Ruth Benedict on Netherlanders

During World War II, many studies of 'cultures at a distance' were conducted. Ruth Benedict was one of the most prolific writers in this field. While working for the Office of War Information she produced several memoranda on societies and cultures involved in the war. One of these was the Netherlands. This paper focuses on, firstly, how the present author discovered Benedict's texts on the Dutch. Secondly, it discusses why and for whom she wrote this material. Lastly, it quotes one of her memoranda, entitled A Note on Dutch Behavior, at length.


Introduction
The anthropological study of Dutch society and culture is still in its infancy.It is only since the early 1970s that a growing number of anthropologists occupy themselves with this field of inquiry.Students of Dutch society and culture who wish to locate earlier publications of anthropological value are bound to end up in the work of historians, folklorists, geographers and sociologists.In contradistinction to the situation in, for instance, the Scandinavian countries, Great Britain and France, a strong tradition of 'anthropology at home' in the Netherlands is lacking.Rather than study their compatriots, Dutch anthropologists usually did fieldwork in overseas colonial territories.It is, then, no mere coincidence that the rise of anthropology at home in the Netherlands more or less followed upon the process of decolonization.
Perhaps Dutch anthropologists considered their own society and culture not sufficiently exotic or interesting to delve into its idiosyncracies.Neither did foreign anthropologists show much interest.There is an extremely scanty English-language literature on the Netherlands as a culture area.Publications in other languages are even more exceptional.When John and Dorothy Keur published their 1955 study of a Dutch rural community in the 12 Ethnologia Europaea 23:2 province of Drenthe -The Deeply Rootedit seemed that the Netherlands would appear on the international anthropological horizon after all.However, decades later American anthropologist Sydel Silverman still had to press some Dutch colleagues '[to] do something about putting the Netherlands on the English speaking anthropological map' (Boissevain & Verrips 1989: 2).Though in the past five years more English-language anthropological work on the Netherlands has been published, the harvest remains rather meagre as yet.
Thus, the eager student who would like to know how foreign anthropologists perceived and perceive the Dutch has to rely on a handful of books and articles.Yet, a famous anthropologist has devoted attention to Dutch society and culture: Ruth Benedict.In the Netherlands this fact is hardly known.This is not surprising, since her work on this topic has not been published so far.Given the paucity of anthropological texts on the Dutch, I consider it justified to bring Benedict's Dutch material into the limelight.To this end I have selected a short memorandum, entitled -A Note on Dutch Behavior, which is included integrally.Before presenting the text, I will point out how I discovered this unpublished work, why and for whom it was written, and how Benedict went about gathering the data on which it is based.

Benedict's Files on the Dutch
Apart from scores of articles, there are no less than three extensive biographies on the life and work of Ruth Fulton Benedict.One is written by her student, later colleague and friend Margaret Mead (1974).The other two works have been published fairly recently by Judith Modell (1984) and Margaret M. Caffrey (1989). 1 All three biographers allude to the fact that Benedict studied and wrote about Dutch society and culture (Mead 1974: 59;Modell 1984: 267ff.;Caffrey 1989: 320).However, they bring up the subject in passing and do not refer to either published or unpublished work.
Their remarks intrigued me, since few foreign anthropologists have written on the Netherlands.Moreover, though these and other authors state that Benedict devoted attention to Dutch society and culture, they fail to mention sources.My curiosity to locate these sources increased because Benedict's biographers maintain that she described the Dutch quite accurately, as she herself could notice when visiting Europe shortly before her death in 1948 (cf.Modell 1984: 306;Howard 1984: 281).Margaret Mead, for example, refers to Benedict's' ... delight over finding out how accurate her work had been -over her discovery that Poles and Czechs, Dutch and Belgians actually did behave as her studies had informed her they did ' (1974: 74).
