Pillarization

Pillarization is a term used mainly in reference to Belgian and Dutch civil society. It describes the forming of separate social structures depending on one's political and religious beliefs. These entities include schools, universities, newspapers, radio and television, unions, and hospitals.

This system came into place after the second world war and has only been broken down to some extent. It came bubbling to the surface in several important political crises (I'm going to talk about Belgium here because I know a lot more about it than I do about the Netherlands.) One of these is the 1954 school crisis, which was very similar to the current controversy about school vouchers in the United States. Essentially, liberals and Catholics were arguing about a system for funding education. Catholics wanted school funding for their schools, while liberals riled against the idea of state money being used for religious purposes. This issue caused a huge stir and fractured civil society. The final solution was to fund Catholic schools with state money, except for those hours of the school week they were teaching religious dogma.

Another example is the controversy surrounding the return of King Leopold III after his exile in Switzerland. Liberals maintained that he was too cozy with the Germans and that he shouldn't be allowed to return to take power; Catholics, by and large, defended him. This issue introduced an added layer of complexity: there was more royal support in Flanders than in Wallonia. (Historically, Dutch-speaking Belgians supported Catholic parties while French-speaking Belgians supported the socialists.) The solution here was to hold a referendum to determine if he should return or not; because of their demographic advantage, the pro-royal faction won. However, social strife began tearing the country apart, and Leopold abdicated in favor of his 20 year old son (!).

Why bring up these examples? Because I think there are definite parallels within the United States. The media has become increasingly polarized; MSNBC and its star, Keith Olbermann, are perceived as 'liberal'; Fox News and its main attraction, Bill O'Reilly, are perceived as conservative. Such "middle-of-the-road" media outlets as CNN have also become increasingly opinionated; I'm thinking of Lou Dobbs and Jack Cafferty.

Religious boundaries exhibit the same type of polarization. Ever since the infusion of religion into presidential politics in the late 1970s and 1980s (with JFK as an outlier, of course), a candidate's religion has become as important as his party affiliation. In society at large, religious and secular elements have become diametrically opposed from one another, clashing in issues from the teaching of creationism in schools to who should be nominated for the Supreme Court.

The same goes with education: there is a system of private vs public education in place, each with its own accreditation bodies and so forth.