In retrospect, I know why the experiment didn’t provide the answer we were looking for. The problem at hand had been so similar to one I encountered during my PhD research. At the time, the experiment had provided clear yet surprising answers, and produced the most beautiful piece of science in my dissertation.
Ten years later, the same approach fails miserably. I forgot how lucky I was back then. How coincidental it all had actually been.
I think that many failures and blunders in the world can be explained by such personal déjà vu experiences. You encounter a situation that seems familiar to you and you remember well how you solved it at the time. That’s why some of the greatest scientific geniuses and Nobel laureates, people like Linus Pauling and Lynn Margulis, later in their careers spout absurd theories. After all, their original groundbreaking, paradigm-changing discovery had once been an absurd idea, and colleagues had also rejected and laughed at it at the time. It all sounds terribly familiar to me. So I will be right in the end. Do not deviate. Keep course.
I suspect that this is the same reason why Thierry Baudet radicalized. When your conservative ideology continues to be so resolutely rejected in mainstream media and political circles, you become accustomed to that constant chorus of booing. And that chorus might sound exactly the same if you orate not about the importance of the nation-state this time, but about the threat of a secret reptilian world domination. Just keep going, and see the angry establishment as mere encouragement that you’re on the right track.
Déjà vu. I suspect that’s why our Prime Minister always keeps going, after every affair and every crisis. He encountered similar problems early in his political career. An unexpected victory over Rita Verdonk for the VVD leadership, after which a party split threatened and the VVD did not even become the largest opposition party. It was an extremely grim time in which conversations at the coffee machine came to a halt when Rutte arrived. But he persevered, did not leave and eventually became the longest-serving prime minister in the Netherlands. When everything goes wrong for his cabinet and an extremely grim negative time arrives, do you think he will throw in the towel? Keep course.
You know this is all cold ground psychology. Nothing more irritating than sideline callers who put those in power on the couch. All those theories hold true until they no longer hold true, and then there is another theory that can explain behavior and decision-making.
And yet, this week at the debate on the nitrogen fund, I return to that same déjà vu effect. The fund is the equivalent of a debt of 1,300 euros per Dutch person. Pieter Omtzigt gave a nice summary of what is wrong with it last Wednesday. It is neither effective nor legal. It is not even clear in what timeframe it has to solve a problem, what problem that is exactly, or what the solution is. In short: it is the third largest expenditure of this cabinet and we have no idea where it is going. Or in Omtzigt’s words: “This is not a testing ground.”
Why then does a cabinet of smart, knowledgeable people decide that this is a good idea? Could it be because it worked before? Because there was corona support of almost 80 billion euros, a climate fund of 35 billion euros, a growth fund of 20 billion euros, on top of InvestNL of 2.5 billion euros, and that all of this had passed through the Chambers without any problems? All long-term, ‘apolitical’ money across cabinet periods, for the good, important things. Moreover, it was comfortably outside the national budget and beyond the control of the House of Representatives. Once given away is always given away.
After the May holidays, it will become clear whether there is still enough confidence to spend such a large sum of money again this time without control and supervision. But The Hague is suffocating in déjà vu, in the same reflexes, the same tunes, the same criticism, the same solutions. It really is time for new tools.
Rosanne Hertzberger is a microbiologist.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 22, 2023.