Civic Education and Contested Democracy by Wim de Jong

Author:Wim de Jong
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030562984
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

4.5 Down with the ‘Regents’. Assaulting Paternalism

In addition to the confrontation with disciplined democracy and institutionalized diversity, there was a third conflict: that with ecumenic democracy, dominant in the first half of the 1960s among educational reformers. Their paternalistic style of cultural elevation of the masses caused irritation among the younger libertarians, sharply visible from 1965 onwards.

Rengelink’s role in this confrontation is typical. His booklet Citizenship and Civic Sense, distributed to hundreds of thousands of young people since the late 1940s, embodied the continuity between the late 1940s and the 1960s. Key elements in the booklet were unity in diversity, freedom and responsibility. A typical saying that, according to Rengelink, reflected the desired mentality of citizens was a law that applied at the time when the Dutch together fought the water: ‘He who does not join in distress forfeits his inheritance’.131 Popular educators like Rengelink understood democracy as an ethical attitude of cooperation, respect and openness towards others, of taking responsibility.

After his activities as an educator at the Department for Reconstruction, Rengelink had made a career at the VARA and the Dutch Television Foundation (NTS). Through his activities in the European Broadcasting Union and Eurovision, he wanted to contribute to increasing European awareness. In the 1960s, Rengelink was seen by many as a broadcasting ‘regent’, a paternalistic figure of authority.132 He vocally opposed commercial television, seeing cultural elevation as truly democratic, as opposed to bowing to the wishes of the general public, necessitating a closed system. Commercial television would lead to vulgar entertainment, and was undemocratic and populist.133 Although he was critical of all too elitist cultural critics like Schermerhorn and Idenburg, who still spoke of the ‘masses’, he did believe in ‘democratic cultural education’.134 On the other hand, D’66-voorman Gruijters, for example, was in favour of a commercial broadcaster simply because he found opponents of it paternalistic and patronizing.135

In the mid-1960s, mayor Mieke Van der Wall (Geldermalsen) took a seat on the editorial committee of the Association of Dutch Municipalities for Citizenship and Civic Spirit. She thought it highly old-fashioned, expressing a duty-obsessed, uncritical attitude towards democracy in the Netherlands.136 She asked a history student, who thought the book approached young people eligible to vote as ‘imbeciles’. He missed democratization of education and enterprise, criticism of the ‘regent’ mentality and of the ‘intolerance of Calvinism’. In his opinion, beliefs of others did not need to be respected, as long as they were respected. In the opinion of the eloquent student, the book was undemocratic because it addressed citizens as subjects.137 In 1969, editor of the progressive journal Vrij Nederland Joop van Tijn quoted from the booklet, which he sarcastically called an ‘immortal work’: ‘We have great responsibilities as human beings. To ourselves, to our friends or family, but also to our neighbourhood, our congregation, our country. Indeed, also towards Europe and the world. And to God.’138

Rengelink insisted democratic citizenship did not go without a civic sense of duty;139 However, the committee decided on a shorter and more direct revision, without allusions to the monarchy, and with more information about political parties.

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