Pillarization is a Dutch concept describing a society divided by certain traits. In the Netherlands, people were divided by mainly by religion or political ideology, with a Catholic pillar, a Protestant pillar, and a Socialist pillar as the main three. Pillars had their own churches, schools, hospitals, political parties, TV channels, employers, and so on, such that people largely did not associate or interact with those outside of their pillar. Pillarization came to an end in the 60s when increased wealth and education made people less dependent on their pillars, and when young people began to rebel against the system. Knowing this, what if pillarization continued and became a larger phenomenon? A POD that would make pillarization more international is hard, but I came up with empowered unions coming to control many of the aforementioned areas and forming a pillar. In response, anti-unionists do the same to keep up with their influence, and as time goes on the two pillars break up into smaller ones based on religion, politics, and so forth. This wouldn't be worldwide, but to put away suspension of disbelief, how would such large-scale pillarization affect societies of the world?
Pillarization Beyond the Netherlands
- Thread starter Runaway256
- Start date
BigBlueBox
Banned
This is already OTL. The Dutch aren't the only ones with that system. The Ottomans had it with their millet system and modern day Lebanon has it.
Communal ideologies are hard to export. Sure, many societies have their own version of communalism, but they're not copies of those that exist in other places, they just spring up organically from the internal dynamics of the society.
As Big Blue says above, other places have similar systems, but they didn't likely develop because of what the Dutch were doing. Even in Canada, a relatively individualistic place, you've got a few provinces with separate school boards for different religious groups. Canadian political parties at the federal level aren't generally pillarized, but when, for example, the Conservatives came back to power in 1984, it was the case that a lot of their Quebec MPs had just joined to advance the agenda of Quebec autonomy, had little interest in the affairs or concerns of their anglo counterparts, and eventually bolted to form the "pillarist" Bloc Quebecois after it became apparent the Tories couldn't deliver on special status for Quebec.
As Big Blue says above, other places have similar systems, but they didn't likely develop because of what the Dutch were doing. Even in Canada, a relatively individualistic place, you've got a few provinces with separate school boards for different religious groups. Canadian political parties at the federal level aren't generally pillarized, but when, for example, the Conservatives came back to power in 1984, it was the case that a lot of their Quebec MPs had just joined to advance the agenda of Quebec autonomy, had little interest in the affairs or concerns of their anglo counterparts, and eventually bolted to form the "pillarist" Bloc Quebecois after it became apparent the Tories couldn't deliver on special status for Quebec.
Community Of Communities
By "communities", Clark was mostly referring to provinces, not religions and certainly not socialists. In practice, though, had this vision prevailed, it would likely have resulted in a given province being the main political expression of certain cultural tendencies, eg. Quebec would be the main French jurisdiction, with francophones elsewhere enjoying relative second-tier status compared to the ones in Quebec.
By "communities", Clark was mostly referring to provinces, not religions and certainly not socialists. In practice, though, had this vision prevailed, it would likely have resulted in a given province being the main political expression of certain cultural tendencies, eg. Quebec would be the main French jurisdiction, with francophones elsewhere enjoying relative second-tier status compared to the ones in Quebec.
