The rise and decline of national habitus Dutch cycling culture and the shaping of national similarity 1

The second section discusses four processes that have contributed to increasing similarity within nations: growing interdependence within nations; increasing density of networks and inst

Giselinde Kuipers

Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM)

Published in European Journal of Social Theory 16(1): 17-35

Permalink: https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431012437482

Abstract

Why are things different on the other side of national borders; and how can this

be explained sociologically? Using as its point of departure Dutch cycling culture,

a paradigmatic example of non-state-led national similarity, this article explores these questions The first section introduces Norbert Elias’ concept of ‘national habitus’, using this notion to critique comparative sociology and argue for a moreprocessual approach to national comparison The second section discusses four processes that have contributed to increasing similarity within nations: growing interdependence within nations; increasing density of networks and institutions; vertical diffusion of styles and standards; and the development of national we-feelings Together, these processes have contributed to the development of national habitus: increasing similarities within nations, and increasing differencesbetween people living in different countries These processes have reached their apex in the second half of the twentieth century The third section explores how these processes have diminished since the 1960s, leading to increasing

variations within countries, and growing similarities between comparable groups

in different countries Both the rise and decline of national habitus are illustrated

by changes in Dutch cycling culture Particularly important is the breakdown of trickle down, as a result of the rise of the egalitarian informal ethos This analysisposes new challenges for sociologists: first, about comparative research; second,about the diffusion of styles and standards, and third, about the consequences ofthe decline of national habitus for social inequality – as evidenced by the growingrift between ‘locals’ and (bike-loving) ‘cosmopolitans’

Keywords: national habitus; comparative research; bicycle; Netherlands;

globalization; trickle down

Upon crossing a national border, many things visibly change – the landscape,public space, people’s appearance and comportment Across the border, peopleoften speak a different language Road signs change, as do retail chains, licenceplates, colours of trains and buses, and uniforms of police officers and postmen.Billboards, newspapers, advertisements, radio channels and cell phone networksare different on the other side There are often noticeable differences in buildingstyles and use of space

Many such national differences can be traced back to interventions of nationalinstitutions like the government, the educational system, cable companies orretail conglomerates – national institutions the regime of which stops at theborder Some things, however, stop at the border without direct intervention ofgovernments or businesses An example of this is the omnipresence of bicycles

in the Netherlands Everywhere in the country, for instance at every Dutchrailway station, one can see endless rows and piles of bicycles In Dutch traffic,cyclists are everywhere Immediately after crossing the border, in Antwerp orAachen, the bikes are gone

Unlike road signs and cell phone networks, this cycling culture is not a regimeenforced by governments or companies Most people in the Netherlands use abicycle simply because this is what one does when going from one place to

another Cycling is part of the Dutch national habitus It is neither conscious

lifestyle nor political statement It is not associated with a particular social class

or region In the Netherlands, the bicycle is a means of everyday transportation,not just for students, sportsmen or the ecologically minded, but everyone: formen in suits, professionals, officials, even the Queen and her family (Ebert 2004;Stoffers & Oosterhuis 2009) This particular understanding of cycling ends at theDutch border

This article explores the dynamics of national differences, as exemplified by

Dutch cycling culture: why are things different, and why do people behavedifferently, on the other side of national borders? How can this be explainedsociologically? How do such national patterns emerge? How durable are they? Inorder to answer these questions, I employ the concept of ‘national habitus’,coined by Norbert Elias (1996[1989], 2000[1939]) The concept of nationalhabitus allows us to investigate the processes contributing to the development ofnational similarities within countries, not only in institutions and physicalsurroundings, but also in people’s behaviour Moreover, it allows us to go beyondunderstandings of national differences purely in terms of institutional structures

or national ‘value orientations’

Comparative research is increasingly central to social science In Europe,where national sociologies increasingly orientate themselves towardsinternational sociology, many sociologists have found that cross-nationalcomparison is the only way to ‘sell’ Dutch, Danish or Swiss findings tointernational scholars Similarity of inhabitants of the same country is animportant, often implicit, assumption in comparative research But what, exactly,

do we compare when we compare countries? In the 21st century, can we assumethat people in a given country are somehow similar?

