Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was interviewed by Mehreen Khan in the Financial Times, (“Dutch leader ready to be EU champion on free trade", (FT, 27-03-2018, p. 7), as part of his publicity campaign to position himself as the go-to free-market Conservative Liberal after Brexit. He went on record as saying that "The Netherlands, since the 16th century, has always been trying to maintain the balance between the great powers - France, Germany, and the UK" and that free trade is "part of the Dutch DNA".

Whatever the Free-trade DNA (has this taken over from the equally fabled Dutch moralism and tolerance?), Rutte, who has studied history, should know that he is off by at least a century with his 16th-cetury flourish. it is arguably wrong to date a balance-of-power policy to the pre-1670. But ethnotyping is just that: bad history dressed up as a timeless national characteristic.

Newspaper headlines are increasingly taking the "why" form: "Why such-and-such is so-and-so". Threadbare as it is becoming by now (and patently serving as "clickbait"), it makes good journalistic sense: it raises a topic and at the same time promises an explanation. Two recent contributions to the Dutch Volkskrant show its questionable side in using the form  "Why such and such a cultural group behaves in this or that manner".  

The one that prompted this blog entry was Natalie Hanssen’s piece "This is why Danes are so happy: Be normal", with the sub-header "Don’t ever think that you are better than the others or that you amount to something special" (Dit is waarom de Denen zo gelukkig zijn: vooral normaal doen / Denk in godsnaam niet dat je beter bent dan een ander of überhaupt iets voorstelt); posted 17 November; online here). It adds its mite to the hygge hype by presenting the timeworn Danish cultural meme of Janteloven or “the law of Jante” [a fictionalized small town made famous in a 1933 book]. Not exactly a staggering new discovery - the wikipedia article on the topic has versions in 30 languages; nor so very Danish after all – the Dutch have their “doe maar gewoon” convention, and any small-town mentality will look askance at pretentious neighbours; but hey, don’t be a grouch, it’s good enough, apparently, for some diverting weekend reading.[....]

The imagology site will maintain a blog of contemporary manifestations of national essentialism – the spread of ethnotypes and the belief in ethnicity/“culture” as a social explanation. Many of these are diffuse, ephemeral, “banal”. Hence the need to capture and document them.