Is het informaliseringsproces van richting veranderd? 'Margriet Weet Raad' 1978-1998

Samenvatting

Has the Informalization Process Changed Direction? Changes in Power Balances, Morals and Manners in a Dutch Agony Column 1978-1998. The broad social changes that have come about in Western countries during the 1960s and 1970s can be briefly characterized as "informalization." This article is a follow-up of an earlier study of an agony column in a Dutch weekly between 1938 and 1978, which led to the interpretation of informalization. In the new material, principally focused on sexes and generations, a shift toward "reformalization" can be noticed. Limits are once more being emphasized. An increasing discomfort in the collective mind ever since the 1980s -- related to topics like economy, unemployment, criminality, but also emancipation disillusions -- is attended with a stronger emphasis on conducting and taking account of each other. Together, these changes can be conceptualized as a shift from "psychologization" toward "sociologization." The answers in the agony column no longer give priority to the exploration of individual bounds or individual motives; rather, the societal context of problems, relations, and strivings is stressed. Meanwhile an ongoing liberation of sexuality in monogamous relationships can be noticed. People are stimulated to say what they "really want" and to discover "new points of view" provided that "the other" is taken into account. The "emancipation of emotions" is, in this case, evident. Together with the rising quest for law and order, this may be defined as the paradox of informalization and reformalization. In this article, both trends are interpreted as intertwined. According to Norbert Elias, they indicate a shift on the We-I-Balance of individuals toward "we.". 58 References. Adapted from the source document.