Despite mounting critiques of methodological nationalism, nation-states areoften used rather unreflexively as the unit of comparison Here, I propose arelational and processual understanding of national similarity, asking not what

national habitus is, but how it has come into being, and how this is related to

wider social processes and relations This approach challenges static culturalistviews of national value orientations and identities, as well as the statist bias ofinstitutional approaches Moreover, a processual approach allows us to seehabitus formation as social process, which may wax and wane

I will address these questions by looking at national habitus formation in

‘bicycle country’ the Netherlands Rather than giving a full-fledged analysis ofDutch cycling culture, I take this as a paradigmatic case of non-state-led nationalsimilarity The Netherlands is one of the oldest, most stable, and – despiteincreasing globalization, migration, European integration, and internalpolarization – most homogeneous nation-states in the world (Duyvendak 2004;Lechner 2007) With Portugal, Denmark, France, England (& Wales), and Japan, it

is among the few countries to come anywhere near the ideal-type of the state: stable boundaries, durable political system, and shared cultural identity(Tilly 1994) Therefore, it provides an excellent case study to explore theformation of national habitus, and the dwindling of this process in the pastdecades

nation-Many historians and sociologists have turned to the Netherlands to explore therise of the modern nation-state (e.g Adams 2005; Israel 2001) The Netherlandsalso is a fitting case to explore the latest transformation of the European nation-state Today, the nation-state seems less potent in its role as producer of nationalsimilarities in styles, tastes, behaviours and opinions As I argue here, theprocesses leading to increasing national similarity have reached their apex in the1960s Since then, these processes have eroded in the Netherlands, otherEuropean nations and – possibly – beyond

This article, then, has several objectives First, it aims to reintroduce thenotion of national habitus in comparative sociological research Second, itanalyzes the shaping of national habitus: the processes that have led toincreasing national similarities in the Netherlands and other (European) nations.Third, it aims to show how these processes have eroded, due to increasingglobalization, but more importantly (and unexpectedly): as a result of increasingegalitarianism and informalization, leading to the breakdown of trickle-down Thisdevelopment has considerable implications, both for comparative sociological

research and for European politics and societies

National habitus and Dutch cycling culture

Sociological research has provided us with many examples of the impact ofnationality Ever since Durkheim (1951[1897]), sociologists have known thateven the most individual and solitary choice a human being can make variesgreatly across countries: suicide Happiness, too, follows national patterns(Veenhoven 2006) Nationality even impinges upon our bodies: Obesity levelsvary greatly across countries with similar income levels and social organization

(Rabin et al 2006) The low incidence of obesity in the Netherlands is often explained from its cycling culture (Bassett et al 2008).

Cycling behaviour also varies cross-nationally, as Table 1 shows In theNetherlands a larger share of movements is undertaken by bicycle than inneighbouring countries, despite great similarities in wealth, climate and terrain

As with all aggregate numbers, these are averages Within the Netherlands,people from Protestant areas cycle more than people from Catholic areas; people

of Dutch descent cycle more than descendants of immigrants Increasingly,educated people cycle more than less educated people (Harms 2006; Pelzer2010) However, Dutch people in all categories cycle more than people withsimilar backgrounds in other countries (Bassett et al 2008)

[table 1 about here]

I propose to call such national patterning of behaviour ‘national habitus’ Thenotion of habitus has gained prominence in the social sciences through the work

of Pierre Bourdieu (1979), but had been used earlier by Norbert Elias

(1996[1989]; 2000[1939]) In The Germans, Elias analyzed ‘national habitus’,

shared by inhabitants of a specific nation.