In order to find out which titles Benedict had given her work on Netherlanders and in which publications it might have appeared, I began to read more by and about Ruth Benedict, to no avail, however.I even started to doubt that she had in fact written anything at all about the Dutch.I decided to leave the matter be as yet, until an opportunity would come my way to take up the thread.In November, 1989 I was given this chance, since I would participate in a conference in Washington D.C.I decided to spend extra time in the capital city of the U.S.A. From the Benedict biographies I knew that she had produced her 'Dutch material' for the Office of War Information (OWI), then located in Washington D.C. Therefore, I figured that there would be a considerable chance that the OWI documents had been deposited in the 178 National Archives .And indeed, they were.Once I had found the appropriate department, I rummaged through piles of dossiers which might possibly include the document or documents I was looking for.Though I came across fascinating material,2 I was unsuccessful.What is more; not a single document indicated that Benedict had produced anything whatsoever for OWL Apparently, I had ended up in a cul de sac.There were, however, still a number of options to find the manuscript or manuscripts -if they existed at all and had been preserved.One of these options was the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.Though the catalogue did not contain unpublished manuscripts by Benedict, I was advised to consult the Library's Margaret Mead collection.In this collection I finally found a document entitled A Note on Dutch Behavior.In the left upper corner Mead had written 'from RFB -OWI', RFB being an acronym for Ruth Fulton Benedict and OWI for Office of War Information.Initially, Mead's scribble was my only clue that Ruth Benedict had indeed written the piece. 3However, I was convinced that this must be the document, or at least one of the documents, I was after.
Investigations elsewhere had to be postponed due to lack of time.In the fall of 1990, however, I had another opportunity to visit the United States.I decided to pay a visit to Vassar College, Poughkeepsie (N.Y.), where Benedict's literary and scholarly legacy is kept.On top of finding A Note on Dutch Behavior, I came across two other manuscripts on the Netherlands, entitled The Social Framework, 4 and Pre-War Holland. 5 The latter document is unfinished and ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence.Apart from these manuscripts, there are two boxes with data on the Netherlands, collected and used by Benedict to write her memoranda.There is also correspondence with colleagues and superiors.The material was gathered and written for and on authority of the Office of War Information. 6    Benedict and the Office of War Information Mead's biography of Benedict tells us how she became employed by the Office of War Information.As early as 1939, Mead and several other anthropologi sts met in the Committee for National Morale.Thi s committee aimed at.using anthropology and psychology for the problem of wartime 'morale building ' (cf. Mead 1974: 57).lnitially, Benedict showed little interest in this committee.Soon, however, sh e became involved in other organizations which were concerned with the war efforts.In 1941, she join ed the Committee on Food Habits of the National Research Council and in the same year she, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson -amongst.others -co-founded the Council oflntercult.uralRelations , a predecessor of the In stitute for lnt.ercultura l Studios (Mead 1959: 351).'!'his Ol'ganization had as its predom inant goal to study lhe national character of peoples which wei-e in some way 01• another involved in the Second World War.In fact, lhi s constituted the star ting point of the study of 'cult ures at a distance' .
In the meanwhile, the Offi.ce of War Information was esta blished in Washi ngt on.owr was an intelligence service using the expe rtis e of anthropologists a nd other social scientists to increase knowledge of enemy an d occupied nations , especially with regard to th eir 'morale'.There was also a bureau which distributed American propagaJ1da to enemy countries and 'information' to resistance movements, neutra l and allied countries (Doob 1947: 650).On the recommendation of Geoffrey Gorer, who joined OWI in 1942 but started to work for the British embassy the next year , Ruth Benedict was asked to become his substitute.In the summer of 1943 she accepted and moved to the capital city of the U.S.A. 7 Benedict's decision to leave her job at New York's Columbia University for a position at the Office of War Information in Washington must be understood against the background of the opportunity the new job would present to conduct large-scale (applied ) anthropological re search.Moreover , her relation ship with the head of the anthropological departm ent al Columbia, Ralpb Linton, was 1z• far from friendly (Caffrey 1989: 314).She saw as the challenge ofber job 'to get policy makers to take into account dHferent habits and customs of qth er parts in the world ' (quoted in ibid.: 318).
