the employed and unemployed population.29

In terms of the theory of civilizing processes this confidence can be conceptualized as

mutually expected self-restraint (m.e.s.).30 People restrain themselves in the expectation that

others will restrain themselves too, and their mutually expected self-restraint is felt, and may be

expressed, as mutual confidence.

Developments pertaining to formalization and informalization ran parallel to the phases

referred to above. The more 'inner-directed', 'always a gentleman' or 'always a lady' aspects now

seem to manifest themselves somewhat more clearly, although the 'other-directed', 'there is a

time and place for everything' aspect has been largely maintained and has been incorporated into

the more fixed 'lady' and 'gentleman' code.31

7. Upward versus Downward Pressure; Downstairs versus Upstairs Perspective

In view of these two phases of social development, a number of other differences become

evident beside the ones referred to above. One important difference has already been noted in

passing: If the emphasis lies on individual social upward mobility and downward pressure,

exerted by the established groups, is dominant, then most people's ideals for the future are also

more individual and more restricted. These ideals, however, are more collective, with higher

inclinations, if the emphasis is on collective social upward mobility and upward pressure is

29 With respect to the fluctuations in collective trust and distrust, see also: A. de Swaan, Nood en

Deugd: over altruisme en collectieve actie, Deventer, 1984: "... the expectations that people have of each other ... alter ... in accordance with their relations to each other. ... if (false expectations) become widespread enough, they are self-fulfilling. If mutual distrust is general, then this also leads to an unwillingness to participate in collective enterprises: the mutal suspicion is self-fulfilling. But if, for one reason or another, there is the expectation in some minds that most people would be willing to work together in co-operation, then this can give a rise to the expectation that there would be a chance for collective action to succeed, and the willingness to co-operate becomes more widespread." p. 21. In the world of trade and industry this is often expressed, also in advertisements. The following sentences was in an advertisement of the Dresdner Bank in International Herald Tribune on August 22, 1983: "The key to international recovery lies in a return of confidence in economic, monetary, domestic and foreign policies." (my italics)

The chairmain of the Employers Organisation in the Netherlands made the following comment on the present cabinet: ".. the funny thing is that it is now doing exactly what has to be done. And I think that particularly the adjustments and the alleviation of the costs for the business world are the most important thing about this policy. This no-nonsense policy has given rise to a completely different atmosphere in society and arouses confidence in the firms." N.R.C.-

Handelsblad, February 15, 1984 (my italics). 30 The concept 'mutually expected self-restraint' is taken from J. Goudsblom, Morele beesten.

Notities over moraal, De Gids, May 1986, pp. 171-175. 31 For further evidence, see Cas Wouters, Informalisierung und Formalisierung in den

Geschlechterbeziehungen in den Niederlanden von 1930 bis Anfang 1985, in Kölner Zeitschrift

exerted by the rising groups for the acceptance of their own ways of life and codes of conduct. In

the light of their higher expectations for the future, the power that had been gained by workers,

women and so forth was often viewed by them as simply being "token" power rooted in

"repressive tolerance". In the phases of stabilization and resignation, when the expectations for

the future diminish, this aggressive interpretation becomes less attractive and makes way for a

more defensive interpretation of this power gain as being the result of a long and hard social

struggle. Then the dominant tendency is to evaluate existing power relations in terms of

historical developments. Anyone who primarily evaluates relations between established and

outsider groups on the grounds of historical developments can see that, for most groups of

outsiders, there have been advances with respect to (material) living conditions. This perspective

leads more easily to contentment and resignation. Anyone who primarily evaluates these

relations on the grounds of ideals for the future, however, will easily find seeds for discontent

and opposition. Thus the balance between historical and utopian evaluation criteria fluctuates

along with the two phases in the civilizing processes.

