Understanding Emotional Identities The Dutch Phlegmatic Temperament as Historical Case-Study dorothee sturkenboom

Throughout history emotions and emotional styles have functioned as social markers to make a distinction between groups in societies. This essay introduces the concept of ‘emotional identity’ to reflect upon the underlying dynamic process in which both insiders and outsiders use (the handling of) emotions, or the lack thereof, to characterise a group of persons. Taking the allegedly phlegmatic temperament of the Dutch as an example, it explains how such identities come into being and are sustained, but also contested, reappraised and altered over time. It discusses the non-exclusive and inherently paradoxical nature of emotional group identities as well as some of the key mechanisms and patterns of adjustment that account for the long life of the stereotypes involved. While the essay covers a time span of two millennia, it focuses mainly on the early modern era when classical climate zone theories merged with new modes of national thinking and even allowed for the smooth introduction of an entirely new element into the stolid character of the Dutch, that is, the national passion for profit.

From the pious tears of medieval beguines to the passionate politics of nineteenth-century statesmen, emotions have contributed to the sense of identity of themselves and of others that people in the Netherlands have cherished. In this special issue of the bmgn -lchr the idea that the Dutch are generically 'cool, calm, and collected' has been put to test and mostly proved an illusion -at least for the Pre-Modern Period but it is hard to see anyone arriving at different conclusions for the Modern Period. Yet despite this academic exposure the notion of a 'Dutch phlegmatic temperament' will persist well into the next centuries. Firmly embedded in the World Wide Web today, it has become an inalienable part of the immaterial heritage of the Dutch -a legacy that is hard to ignore even when one would like to reject it. 1 Rather than taking this at face value however, it calls for an historical rethinking of stolidity as a component of Dutch identity. The allegedly phlegmatic temperament of the Dutch has a discursive history that needs to be addressed, contextualised, and X-rayed for its inner operations: how does such an emotional identity -in this case paradoxically resting on an apparent lack of emotions -come into being, work in particular contexts, and change over time? 2 Even when focusing on the Dutch as a people, this is a set of questions that ultimately goes beyond the discussion of national characters because not only nations have collective emotional identities but other groups as well.

Emotional identity: the social classifying and assimilation of emotions
The melancholy of black slaves forced to labour in America, the emotional self-restraint of the middle classes living in Victorian times, the never-ending love of mothers for their children, or the lack of social empathy of right-wing politicians -these are just a few examples to underpin the notion that social groups (whether defined by class, gender, ethnicity, age, profession, religious denomination, sexual orientation or political preference) often have a distinct emotional identity. One may not agree with the stereotyping involved, but throughout history emotions and emotional styles have functioned as markers of social identities. 3 To be clear, I use the word 'emotion' here in the familiar broad sense of the word, that is, emotion as a catch-all term for all kinds of affective phenomena, not only emotions in the strict psychological sense of the word but also feelings, moods, passions, sentiments and temperaments. 4 In addition, 'emotional identity' is introduced here as a concept to think about the way that a person or a group of persons are linked with or link themselves with particular emotions or emotions in general, with corresponding emotional behaviour, or with the lack thereof. 5 Emotional identity is conceptually related to the idea of 'emotional style', but the latter presupposes an intentional process of mastering and cultivating emotions, a conscious 'navigation of feelings' as William M.
Reddy called it. 6 An emotional identity overlaps but is not identical to an emotional style, an emotional culture or an emotional regime -terms that, understanding emotional identities sturkenboom batavian phlegm? illustration of the key mechanism of assimilation that will be analysed more in depth in this article. It explains, amongst other things, how an emotional group identity is sustained and endorsed: an emotional trait that is ascribed to a group by outsiders -in this case a lack of sensitivity in the Dutch characteris accepted as a token of their identity by members of the group involved who then give it form and substance by their own words, acts and self-images, thus lending credibility to the stereotype and making it easier for others to follow. 16