Benedict became head ofOWI's Basic Analysis Unit, Bureau of Overs eas Intelligence -a rather sonorous title for a unit with only one employee: Benedict hers elf (ibid.: 318). 8Though initially her position at OWI was hardly unque st ioned , 9 Benedict attende d top secret meetings .According to Mead she was involved in wartime intelligence, especially so when she was studying European cultw•es, including Dutch culture, amongst others to assist resistance and partisan movements (Mead 1959: 354).Her w01•k consisted mainly of writing memoranda -on European and Asian societies -whi,ch could throw light on 'problems related to nations with which the United States was involved because they were active allies, enemies, or countrie s occupied by t.be enemy' (Mead 1974: 58).According Lo Judith Modell, Ben edict could not predict how the documents she produced were used.She writes: 'Apparently no one really knew what happened to reports that circulated through the OWI offices.A report might land on someone's desk and, depending on timing and tidiness, might or might not be passed along.Wheth er or not information ever reached an "operator", military personnel, or an administrato r remained a myste ry.From all accounts th e OWi had a somewhat left-hand-ignorantof-the-right atmosphere, p1us the jealousies that accompany a "personalized" workplace ' (1984: 271).
However, correspondenc e between Ruth Benedict and Eugene Katz, another OWi-empioyee , makes it, abundantly clear that the Bureau of Overseas In telligence occupied itself predominantly with psychological warfare.To this end Benedict and her co!Jeagues bad to report on 'the loyaltie s, habits, fears, hopes , likes and dislikes of the target peoples'. 10Ben edict was well-aware of her task and the way in which the material she collected was used.It would seem, then, that Modell tries to mitigate Benedict's role in OWI.
Ben edict took on h er task energetically.In the first year of her appointment she wrote reports on the Thai and Rumanians.ll Following these rather extensive studies, she produced a number of short memoranda on Finland, Denmark, Norway and other societies and subjects (Caffrey 1989: 320).
On January the 10th, 1944 Benedict received a letter 'in connection with the Netherlands' from Samuel Williamson, a staff member of OWI's Bureau of Analysis and Research.12In this 'assignment no.668' she was asked to collect background material regarding 1) the frictions which were likely to arise between the civilian population and Allied troops after the immediate fighting had subsided; 2) the peculiarities of Americans and American society which required explanation to the Dutch people.Moreover, Benedict should make a 'brief list of "dos" and "don'ts" which [could] guide the writers of booklets designed for the inhabitants in order to mitigate somewhat the friction.'The 'friction' referred to concerns the expected controversies which the presence of American troops in the Netherlands -and the concomitant acts of warmight have.This could lead to misunderstandings between Dutch civilians and American soldiers.In order to avoid these, OWI wanted to make a pamphlet on Netherlanders for the American army.Benedict's memorandum was supposed to provide background material for this pamphlet, which should be written by a U.S. Army officer. 13Benedict was given little time to produce her document; in June, 1944 she received the assignment to write a report on Japanese culture and behavior.This finally resulted in her famous book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946). 14  The Study of Dutch Culture at a Distance How did Benedict go about writing her memo's, amongst which the one on the Dutch nation?Of course, she could not conduct fieldwork due to the war.In order to nonetheless gain insight into these societies, she and other anthropologists like Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson had developed the study of cultures at a distance.Amongst other things, she 180 used publications on these societies and interviewed experts of and first-and second-generation immigrants of these countries. 15On this matter, Benedict wrote: 'The anthropologist's chief technique, that of the field trip, was impossible.There were available, however, in the United States, persons of almost every nation of the world, and it was a fairly simple matter to find transplanted groups which retained a great deal of the way oflife to which the older members had been born.Individuals could be found from most classes and minorities, and from most of the distinctive provinces of a nation.It was not necessary to give up the traditional anthropological reliance upon face-to-face study, and this recourse to informants was all the more necessary, the clearer it became that much essential material for the studies I had been asked to make was not elsewhere available ' (1974: 161) .