‘Habitus’ – derived from ‘habit’ – refers to learned practices and standards thathave become so much part of ourselves that they feel self-evident and natural.Habitus is our culturally and socially shaped ‘second nature’ What we learn asmembers of a society, in a specific social position, is literarily incorporated –

absorbed into our bodies – and becomes our self This incorporation we see in

the ease with which Dutch cyclists move through busy traffic – sitting upright,rather than bent over the steering wheel in the manner of sports cyclists Onerealises that this is not self-evident when seeing another person lacking thisease, like the clumsy tourists on their rental bikes in the busy Amsterdam traffic.Habitus is congealed history, absorbed into our bodies – our personal history,which in turn has been shaped by the history of the society of which we are part.This larger history determines the ground-tone of our individual history Thus our

‘self’, our self-evident, automatic, yet learned behaviour, is partly determined bythe country where we have grown up

Sociological comparison and national habitus

Until recently, most social scientific research ended at the national border Mostresearchers limited their data collection to one, usually their own, country Today,comparative research is the standard, especially in European sociology The use

of ‘comparative’ in this context underlines the self-evidence of the nation-state –

‘comparative’ automatically implies cross-national comparison All research

compares ‘Country’ apparently is a special category, eclipsing others – theframework in which everything else takes shape

Ever since Marx and Weber, historical and national comparison have gone

hand in hand in social scientific inquiry (Adams et al 2005; Elias 2000; Steinmetz

1999; Therborn 1995; Tilly 1992; Wouters 2007) Modern Western nations are

alike, and in many respects have undergone the same processes Yet they alldiffer slightly Comparison allows us to isolate and highlight the dynamics ofthese social processes and mechanisms This ‘historical-comparative’ or

‘process-sociological’ perspective also is the point of departure for this article Isee national differences are the result of relations between social groups andfields Hence, they are constantly in flux

More recently, other versions of comparative sociology have emerged, partlyfuelled by the increasing availability of large databases This comparativeresearch is less attuned to the process character of national differences: it isoften static and atomistic ‘Country’ is a column in a table, a ‘factor’ affectingindividuals – although of course these individuals together make up a country.Often, ‘country’ is conceptualised as policy context or institutional setting By

‘country’ researchers then really mean ‘state’ Countries, in this perspective, areessentially aggregates of institutions But institutions do not emerge out of thinair They emerge and change in interaction with each other, and with nationaltraditions, habits, and conventions (cf Lamont & Thévenot 2000)

Other comparative research conceptualizes national differences as ‘value

orientations’ (Hofstede 2001; Halman et al 2005) In this approach, countries

produce individual ‘value orientations’ remarkably like psychological profiles.While revealing and evocative, the mechanisms through which such patterns areproduced remain unclear In effect, this approach produces classifications ratherthan theories

Wimmer and Glick-Schiller (2002) have famously critiqued the unreflexive

‘methodological nationalism’ of much comparative research Making the nationthe level of analysis often produces national effects – but that does notnecessarily prove that ‘country’ is the determining variable The insufficientconceptualisation of ‘country’ or ‘national background’ in comparative research

is problematic, but quite understandable Having done a lot of comparativeresearch myself, I have found that cross-national comparison is rather like a

constant Gestalt switch The same image seems to depict something different

each time, and somehow one never manages to see the different images – theduck and the rabbit, the pretty young girl and the old woman with the crookednose – simultaneously Yes - all the French have something in common Or no –it’s really all about age Or class! Or no – it is all so individual that one cannotreally generalise much about anything Or it is all about the structure of aparticular field, rather than the nation as a whole Then again, all Europeansseem so similar, so very European, when compared with Americans

Partly, this constantly shifting perspective is inherent in doing research Bycontinuously contrasting, looking for similarities and differences, patterns can befound and generalisations be made But above all it is a conceptual problem.Existing theoretical frameworks in large-scale comparative research haveinsufficiently conceptualized how nation-state formation leads to similarities onthe level of individual behaviour Hence, they are not attuned to variations andfluctuation in processes of national habitus formation This paper proposes tounravel the relation between state formation and individual behaviour – hence,the shaping of national patterns – by looking at national habitus as a long-termsocial process

National habitus as social process: The shaping of national similarity

Process sociology suggests that before asking what something is, one always should ask first how something has come into being From this perspective, the

question about national habitus requires rephrasing Not what is nationalhabitus? Nor what is the national habitus of country A, B, or C? But throughwhich processes do people in a country become alike? Under what conditions

does such a national ground-tone in behaviour, institutions and standardsemerge? After all, country comparisons only make sense if one assumes thatpeople within a country, on average, have more in common with each other thanwith inhabitants of other countries