The transition in emphasis from upward to downward pressure (and vice versa) is

probably the change that is the most striking. Upward pressure gives rise to certain fears

regarding the loss of status and power (for established), and fears that one won't make the grade

socially and will be slighted (for outsiders). As has been noted before, downward pressure also

gives rise to this kind of fear, but here the threat mainly comes from the opposite direction, from

above, and is experienced to be more severe. Upward pressure stimulates 'identification with the

underdog' and the spread of a downstairs perspective on society. Downward pressure, on the

other hand, stimulates 'identification with the established'32 and the spread of an upstairs

perspective. Then people come to perceive their life conditions as more menacing, and they will

be more restrained and formal.

An example of the "identification with the underdog" and of a downstairs perspective

was given in the sixties and seventies by the identification with psychiatric patients; "anti-

psychiatry" and other similar movements tended to view these patients as people like

für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (forthcoming, autumn 1986). 32 The "identification with the established" follows the same emotional logic as the "identification

with the aggressor" (c.f. Anna Freud, Das Ich und die Abwehrmechanismen, Kindler Verlag, Munich, chapter nine, Die Identifizierung mit dem Angreifer", p. 85 ff.)

In The Civilizing Process, Volume II (see note 3), Elias also refers to this identification with the established: "people rising socially as individuals," he says, "identify to a certain extent with the upper class. (...) People in this situation acknowledge in one part of their consciousness the upper-class norms and manners as binding on themselves without being able to adopt them with the same ease and matter-of-factness." p. 313.

themselves, with feelings that are perfectly understandable, and with an almost 'healthy' reaction

to 'unhealthy' and oppressive social conditions. Not only psychiatric patients but also people

living in relatively unprotected and dangerous social conditions such as hoboes, beatniks and

other non-conformists were granted more prestige and respect. The dynamic vitality of street

sense, the ability to react alertly to the perils and opportunities of the street were praised in many

popular song lyrics and Bob Dylan put it as follows:

"You've gone to the finest school, all right Miss Lonely,

But you know you only used to get juiced in it,

And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street,

And now you are gonna have to get used to it." (Like a Rolling Stone, 1965)

This downstairs perspective belittled the vitality, the alertness and the spontaneity of the

established groups in their protected living conditions. In the present wave of stabilization and

resignation there has been a sharp rise in the example function of the established groups. Their

more protected living conditions are now more apt to arouse feelings of envy and admiration

than contempt. There is no longer so much interest in street sense or appreciation for it. The

downstairs perspective no longer has much of a following. With the growing tendency to

distinguish oneself downwards and to envy the established groups - identification with the

established rather than the outsiders - there has been a spread of the upstairs perspective. Salon

sense, the subtle intimation that one is not a person of the street, has increasingly become the

focus of interest and appreciation.

However, this change does not mean a relapse into the kind of hierarchic relations,

formal manners and self-constraints that were prevalent in the previous period of stabilization

and resignation. The liberation movements may have lost much of their spirit, but the advances

they made have certainly not disappeared. The identification with such underdogs as psychiatric

patients, children, women and workers may have become less intensive and the downstairs

perspective may have less backing, but all these people do now live in less hierarchic, less

rigidly and formally regulated relations and figurations. In the course of the growing

differentiation and integration of social functions and increasing democratization and

equalization, the people involved have forced themselves and each other to behave with greater

consideration; consideration of the feelings and interests of more people, for more of the time. In

this way, they gradually came to exert more and more pressure on themselves and on each other

in the direction of stronger, more even and all-round self-control, and of greater sensitivity and

flexibility in getting along with each other, with all others. The level of their mutually expected

self-restraint has risen.