Furthermore, Benedict used historical work, statistics, travel reports, news clippings, intelligence reports and belles-lettres (Modell 1984: 269;Mead 1974: 59).She even considered this an advantage: 'The richness of the data is an asset, and, when lacunae were discovered, it was usually possible to obtain necessary facts from informants' (Benedict 1974 : 161-62) .Benedict usually produced a scheme which she used to present her data:' .. .a basic manuscript is prepared describing the institutions and aspects of adult life in the nation.It analyzes the patterns of behavior that are prevalent, the way in which these patterns are rewarded and sanctioned, attitudes toward authority, toward violence, toward destiny and the like' (quoted in Modell 1984: 269).
Benedict used the same method when she was asked to write a memorandum on the Netherlands.From the Vassar College files it is clear that she turned to myriad sources. 16 Benedict consulted literature on or written by Netherlanders, Dutch informants who had gone into exile or had been living in the United States for years and experts on the Netherlands.Most persons were not interviewed by Benedict herself; she left this work to some of her students.They interviewed some 25 men and women from all walks oflife.The plethora of topics they addressed included child rear-ing, education, behavior, habits and customs (amongst others concerning birth, marriage and death), religion, mores and so forth.The results were handed over to Benedict.Some Dutch informants wrote their own reports for Benedict.Businessman S. van Wezel, for instance, wrote 'A Contribution to the Survey on the Dutch Family' and 'Women in Professions in Holland' and an anonymous person put together a family history.Moreover, the anthropologist had scores of proverbs translated.She also used folk songs collected by a man named Willem van de Wall, letters and messages intercepted by intelligence services from underground media like Het Parool (a newspaper) and Radio Oranje, newspaper clippings, and brochures of the 'Queen Wilhelmina Fund.' Benedict even found the verses of the Dutch national anthem useful.Other sources included translated novels by such authors as Louis Couperus (The Books of the Small Souls) , Multatuli (Woutertje Pieterse), Israel Querido (Toil of Men) and Jo van Ammers-Kiiller (Tantalus).Among the scientific and non-fiction works Benedict studied were the All in all, Benedict had collected a considerable amount of background material.On the basis ofit, she wrote three reports on the Netherlands and Dutch society and culture: A Note on Dutch Behavior, The Social Framework and the incompleted Pre-War Holland.The first text was part of a larger memorandum, which also includes remarks on how to present American soldiers most favourably to Dutch citizens and a list of 'dos and don'ts' for the American liberators of the Netherlands.17From this list it is clear that Benedict stressed the Dutch suspicion of authority and authoritarianism .She claims this character trait was a result of Dutch individualism.Therefore, Benedict ex-pected that the allied troops would not be received with open arms in the Netherlands.This point is reiterated in Suggestions for Adaptation to Holland, 18 a comment Benedict gave on a draft of the pamphlet.Of all these documents, A Note on Dutch Behavior is the most interesting.What follows is the text of this document. 19  A Note on Dutch Behavior by Ruth Fulton Benedict An over-all keynote to Dutch character is well conveyed in the story of a German officer who had been in all the occupied countries and was asked which he had found most trying.He said, "It's bad in Poland; every time you go out you may get a bullet in your back.It's bad in France; people are starving all around you ... But it's worst in Holland; people walk about as if they'd won the war ... " The story is contemporary folklore which the Dutch tell of themselves; the kernel of it is restated in bitter complaints made by the Germans against the Dutch, both as slave labor in Germany and as a subject people in Holland: the Dutch, the German press says, are a stiffnecked and unregenerate people and they sometimes say they are the worst headache they have.
This Dutch self-assurance goes deeper than their physical bearing and exists even when self-confident physical bearing is absent.The lower middle class -most vulnerable of all classes in Europe -regard themselves as right, and dominant political parties have been founded in Holland upon their fundamentalist Calvinism and rigid moral tabus.Even if, when the United Nations invasion comes, our troops find the Dutch bombed out and destitute and starving, it can be predicted that the Dutch will know all th e right answers and will very likely question the answers given to them by outsiders, i.e. the invading officers .