This dynamic approach opens up the way for the acknowledgment thatnational similarity is not an eternal, unchanging fact There are periods of moreand of less national habitus, periods during which other processes have moreimpact After a long period of increasing similarity within nations, many countriesnow appear to be undergoing a movement towards ‘less national habitus’ In thisarticle I distinguish four processes that, in Europe, have been central to theshaping of national habitus

The first process is increasing interdependence (Elias 2000 [1939]; Tilly

1994) From the Middle Ages onwards, people have become part of increasinglylarger social units – from village, to region, to nation-state With this growinginterdependence, people became more aware of others, identified more withthem, and increasingly adapted to them Through mutual adaptation andidentification people become more similar, as do people from different classesand status groups within a country

This process of increasing interdependence on regional and national levelswent hand in hand with the erosion of other interdependencies andidentifications The elites of the early Middle Ages often maintained strongbonds, over long distances, with elites in other regions These ties became looser

as the nobility become more involved with local bonds (Elias 2000[1939]).National integration also led to decreasing connectedness in border regions Forinstance, local dialects, which in border regions often were similar, disappearedwith the increasing dominance of standardised national languages Nowadays,inhabitants of villages in border regions of different countries, who in previous

centuries could easily communicate, cannot understand each other.

At the same time – and this is the second process – the density of this network increased: people were connected with more people, and in more ways.

This process manifested itself most visibly in the proliferation of nationwideinstitutions The advent of national states led to ever more institutions thatdirectly influenced people's lives – all of which stopped at the national border.First came institutions directly connected with the monopolies of violence andtaxation: the army, law and justice (Weber 1978 [1920]; Weber 1977) But thescope of these state institutions expanded: education, care, social security,media (Adams 2005; Anderson 1995; de Swaan 1988; Tilly, 1992) Organisationsthat were not bound to the state increasingly kept to the same geographicdemarcations: manufacturers, retailers, newspapers That was partly out ofpractical considerations: because it was efficient, because governmentregulations also stopped at national borders But ultimately it was becausenational borders had come to be self-evident, the logical and natural delimitation

of any enterprise (Knippenberg & de Pater 2002)

Institutions simultaneously connect and shape people This becomesapparent in one of the most powerful national institutions: education People’swillingness to hand over their children, at a very young age, to this stateinstitution underlines the self-evidence of the nation-state Education entails thesystematic transfer of standards and practices, within a national framework.Thus it is central to the formation of national habitus Not only does it(re)produce social difference and inequality, as generations of sociologists haveshown – education also produces social similarity

A third process occurs both within, and outside institutions: the vertical

diffusion of standards, tastes, and practices Cultural phenomena often manifestthemselves first in the upper social strata, and from there ‘trickle down’ (Fallers

1954; Simmel 1905) The driving force behind this process is emulation of thehabits of high status people Partly this is the result of upward aspirations: peoplehope to move on in life by imitating prestigious styles and behaviour – whatMerton (1968: 319–22) called ‘anticipatory socialisation’ It is also caused bystatus anxiety and shame People adapt to their superiors so as not to offendthem (Mennell 2007) Deviant behaviour or the wrong tastes are painful, andmay lead to exclusion and sanctions

Such trickle-down processes are top-down, but not necessarily enforced orimposed Yet, vertical adaptation does not always occur spontaneously.Institutions, such as schools, are vehicles for vertical diffusion History haswitnessed ‘civilising offensives’ during which the education of the lower classes,the underprivileged, strangers, colonised, and other uncivilised groups wasundertaken in a forceful way (Mitzman 1987) Non-state institutions also accountfor such top-down offensives For instance, Dutch cycling culture was boostedboth by efforts of the private General Dutch Cycling Federation (ANWB) and bythe advertising campaigns of bicycle manufacturer Gazelle (Ebert 2004; Stoffers

& Oosterhuis 2009)