This means that the changes form upward to downward pressure and from a downstairs

to an upstairs perspective have had barely any influence on the long term direction of these

civilizing processes. They did have an effect on the moulds into which emotions and self-

controls have been cast and the way they have been channelled. In such a period of transition,

the question of which feelings and interests of which people have to be taken into consideration

and just exactly when and how, is answered in slightly different ways. The direction of the

collective emotional movements may not change, but their rate and shape do. Examined in close

up, people's identifications with each other change and the moulds in which they are cast or are

channelled change too: who are your friends, who are your enemies and how are the implied

feelings expressed? In everyday life, answers to these questions are so important that even small

changes can make a strong impression. The same holds true for the question of whether people

percieve themselves as being on the defensive or on the offensive. With a change in the direction

of the main threat to people's social position - from upstairs to downstairs or the other way

around - they will change their ways of defending their positions and this may alter their self-

image, their we- and they-image and their mentality. Such a change can even make a significant

difference to what they view as the meaning or value of life. Nonetheless, in a more detached

long-term perspective, one can see that in general people's identifications with each other have

been expanding and may be expected to continue to do so as long as intra- national and

international interdependencies continue to expand, as long as processes of social differentiation

and integration continue.

8. Language Usage: Nationalization and Regionalization

Since the turn of the century, an informalization process has also taken place with respect to

language usage. The (formal) national languages expanded from above to below to include more

and more social classes and regions, a process in which the contrasts in language usage

diminished and the prevailing code of conduct for language usage became more informal,

flexible and varied. The waves of formalization and informalization also contained eddies in the

development of language usage. I should like to confine myself to the Netherlands here,

although more or less similar developments have also taken place in the other countries of

Europe. (An international comparison would certainly be interesting).

In a perceptive and enlightening article on the development of Algemeen Beschaafd

Nederlands (literally, General Civilized Dutch, the Dutch equivalent to the King's English or

perhaps "BBC Enghlish"), J. Goudsblom wrote in 1964: "Especially since World War II, there

has been more tolerance of words that were still 'unheard of' in civilized circles a generation

ago."33 The same kind of development was also witnessed in the 'roaring twenties' and the 'fin du

siècle'. In these periods – and even more so in the sixties and seventies – informalization

manifested itself in a growing tolerance of swear words, words referring to bodily functions such

as sexuality and excretion or to primary impulses and emotions, and (other) 'vulgar' words and

'slang'. Referring to Elias' comments on the development of bathing manners since 1900,34

Goudsblom commented: "Just as the social order has proved capable of bearing the sight of

bikinis, it can also tolerate a more candid choice of words. ... a spark of the common folk's laxity

has permeated the bourgeois self-discipline."35 The new esteem granted to the modes of conduct

of "the common folk" can to some extent also account for the neutralization of the social

differences and diminishing contrasts in language usage. The movement of modes of conduct

from below to above has been called the "proletarization of the bourgeoisie". In addition the

informalization of bourgeois or middle-class language usage was also furthered by the transfer of

certain words form private life, with its primary and informal contacts, to the secondary and

more formal relations of public life. It did not stop at that "spark of the common folk's laxity".

Especially after 1964, this tendency continued, and it was then that the most recent phase of

emancipation and resistance really got under way. In this phase, the upward pressure of the

emancipating groups expressed itself in even more direct and informal language usage, in a

greater tolerance and appreciation for dialects and regional accents as well as in attempts to

simplify spelling. This reflected the greater self-confidence of these groups, their stronger focus

on their own modes of conduct and their own ways of using the language.

As late as the fifties, unskilled workers rarely spoke Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands or

ABN and anyone who spoke a dialect in the public sector was assumed to be from a 'simple'

background.36 In the sixties and seventies television played an important role in the rapid spread

of ABN, but it was not long before a counter-movement came into existence; from the early

seventies onward, a wide range of regional movements stood up for their own dialects and

regional accents. The people involved were no longer embarrassed or ashamed of the way they –

'simple' people? – talked; on the contrary, it filled them with warmth and pride: they were

33 J. Goudsblom, Het Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands, in: Sociologische Gids, vol. 11 (1964), pp.

