I am preparing to lead a lecture on Culture and Society by Raymond Williams. One of the most famous quotes by him in that book, especially in the current age of web 2.0, is that “there are in fact no masses, only ways of seeing people as masses…”.

It reminds us that we often make categories of people that do not ‘naturally’ exist, but which we put them in, and these categories become ‘real’ in themselves. I was thinking how many categorization schemes are responsible for making a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’, where in fact there is often not such a difference. What I mean with that, is that the difference is historical and political, not natural, but in the process ends up becoming naturalized (rather than being natural). Consider how you classify yourself when filling in the census: do you check the box for “White”, “African-American”, “Asian”? What if I am both? What if I am none of the above? The question is not just an arbitrary one that self-indulges in issues of personal identity, but takes on a serious dimension when you consider that these identities are collected and aggregated, processed and used to make public policy. Who gets welfare, who doesn’t? Which group has more crime, which group has less?

One category that keeps fascinating me is the “allochtoon” and “autochtoon” distinction in the Netherlands. It would go too far at this point to explain the very details, but more or less, the difference is whether your ‘roots’ are Dutch or not. Keep in mind, this is not about being a Dutch citizen or not! If I had to translate it to the American context, one could say this is the difference between Asian-American, African-American, Hispanic (what we call ‘allochtoon’ in the Netherlands) or “American”-American (autochtoon).

In the Dutch context, the word “allochtoon” has taken on a very sinister meaning in the last few years. Connotations of being backwards, of leeching on the Dutch welfare society, of being criminal .. but to come full circle, and to paraphrase Williams, “there are in fact no allochtonen, only ways of seeing people as allochtonen.”

Being the critical theorist with a big heart that Raymond Williams is, he followed that up with “the degree that we find the formula inadequate for ourselves, we can wish to extend to others the courtesy of acknowledging the unknown”.

Let me repeat that: “there are in fact no allochtonen, only ways of seeing people as allochtonen .. the degree that we find the formula inadequate for ourselves, we can wish to extend to others the courtesy of acknowledging the unknown“.