Tilburg University The conservative embrace of progressive values Oudenampsen, Merijn Publication date: 2018 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in Tilburg University Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Oudenampsen, M. (2018). The conservative embrace of progressive values: On the intellectual origins of the swing to the right in Dutch politics. [s.n.]. 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Download date: 27. sep. 2021 The conservative embrace of progressive values On the intellectual origins of the swing to the right in Dutch politics The conservative embrace of progressive values On the intellectual origins of the swing to the right in Dutch politics PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan Tilburg University op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof. dr. E.H.L. Aarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties aangewezen commissie in de aula van de Universiteit op vrijdag 12 januari 2018 om 10.00 uur door Merijn Oudenampsen geboren op 1 december 1979 te Amsterdam Promotor: Prof. dr. O.M. Heynders Copromotor: Dr. P.K. Varis Overige leden van de promotiecommissie: Prof. dr. E.M.H. Ballin Prof. dr. M.S. Prange Prof. dr. L. Lucassen Prof. dr. J.C. Kennedy Prof. dr. W.G.J. Duyvendak Prof. dr. J.M.E. Blommaert Table of contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction The swing to the right 3 Chapter 1 The peculiarities of the Dutch 31 1.1 The Dutch fog 34 1.2 The historical origins of the aversion to theory 44 1.3 Depoliticization and the Dutch study of politics 57 1.4 The return of consensus critique 70 1.5 Conclusion 72 Chapter 2 The science of depoliticization 75 2.1 The accommodation strategy and the Thoenes-paradox 76 2.2 A close reading of Diploma Democracy 82 2.3 The ideological dimension of pluralism 98 2.4 Conclusion 104 Chapter 3 The rise of the Dutch New Right 107 3.1 The New Right and the translation of political ideas 109 3.2 The neoliberal strand 119 3.3 The neoconservative strand 141 3.4 Conclusion 160 Chapter 4 The conservative embrace of progressive values 163 4.1 The Fortuyn revolt: Progressive or conservative? 164 4.2 A situational perspective on conservatism 176 4.3 A conservatism ‘in the Dutch grain’ 182 4.4 Conclusion 195 vi The conservative embrace of progressive values Chapter 5 Deconstructing Ayaan Hirsi Ali 197 5.1 The double life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali 199 5.2 Qutb and political Islam 202 5.3 Neoconservatism and the clash of civilizations 207 5.4 Deconstructing Ayaan 214 5.5 A close reading of Infidel 222 5.6 Conclusion 229 Chapter 6 GeenStijl and the dawn of a conservative counterculture 231 6.1 GeenStijl: Tendentious, unfounded and needlessly offensive 233 6.2 The rhetoric and textuality of GeenStijl 242 6.3 Rebels without a cause: Dutch nihilism 252 6.4 The weaponisation of irony: From Reve to GeenStijl 261 6.5 Closing the circle: From Hermans and Reve to Van Gogh and GeenStijl 269 6.6 Conclusion 274 Conclusion Both a revolt and an echo 277 References 289 Summary in Dutch 317 Acknowledgements In an essay written in 1950, De Nederlandse auteur en de wereldcrisis (The Dutch author and the world crisis), the writer W.F. Hermans noted that the world did not really care what the Dutch had to say, since the Dutch never dealt with crises that ‘exceeded a fire in an ashtray’. Hermans admonished Dutch authors to stop copying foreign examples and to become fully provincial. Writing this dissertation often felt like following Hermans along that path, since this study departs from an insistence on the particularity of Dutch political thought, even if it does so through international comparisons. At conferences abroad, I sometimes felt I had become fully provincial, and somehow blamed Hermans for it. I have dug myself deep into the Dutch context, in the hope that I can escape the dilemma, and that the Dutch case is indeed more compelling than a fire in an ashtray. At the same time, this thesis has been the work of a relative outsider. Someone with no obvious belonging to a single academic discipline in the Netherlands. A relative outsider, too, when it comes to the Dutch political culture of consensus and moderation. Prominent inspirations such as Stuart Hall and Edward Said have written on the scholarly merits of being a relative outsider. Arguably, it allows one to develop a critical vision of the things that insiders generally take for granted. Stuart Hall’s saying that ‘fish have no concept of water’, is something that stuck with me with respect to Dutch consensus culture. You need to be located outside of that political culture, banging your head against it so to say, to be able to trace its contours. Often I found myself lost without purchase, manoeuvring a slippery slope with nothing to hold on to, without the clear contours of public and academic debate that I knew from surrounding countries. Typically, I only found out how to frame and situate what I was concretely doing at the very end of the project. As such, writing the dissertation has also been a humbling experience. One often starts a PhD with a very critical attitude towards the things that have already been written. Being somewhat of an angry young man, I had internalized the notorious motto of Marx, the ruthless criticism of everything that exists. At the end of the dissertation, that sentiment has given way to something milder and above all, more modest. Deconstructing an existing narrative is a lot easier than constructing one’s own edifice. You come to appreciate how difficult it is to develop a coherent and convincing analysis in the first place. While I do not believe I have fully achieved that goal, I hope this dissertation at least comes close to offering such an analysis. It is perhaps also good to mention that the writing of this thesis has been interrupted by a severe accident. Rehabilitation has taken me some time. There was a notable intervention from a cognitive psychologist who confidently concluded after viii The conservative embrace of progressive values some standardised tests that my mental functions corresponded to the lowest Dutch education level, meaning that I would never be able to finish my PhD. I have taken the liberty of interpreting that as an encouragement. Finishing this project therefore carries some extra symbolic weight. All the more reason to thank those who have helped me along on my path to completing this manuscript. First my supervisors, Odile Heynders and Piia Varis, who have pushed me to make the most of it, at a moment when I was ready to submit ‘the damned thing’ in suboptimal condition. Thanks also to Jan Blommaert who helped me get to Tilburg in the first place. We have had great conversations, connecting everything with everything. Colleagues such as Tom van Nuenen, Paul Mutsaers, Ico Maly and Geertjan Vugt have made the remote department in Tilburg feel like home to a geographically prejudiced Amsterdammer. And Carine Zebedee has been a great help with the final editing and layout of the text. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jan Willem Duyvendak for debating me in my angry young man phase. Especially for being intellectually magnanimous when it comes to critical debate in a way that is still rather rare in Dutch academia. I have also had great discussions on Dutch social democracy with Paul Kalma. Who, after discovering that I was not a communist, mistakenly thought that the debate was over. And there is Dick Pels, whose eloquent intellectual histories have been an important influence, and at the same time a prominent source of disagreement. I should also mention the group of young, leftist academics that I regularly met with. Contrary to what is assumed by some contemporary politicians and journalists, it is not that easy to be on the left in Dutch social science, which is a predominantly positivist and depoliticized space. Thanks to Rogier, Dylan, Irene, David, Arjen, Laurens, Matthijs and Gijsbert. Especially Paul en Sinan have been an important presence, although too often in digital form. And thanks to Lisanne, for being able to complain together that indeed the last mile is the longest one. I would like to thank, of course, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, for financially supporting my stay at Berkeley. And Femke and Niels for helping me to survive it socially. Bram Mellink has been a great co-conspirator on the neoliberalism project that I’m currently working on. Bram has read almost everything there is to read and he serves as an endless source of the finest quality academic gossip. Ido de Haan and Ewald Engelen have been a much needed source of encouragement and emotional blackmail to get me to finish my PhD.