The Dutch phlegmatic temperament: a genealogy
The stereotype of the stolid Dutchman (and Dutchwoman, as we shall see) goes back a long way -in effect to Antiquity when the Dutch did not even exist as a nation. Following the traces back in time, we will start by looking at A Dutchman is as amphibious as a frog; half the country is water, and half their time is spent upon the water: the vapours from so much of it, and from a soil that is low, moist, and boggy, must have a strong effect on the minds of the inhabitants. 17 The English of course, were famous for their rather competitive way of looking at the Dutch -a competition that was actually due to the many similarities between the two peoples, both in their culture and economic activities. To be sure, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century the Germans in general held a more favourable opinion of Dutch activities, but in the second half of the eighteenth century that was starting to change. 20 The same water-induced inertia led other visitors to compare the Dutch character with the nation's favourite means of transportation, the bargesteady, dependable and cheap, but incredibly slow and dull. 21 The 'trekschuit' even developed into an iconic image for the Dutch, as illustrated by a picture in a late eighteenth-century ethnographic work of British origin (see illustration 1). What interests us here is not only the barge, but even more the man at the bank of the canal whose posture and physique seem to attest to Riem's verdict of a fat and inert people. Typically, the man is wearing a fisherman's cap and holding a clay pipe in his hand -another famous symbol for Dutchness. 22 Smoking was believed to drive out the wet and the cold, the unhealthy vapour of the swamps, and therefore considered vital to survive the Dutch climate.
Pipes and tobacco were also standard attributes in early modern pictures of the phlegmatic temperament in general, that is, from the moment that tobacco  understanding emotional identities sturkenboom batavian phlegm?
They are cold by nature and calm in all things. They wisely take fortune and the world as it comes, without too much agitation, which can be understood from their decisions and is clear from their face and colour of their hair, because commonly their hair greys only at a very great age, and even though some of them of a more withered and Saturnine (melancholic D.S.) nature allow themselves to be taken over by sadness, unable to resist grief, they are soon worn down by that and die. These people are mostly not very ambitious, that is, when they realise that they have plenty in their account and have earned enough, either in public service or commerce or another occupation, they quit the hard work and give themselves over to a well-earned rest [. classical texts would furthermore explain his familiarity with the idea that the natural conditions of the Netherlands made its natives into stolid people.
At the roots of this idea were ancient theories that articulated the existence of four basic human temperaments based on the workings of bodily fluids (the humores or humours) and different climate zones. Incidentally, Guicciardini was also acquainted with Galen, one of the leading classical authorities on the matter. 40

Continuing influence of classical humoural pathology and climate zone theories
The humoural pathology as developed by ancient physicians and philosophers -factors that were not susceptible to human influence. Consequently, classical humoural medicine not only laid the foundation for the psychology of the four temperaments but also for the influential climate zone theory that would later tie the Netherlanders to a phlegmatic temperament.
Ancient climate theorists such as Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen

The appropriation of an emotional identity
Netherlanders were not the only Europeans whose emotional identity was traditionally defined by the cold climate zone in which they lived. Inspired by the ancients, Renaissance scholars living in the southern parts of Europe continued to attribute a phlegmatic character to the entire population of north-western Europe. Thus, not only the inhabitants of the Low Countries but also those of Germany, Scandinavia and the British Isles were characterised as sturdy, stolid and slow-witted. Just like Heemskerck and Junius however, many intellectuals and artists living in those northern countries adopted the classical climate zone theory but substituted reinterpretations of their own for the Mediterranean perspective. In this early modern appropriation process we can discern a number of adjustment patterns or strategies to deal with the negative implications of the theory in its classical form. 50 One possibility was to transfer the negative traits attributed to their people to their immediate neighbours. The English and German authors cited in the first part of this article obviously took this route, passing the undesirable phlegmatic temperament on to the Dutchmen next-door. For their own nations they claimed the similarly cold but dry melancholic temperament.
Since the Renaissance melancholy had lost many of its negative connotations because of (a rediscovery of) the Aristotelian idea that the greatest intellectual and artistic performances were stimulated by the qualities of black bile.        passionate Dutch' 104 ) served as the historical example, but the mechanisms and patterns explained in this paper can also be detected in other emotional group identities that we find in history and history writing every day. q