122-123. 34 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, Volume I, see note 3, pp. 187-188. 35 J. Goudsblom, see note 31, p. 123. 36 See for example Jan Haveman, De Ongeschoolde Arbeider, een sociologische analyse, Assen

speaking their mothers – not their masters – tongue. Precisely these feelings, combined with a

generous dose of nostalgia, might very well account for the boom in books of old photographs

and picture postcards of almost every village or town, as well as books and local newspaper

columns written in the various dialects. In accordance with the new rise in self-assurance,

speaking with a regional accent became a way to play down and defy the social hierarchy, with

the people who speak ABN at the top. Goudsblom has expressed this as follows:

"Speaking one's own dialect .. can evoke an atmosphere of intimacy an mutual trust: in

this way, one gives voice both to the feeling of being different and to that of being

amongst one another."37

The setting up of regional radio broadcasting stations in the seventies was one of the ways in

which 'regionalists' were accommodated. These stations gave the local dialects and accents of

the various regions a respected and established outlet. This encouraged the regionalists in their

battle against the injustice that they felt was implied by the disrespect and contempt for the

dialects and regional languages so many people still showed: by way of the contempt for the

speakers involved, in their view, this led to disdain for their own identity. In other words, lack of

respect stimulates lack of self-respect. Literally as well as figuratively, dialects are to a greater

extent native languages than ABN or any national language. Moreover, ABN originated from

these very dialects, so that their older origins were also put forward as a reason why they deserve

greater respect. Like practically every movement that brings about informalization, the

regionalists also drew attention to the fact that the formal ways have the function of creating or

marking social distinctions. They argued that an important facet of the higher status of ABN as

compared to the dialects is based on its traditional function of granting social distinction to its

speakers. In other words, the humiliating disrespect for the more native tongue was seen as a

form of self-aggrandizement on the basis of inherited superiority. Indeed, formal national

languages express the distinguishing peculiar life style of 'superiors' as opposed to 'inferiors'.

Apparently talking in a dialect or with a regional accent has also come to have a distinguishing

function, this time in opposition to ABN and it expresses the regional self-confidence in their

own peculiar life style.

On the grounds of these ideas, the regionalists demanded that "cultural minorities have a

right to their own identity".38 They stressed their right to be "different but equal", and the

1952, pp. 39-40. 37 J. Goudsblom, see note 31, p. 124. 38 Margo Kool, In de schoenen van het dialect, special supplement of N.R.C.-Handelsblad,

November 15, 1983, p. 2. Also by the same author: ‘Schrijven in Drente’, in: A. van Dis and T.

necessity for "pluralism" rather than "mass uniformity", whereas their opponents avoided these

terms and stressed the fact that the collective or general "clarity" (rather than "uniformity") of the

national language should not be endangered by the "particularism" or the "splintering" (rather

than "pluralism") advocated by the regionalists.

In this miniature language conflict, the greatest victory for the regionalists was that, as of

1985, it has been made possible to have regional languages as a compulsory subject at school.

Their ideal, "a country with a supra-regional standard language, Dutch, and in addition to it a

wide range of languages and dialects of equivalent standing. ...Unity and solidarity, with the

preservation of diversity!"39 was thus granted a legal basis.

In the past few decades, there has been such a rise in respect for the regional accents that

national and generally respected media have also devoted attention to them, and even discussed

the matter of whether it is plausible for a news announcer, for example, to have a regional

accent.40 This question was dealt with after the new phase of stabilization and resignation had

already begun and most of the liberation movements had already lost much of their spirit. This

was evident from the opponents' choice of words: such phrases as "that's just the way it is", the

last word in resignation, and "let everybody just do as they please, then it will really be a

mess."41 In the phase of emancipation and resistance, comments like these would have been

scorned at, if they would have been published at all. That is no longer the case today. The

increased emphasis upon general interests has been accompanied by increased appreciation for

the national language, ABN. The voices against a continuation of regionalization, now referred

to as "provincialism", were and are getting louder and they sound more self-assured. A Dutch

ambassador, for example, wrote a vitriolic article about the provincialism in the news

programmes of the joint television broadcasting companies in the Netherlands. According to

him, the viewers are treated as if they were "sheer imbeciles", and he ascribed this to the policy

of television news programmes: "The most important thing is to avoid anything difficult, don't

give the impression of being in any way superior to the masses. .. So, present the news as simply

as possible, with plenty of attention for everyman's little back yard."42

In the new etiquette books being published during the new phase of stabilization and