Most standards for good behaviour – from eating with knife and fork to theappreciation of impressionist art – have spread in this way: from the top to thebottom A simple example: flooring Wooden floors used to be a sign of poverty,while carpets were for the well off Carpets became accessible to more people,and attractive because of the aura of luxury and status These days, yuppiesacross the Western world have bare hardwood floors; while carpets have becomecommon or even ‘dirty’

Through such processes of adaptation and imitation people living in the samecountry become more and more alike In every country, national elites set thestandard National habitus therefore reflects the dominant group The French

national style still reflects the lifestyles of court nobility: an upper stratumengaged primarily with stylization and the negation of practical endeavours.German national habitus is the rather schizoid fusion of two conflicting upperlayers: Prussian military discipline and the intellectual romanticism of

Bildungsbürgertum (Elias 1996[1989]).2

The Dutch national habitus still bears the mark of a bourgeois top layer:merchants and ‘regents’ without noble titles or elaborate courtly rituals (Kennedy1995; Wouters 2007) Even the Dutch court adapted to the bourgeois mores,instead of the other way around The Dutch royals are still characterised by aninformal, bourgeois, and rather unglamorous style Their habit of publicly riding abicycle – a tradition upheld already by five generations of the House of Orange –underscores their lack of pretentiousness

The fourth and last process leading to national similarity is the development

of national ‘we-feelings’ As a rule, people who are similar tend to identify witheach other, and people emulate those with whom they identify But thisrelationship is not completely straightforward People who are alike do notautomatically identify with each other – to the chagrin of Marxists, feminists, andother emancipatory movements National feelings sometimes have sproutedfrom minimal ‘objective’ similarities The United States is a notable example: adiverse nation, with a rather unobtrusive state – except in regard to symbols andrituals directly connected with national sentiments, like naturalisationceremonies and the saluting of the flag (Mennell 2007)

Processes of national identification are set in motion in several ways Often,they coincide with increasing integration Nationalism has also beenimplemented top-down, via ‘civilising offensives’, for instance to discourageother, regional or religious, identifications (Tilly 1994; Weber 1977) In theNetherlands, the ‘ordinary’ royals with their bikes and unpretentious manners

were instrumental in the development of a national we-feeling (Velde & Verhage1996) Anderson (1995) pointed to the importance of the media in shaping

‘imagined communities’ National sentiment unites large groups of people whocan never all know each other personally Mass media provide the symbols,stories, and rituals to bind them Nationalism reached its pinnacle with theadvent of mass media, from newspapers to television

So how do these four processes explain the Dutch fondness of the bicycle –and its ending at the national border? The wide adoption of the bicycle in theNetherlands can be understood from the country’s homogeneity and high level ofintegration; the traditional dominance of the upper middle classes; and the smallpower distance between classes (cf Ebert 2004) This led to little ostentatiousdisplay of status, even a certain status competition through ‘conspicuous non-consumption’ The elite could not afford too much pomp and circumstancebecause of the small power distance This dislike of ostentation was adopted bylower status groups

The bicycle is a cheap, sober, simple means of transportation, requiring itsrider to do all the work Cycling, moreover, is quite incompatible with bodilystatus ornamentations, such as stylish clothing The bicycle became thepreferred means of transportation not just for the worker or the petty bourgeoiswho could not afford better, but also for the professional classes and the rulingbourgeois elites What is more: more comfortable alternatives, like the motorbike

or scooter, are considered déclassé

The bicycle gives distinction through simplicity The cycling Dutch royals, animage well known in the Netherlands and abroad, aptly reflect Dutch statuspolitics The images of the ‘informal’ queens, princes, and princesses on theirbikes have acquired strong symbolic significance The bicycle became a potentDutch national symbol Commercial companies have often used bicycles to

appeal to Dutch we-feelings Moreover, the bike is a central element in Dutch

‘nation branding’ aimed at foreign visitors and investors

Of course there were facilitating conditions: compact cities, flat land, suitableclimate But most importantly: over the years more conditions supporting cyclingcame into existence An increasingly dense network of institutions andconventions developed around the bicycle, from city planning regulations andcycling legislation to a nightlife organised around bikeable distances Moreover,the bicycle influenced other developments Dutch bike use has been heldaccountable for anything from low obesity rates to the lack of a real metro in thecapital city