This Dutch self confidence typically expresses itself, especially among the Calvinist majority, in this extreme conviction of having Right on its side.And this Right is impersonal.In all Dutch interpersonal relations authority which is based on personal status is easily and constantly resented.In their peacetime army a successful officer had to watch for the psychological moment at which to display his authority, and the Dutch policeman has traditionally cut a poor figure and been a butt of small boys' pranks.One can fairly say that the typical Hollander is so sure of himself that he does not submit to dictation.He stands up for his rights.He hates any sentence beginning ''You must ... " A so-called true story illustrates the Dutch attitude: The post-master asks a little boy at the stamp window, "What must you?" (a colloquial phrase).The little boy answers, "I must nothing.But you must give me a stamp of two cents." Unlike the Germans, the Dutch do not regard rigid Prussian discipline as the basis of law and order.On the contrary, they are proud of disrespect of authority and praise other Dutchmen for showing it.They are not medaldisplaying, medal-loving people, ready to trim their sails to get a decoration.
The Dutch are nevertheless a country noted for minor regulations enacted by law.As they say, "Burdens are heavy when somebody else doesn't carry one"; therefore they accept innumerable dictations from above provided that they apply equally to all citizens.This dictation, also, should be impersonal, in the name of the Crown or of law and order.
This strong Dutch faith in civil libertiesrights allowed to all citizens on the same conditions -is the basis of their often-commentedupon tolerance.In their speech they may be intolerant and condemnatory , but they grant their opponents' right to have his say.They have consequently been for centuries a haven for persecuted minorities; before the outbreak of this war they had in proportion to their population the largest Jewish population in Western Europe and they did not discriminate against them.
The Dutch, in contrast to surrounding nations, have many Puritanical tabus which Americans will readily recognize as fundamentally familiar to theirs, though they are carried further in Holland than in America.Sex and family scandals are traditionally extremely rare, and modesty is so extreme that swimming is still ruled out in many parts of the country because even with bathing suits it ex-182 poses the body .As is well known, the Dutch keep their houses and barns and public places extremely clean and resent litter.
They are exceedingly prudent.A favorite national character is Jantje Secuur (Johnny Secure) who is not only thrifty and cautious, but having decided that a famine -or a war -can't possibly happen, takes all precautions against it and only then is completely sure it won't occur.Dutch prudence will have been outraged by destruction of hoardings and patrimonies in this war, and the Dutch will certainly demand that detailed consideration be given to their claims for restitution; even though the amount may be trifling, claims based upon it will be persistently pressed.
The Dutch speak of themselves as prone to kankeraan [kanker en, RvG], to run things down.Among themselves they run down even their beloved country and its ways; of course, therefore, they run down aliens and their ways .Their traditional behavior includes no flattery and little "praising up".
Their word for themselves is "individualistic", which includes their pride in disrespect of authority, their fondness for running things down, their firm stand upon their "rights", and also their particularism.Cities had their own special prerogatives and local rights; their Church, their political parties, their trade unions and their cooperatives, all have long histories of schisms.Such schisms were seldom based on major public issues and hardly ever were "class " schisms; they were dictated by what the Dutch call "individualism".As a consequence, the Dutch have not organized very effectively either to stabilize the ascendency of a political party or the activities of trade unions and cooperatives.
