For example, there was great dissatisfaction with Hans Kellerhuis from Utrecht. “There’s nothing wrong with being grateful. There’s nothing wrong with helping others if you can handle it. But there is so much wrong with Joris Luyendijk’s flattened political privilege talk. I am grateful every day for having it better than almost everyone who has come before me. But this political form of gratitude is one of groups, guilt and shame. I have enough privilege or perhaps too little to know that this will only bring misery.’
‘After reading the interview, I counted my ticks’, writes Marianne Pel from Amsterdam. ‘White. straight. Two Dutch-born parents. Gymnasium diploma, although the head of my primary school didn’t think gymnasium was for working-class children. Preferably two university degrees. But: wife and two parents with only primary school. So five checks. Many (not all) fellow students and some teachers at the gymnasium in Hilversum made me feel good about not being privileged. That gave me enough social ambition for decent leadership positions in the government. A class migrant.
‘I should recognize myself in Luyendijk’s analysis. To feel recognized. I might feel flattered. Still, it didn’t sit well with me. I still had a few ticks for Luyendijk. Eight: Vitamin R from Relationships. Nine: Know the mores. On Monday morning, Aaf Brandt Corstius mercilessly ticked off another tick: arrogant self-assurance. Ten check marks. The best boy in the class. Joris didn’t really have to do anything for that.’
According to Bauke Koekkoek, the interview with Luyendijk was mainly ‘recognisable, painful but also incomplete, because without attention to the human tendency to empathize’. In the interview about his sociological blueprint, according to Koekoek, Luyendijk takes himself as the measure of things. ‘Fortunately, there are people who conclude well before their 50th birthday that not everyone is created in their own image. The human empathy for the other cannot brush away social differences, but it can soften it.’
Joris Luyendijk. Even his name is beautiful’, writes Trees Roose from Haren. ‘He studied religious anthropology to begin with, two words I didn’t even know when I was 17, as my mother was practically illiterate. I obtained my PhD through tough evening studies from maid to typist. In the end I took a flat Amsterdam accent, did an orderly study, but of course never really belonged to Joris’s goldfinches environment. Not even with my own family. But yes, to quote Gerard Reve: ‘You can call or write to the authorities, but what can they do about it?’
‘It’s great that Joris is now also addressing the problem of this inequality’, says Karien Ditzhuijzen (‘six ticks’). ‘It is less pleasant that he presents it as if he ‘discovered’ all this himself, and in advance rejects criticism about the misappropriation of this subject – thus silencing generations of feminists, anti-racists and other activists. My seven-check husband loves the article and doesn’t understand my frustration, heated discussion ensues. I am left with a feeling of despondency: once again the grass has been mowed in front of me by someone who just has a tick left.
‘And I have to be happy too, because now that ‘7 vinkers’ are getting involved, it will probably finally be okay. sigh. What Luyendijk describes with his seven ticks is called intersectionality, orintersectional feminism. Much has already been written about it. A reference to this would have graced him. I also recommend typing it into Google’how to be an ally.’