Hermans (eds.), Het Land der Letteren, Amsterdam 1982, pp. 194-197. 39 Idem 40 Examples include the popular television programme Sonja op Vrijdag and daily papers like

N.R.C.-Handelsblad. 41 Marc Reynebeau, Nederland der Rechtvaardigen, N.R.C.-Handelsblad, July 1, 1983, p. 14. 42 V.J.J.M. Bruyns wrote: The news programme presented by the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation is

subjective, provincial and does not contain any news, in N.R.C.-Handelsblad, March 2, 1984, p.

resignation, the sections on dialects or regional accents are written in such a way that the

influence of the regionalists is acknowledged and, to a certain extent, respected, but their

language usage is subsequently rejected as being a passing "fashion" and a "degeneration of the

language". Acknowledgement and respect are expressed in the following passage:

"And the use of our dialect? Our dialects are a subject of scientific study, so no one can blame us

for mastering them. If the company we are in is of mixed regional descent, we speak ABN,

although it is perfectly all right for our intonation to let people know where we come from!"43

However, the tone is usually less benevolent. A different book of etiquette put it as follows:

"This is nothing but a trend in the field of language, like affecting a working-class accent

to hide the fact that you have been to the university or come from a good family. The

struggle for simplified spelling also attests to this desire for a candid way of life without

any frills. .. Affecting a working-class accent has gone out of fashion again, as is

apparently also the case with simplified spelling."44

Another etiquette book had even less sympathy for this phenomenon:

"There is a strange tendency toward ordinariness, a desire to adapt oneself to the

language usage and the vocabulary of the masses. As long as there is nothing more

behind it than the desire to be understood by the masses, to a certain extent there is

nothing really wrong with it; it is a form of democratization. Unfortunately it is too

frequently overdone, and easily degenerates into the deliberate use of vulgar language,

coarse words and an abundance of expressions that happen to be in fashion at the

moment."45

The author continues to reject this "degeneration" by also calling it "language decay", and then

she seems to pull herself together with the firm words:

"The etiquette of 1980 requires of me ... that I use the very language that has been so

often maligned, Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands."46

The kind of far-reaching emancipation of regional language usage that has taken place in the

Netherlands would tend to indicate a strong development of regional identity within the

framework of a highly developed national identity. The integration or unification of Dutch

society was sufficiently advanced and established to allow the composite dialects of the national

7. 43 Frans Grosfeld, Zo hoort het nu. Etiquette voor de jaren tachtig, Amsterdam/Brussels 1983, p. 91. 44 Inez van Eijk, Etiquette vandaag, Utrecht/Antwerp 193, p. 34. 45 Netty Bakker-Engelman, Etiquette in de jaren '80, Utrecht 1983, p. 111. 46 Idem, p. 112.

language to once again function more autonomously.47 If national integration and identification

are not firmly enough established, regional identification is easily considered a threat. Any

regional identification that goes outside the framework of the national identity is usually

combated with violence. It is not until a certain moment in the process of national unification

and identification that there can be a revival of this kind of strong sub-national identification

without its being branded as treason and, as such, suppressed. When national identification and

integration are weak, the humiliating effect of this kind of treason can go so far as to evoke

incentives that might lead to genocide.48

A less extreme but still striking example was presented by the Turkish ambassador to the

Netherlands. He was so offended by the term "Kurdisch East" in a Dutch newspaper that he

publicly expressed his "surprise" that such a thing had been possible. In a letter to the editor he

wrote "This term is not only erroneous, but it is also extremely misleading", and then went on to

note that the population of Turkey constitutes "an indivisible whole" and that it "absolutely could

not be tolerated" that Turkey should be divided into regions "with arbitrary names".49