The Dutch family is very characteristic, and the experiences of our troops in Europe in the last war gave plenty of evidence of the importance of the family organization -French vs. German -in the amount of friction generated between the people and our Army.In Holland that male typically regards himself as most fortunate who is most surrounded by the trappings and comforts of domesticity.Their women are devoted homemakers and are approved for their domestic virtues rather than for their erotic appeal.They are careful, bountiful and responsible mothers, and keep a watchful and inspecting eye over their children.They do not delegate responsibility for their babies to their older children as e.g. in Norway, and they check daily on their children's performance of their main task, their home-work.Schooling is taken very seriously and the child regards his education as his "reward" for cooperative behavior in the home, even though Hollanders immediately add that schooling was no pleasure and was not meant to be.Tasks are piled up for him to accomplish which are universally regarded as greater than in any other national system of education.What the child gets out ofit is a sense of a duty fulfilled with difficulty and without pleasure.But education makes him a "formed" man, whereas as a child he was "unformed" (Dutch phrasing).
The adult Dutch are, as a consequence, sure of themselves and of their code and do not value the lighter things of life in the way in which e.g.Belgians do.They are given to practical jokes but not to satire.They do not like parading and demonstrating.One thing, however, which Americans regard as "lightweight" behavior in a man the Dutch are much addicted to as an avocation and treat seriously: painting.Flower growing, too, is a serious occupation not restricted to either sex or to any class.In America even farmers regard flower growing as frivolous and villagers relegate it to women's club activities.In Holland bulb growing is not only a major contribution to international commerce, it may be almost any man's pride and preoccupation.

Postscript
So much for Benedict's manuscript.Obviously, one could make critical remarks with regard to her claims on Dutch national character.However, I would like to stress that she wrote this memorandum to a very specific end.Besides, Benedict was unable to conduct fieldwork in the Netherlands.It should also be emphasized that Benedict presents a description of prewar Dutch society and culture .In fact, her observations are remarkably in tune with those of contemporary Dutch scholars who also studied Dutch national character (see van Ginkel 1992).Moreover, Margaret Mead was fascinated by Benedict's material on Netherlanders.She stimulated John and Dorothy Keurauthors of The Deeply Rooted -to conduct research in the Netherlands so as to check and complement Benedict's study at a distance (cf.Mead 1953: 661).Mead even organized a meeting on and with Netherlanders, which took place on May 23, 1954 .This so-called 'Preliminary Dutch conference' -with eleven participants, amongst whom John and Dorothy Keur -was convened to a certain extent as a follow-up of Benedict's memoranda on the Dutch.Unfortunately, Mead never published the conference proceedings.This is understable, however, since the minutes show that the discussion was rather incoherent. 21Mead considered organizing a second meeting, but never did.In view of my introductory remarks regarding the scant literature on the Netherlands as a field of anthropological inquiry, I would like to conclude that had Benedict and Mead published their 'Dutch material', the anthropology of the Netherlands might have caught on much earlier.At the time of their ephemeral interest in the Netherlands, their names and fame in anthropology were well-established.They, of all anthropologists, could have given a strong impetus to put the Netherlands on the international anthropological map.Notes 1. Mead also compiled part of Benedict's articles, diary entries and correspondence to which she added biographical notes (cf.Mead 1959) .2. In OWI's data collection on the Dutch special attention was paid to the way Netherlanders perceived their German occupiers.3. The fact that Benedict did not sign the report is not unusual.OWI's standard procedure was that authors produced reports anonymously (cf.Doob 1947: 655) .4. Vassar College Library, Benedict Papers, box 83, folder 1062. 5. Vassar College Library, Benedict Papers, box 83, folder 1060.6. Besides, the Benedict Papers contain restricted material , for instance a diary written during her OWI period in Washington.7.During the war, many anthropologists worked for government institutions, including those that were involved in the war effort (Mead 1974 : 58).Thus, Benedict's involvement was by no means exceptional.OWI even employed quite a number of social scientists (see Doob (1947) for an insider-view of their work).8. Antropologist David Rodnick later became her colleague .9. See, e.g., Mead (1959: 353-54).Mead points out that Benedict enjoyed considerable leeway within OWI (1974: 61).Caffrey also states that '[t]he war work and the networking stimulated Benedict and provided her with the least stressful environment she had had in years .OWI left her fairly free to work as she liked because she produced results people could use and understand and because her bosses did not know much about anthropology ' (1989: 321).