Has the Informalisation Process Changed Direction?: Manners and Emotions in a Dutch Advice Column 1978–98

Abstract

The broad social changes that came about in Western countries during the 1960s and 1970s can be briefly characterised as informalisation; during the 1980s and 1990s this gave rise to something of a moral panic in public opinion. In daily life today, many examples can be found of the ongoing ‘emancipation of emotions' on the one hand, and of a rising quest for law and order on the other. Is the interpretation of informalisation still adequate? To a large extent this interpretation was founded on Brinkgreve and Korzec's study of an advice column in the Dutch popular weekly Margriet between 1938 and 1978. This article is a follow-up to that earlier study. In the new material, focusing on sexes and generations, a shift towards reformalisation can be noticed. No longer are social and psychic boundaries being explored, but once more being emphasised. An increasing unease ever since the 1980s – related to economy, criminality, but also disillusion with emancipation – is accompanied by a stronger a sense of belonging and mutual consideration. The material does not, however, indicate a restoration but rather a change in social habitus: a shift from psychologisation towards sociologisation. In terms of Norbert Elias's concept of the We–I balance of individuals, this indicates a shift towards ‘we’.