Just as every informalization is preceded by formalization, the regionalization described

above was preceded by nationalization. Apparently the fears and dangers accompanying any

kind of identification on less than a national level first have to be brought under firmer, more

even and all-round control before there can be enough confidence or m.e.s. to allow for greater

relaxation, flexibility and more variations.50 It seems necessary to first surmount more fears of

47 In the closing sentences of his article on ABN (see note 31), J. Goudsblom implicitly referred to

this balance between nationalization and regionalization and, in a more abstract sense, between formalization and informalization. First he expressed the expectation that "the pronunciation and vocabulary of Dutch, no matter who is speaking it and under whatever circumstances, are growing closer and closer to those of the ABN model." He then concludes: "The more dominant ABN becomes, the more it will loose its specific functions; the few remaining functions, however will become functionally all the more significant." p. 124. There is a striking similarity here to what Elias wrote on "Diminishing Contrast, Increasing Varieties" in The Civilizing Process Volume II (see note 3), pp. 251-258.

48 Compare the comments made by Norbert Elias on the uncertain (Christian) German national identity to explain the violence against Jewish Germans and other Jews with a sub-national identity; Norbert Elias, ‘Notizen zum Lebenslauf’, in: P. Gleichmann, J. Goudsblom, H. Korte (eds.), Macht und Zivilisation, pp. 51, 55 and 56.

49 A letter to the editor published in N.R.C.-Handelsblad, May 30, 1984. 50 Paul Kapteyn (see note 7) gives a fine example of this in connection with training small children

to control their violent impulses. At a kindergarten, the parents and teachers decided to allow the children to bring their "weapons" to school. There was a veritable arms race and fighting, that did not reach the point of saturation that the parents and teachers were waiting for. Kapteyn drew the following conclusion: "The breaking of the taboo, whereby parents and teachers have a more flexible attitude toward violence on the part of children, could only be copied by these children if and when the restrictions had first been well implanted in their personalities and they had first learned the things that, to a certain extent, they would later be able to unlearn. In other words,

each other as well as fears of a wider solidarity before – as a counter-balance and complementary

to the confidence, the solidarity and mutual identification that has been growing – processes of

individualization can continue to proceed. In the course of this process, fear of one another is

transformed into a more or less automatically functioning fear of oneself, for instance fear of too

much conformity and of mass mentality.

8. Concluding remark

The study of the developments in civilizing processes on the basis of the phases described above

implies an investigation of the social conditions underlying collective movements of feeling,

alterations in conduct and changes in the level of moral consciousness. Comprehensive social

changes and strong collective movements are accompanied by an alteration in the dominant

attitude toward life. They involve a revision of the prevailing social and autobiographical

continuity, self-images, we- and they-images, and images of the collective past. In the course of

the transition from informalization to formalization (and vice versa) there was a change in the

dominant images of past and present. These images came to be increasingly viewed in terms of

the people who actively embodied these processes. In the last phase of emancipation and

resistance, the image of what was happening at the time was predominantly based on a "minority

of the best"51 participating in social experiments and liberation movements. Today, in this phase

of stabilization and resignation, the image of the sixties and seventies is more and more based on

a "minority of the worst", the 'hedonists', 'softies' and 'profiteers' of those years. Some people

might see the most drastic offshoots in one direction or the other as representing radical changes

in the prevailing mentality, but if these offshoots are examined within a broader, more

comprehensive social framework, they prove to be quite a bit less radical. Then one may see the

changes more in terms of tension balances and of the successive phases of civilizing processes

which, in a more long-term perspective, develop in a specific direction.

breaking taboos is a typical adult problem. They partially unlearn the things that children have yet to learn." p. 179.

51 cf. N. Elias and J.L. Scotson, The Established and the Outsiders, London 1965, pp. 81, 104, 159.