Brainwashed

When I was in school in history class we were taught Dutch history over any other history. When I was about 7-12 I used to watch an educational program for youths. Both very educational. Only now I found out some nationalism was involved in how the material was presented to us.


I realized this when I watched some of the eductional program I used to watch; “het Klokhuis” (core of an apple).

I’ve been searching for my own personal brainwash. I found it hard to tell good sense, nature and brainwash apart. I mean, what is good sense? And in which cases I was born that way or brainwashed? This search for my personal brainwash started when I realized that every person thinks they’re right in their convictions. Where did those convictions come from? In which cases are we fooling ourselves in what we think is truth and right? In what cases society (we grew up in) is to blame and in which cases we are just ignorant, fool hardy or just plain stupid? How do you find out where nature stops and culture starts? According to Kees Torn, Dutch comedian, it’s all nature. Still, not all we believe nature dictated. We were also taught things. Like what’s good and right, or what is wrong and bad. Nature didn’t dictate that; nature only dictated us to survive, as individuals and as a species.

In this society we live in, we developed strong believes in what is right or wrong. However, everybody around you believing something is good doesn’t make it good. For example, you could teach a whole generation that 2+2=5. They will all believe that’s the truth and they will all agree with each other, because that was what they were taught. It doesn’t make it right, though.

This little example is easy to unravel, but when we’re talking about believes of a certain society, coming out with new ideas and believes can be tricky, even when you turn out to be right. There are many examples in the sciences and it works exactly the same with moral believes. So, who says I am right in my believes? Of course I do, but what is that worth? Very possibly someone can come along, read my blog and disagree with all I’ve written in the past or will right in the future. So what are my believes worth, and ain’t I fooling myself?

This is what the Golden Age looked like....Apparently....

Back to my basic history lessons from school and my believes that I am too brainwashed; I just didn’t know in which capacity and on what subject. It turns out it was history, Dutch history, and about my own country. Let’s lay out some rules: All countries have their own characteristics. All countries have nice and good assets and bad and wrong assets. There’s no such thing as a completely pleasing government, there’s always someone disagreeing with the rulers or the ones executing the rules. Everybody commenting on countries will be right or wrong, but that’s usually left to interpretation, social morals and the judgement of people.

Now, here it comes: I was taught about the Dutch golden age. I was also told about the conquering and slavery the Dutch were involved in. I was taught about Willem of Orange, Michiel de Ruijter and the brothers de Witt. I was taught about the Dutch Republic, back in the days during the golden age. And I was taught to be really proud of the Netherlands and to love the colour Orange.

In all these cases it was recognized/mentioned some of these people and some of these events weren’t as glorious anhd good as we would like them to be, but we were also taught to quickly move over that part and to love Orange. Of course right now I can’t think of a good example.

A few weeks back I watched “het Klokhuis” to brush up my knowledge of Dutch history. I had already read up on the Internet, so I had some references to judge the information against. I noticed how romantically the Oranges were painted. I could see fault, but that didn’t come forward in the program. In the end I was correcting them aloud in my living room I was getting annoyed and I looked back at my youth and how I sat through the history lessons. I started to realize we were brainwashed to love the Royal family. Not massively, but surely, just to be sure we wouldn’t revolve against the kingdom in too massive a crowd. I felt cheated.

I’ve never been this obsessed with the Dutch royals before. I’m glad it only grabbed me at a grownup age. Who knows what nonsense I would have started to believe had I been younger. The idea of me believing the Royals were chosen by God revolts me. Then again, I might not feel the pain for it then like I do now. In the end, who says they aren’t? I honestly don’t know, but I don’t believe it either; I find it arrogant.

So, as objective as I can I will declare myself a Republican instead of an Orangist, if I must choose. What’s for opinion, who knows I turn out to be wrong in the end and will suffer for all my social believes.