What is most important in habitus formation, however, is that for Dutchcyclists, all these associations and backgrounds are largely irrelevant All Dutchare embedded in a network of conventions, habits, and practices to do withcycling that are felt to be self-evident If you want to go somewhere, you justtake the bike Everybody cycles You wouldn't know any better In Dutch cities theunit of distance is the cycling minute, even in real estate brochures The historyhas been forgotten – because cycling has become a second nature

The decline of national habitus and the rise of the cycling class

I have distinguished four mechanisms in the formation of national habitus:increasing interdependence; intensification of interdependencies andproliferation of national institutions; vertical diffusion of standards and practices;and growing national identifications Thus, inhabitants of the same country grewmore and more alike, while contrasts with people in neighbouring countriesintensified These processes in the direction of ‘more national habitus’ appear tohave reached their cumulative apex in the second half of the twentieth century.Since then, Western nations have undergone parallel processes towards ‘less

national habitus’

The process of increasing interdependence has continued While previously,this led to national integration – from town to region to nation – this now leads tomore connections and dependencies beyond the borders of the nation state.Increasing globalisation entails growing interdependence on a transnationallevel, and growing awareness of, and mutual adaptation to, people across theborder This process diminishes national dependencies Institutions become lessbound to national boundaries: they are incorporated into international networks,and are competing more and more with transnational institutions As a result, theimpact of connectedness and dependencies on the national level becomes lesspronounced – and thus the second process, the intensification of nationaldependencies, decreases

However, even with growing transnational integration, national institutionsremain central hubs, gatekeepers, and orientation points for international

connections (Janssen et al 2008; Sassen 2009) Often, national institutions are

the ones bringing in, managing and shaping globalisation, making ‘the global’something quite different in every country Rather than weaken the nation-state,globalization strengthened the executive and intermediary functions of the state(Sassen 2009) However, more and more things, practices, ideas, people,standards enter the nation from outside Thus, the national becomes less andless central to processes of habitus formation

The greatest change can be observed in the third process: vertical diffusion

of standards and practices Since the 1970s, in many countries this process hasfaltered or slowed down Traditional vertical diffusion now competes with manyother modes, media, and directions of transfer Both at the top and the bottom ofthe social hierarchy, people resist the notion that some standards and practicesare better or ‘higher’ than others The idea of vertical transfer of standards by

orchestrated interventions and civilising offensives has become discredited, inthe Netherlands maybe even more than in other countries

In the 1960s and 1970s many countries witnessed a process of strongupward mobility This caused a broadening and democratisation of tastes andstyles (Van Eijck & Knulst 2005; Wouters 2007) Things the elite previously

avoided, even tried to abolish and eradicate, became bon ton Blue jeans,

football, accented speech, popular culture, women wearing trousers – suddenlyeverything was possible These new styles and standards spread through alllayers of society at a surprisingly high rate Possibly, this quick absorption wasmade possible by the unusually high national integration at this time – the apex

of national habitus All over Europe, standards of the upper strata have remainedmore inclusive, informal, and open ever since In cultural sociology, much hasbeen written about the rise of the cultural omnivores who distinguish themselvesnot by refined, exclusive, highbrow tastes, but by a broad eclectic taste that canaccommodate high and – specific forms of – popular culture (Peterson & Kern

1996, Warde et al 2007)

Simultaneously, a process of ‘informalisation’ occurred (Elchardus & de Keere2010; Wouters 2007) This development is related to the spread of egalitarianismand individualisation: more space to shape one’s life without pressure fromcommunities and institutions This informal and egalitarian ethos spread, at ahigh rate, top down (yet unplanned), through all western societies, but with a

distinct national colouring (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Halman et al 2005;

Wouters 2007) This new habitus has often been characterised in paradoxicalterms: ‘Being yourself’ as a norm Spontaneity as commandment Social pressure

to be ‘loose’ Individual authenticity as collective ideal The obligation to be free.Self-actualisation as imperative

With this new ethos comes a strong sensitivity to power difference and

feelings of superiority If all people are ‘equal’ and ‘themselves’, nobody is betterthan any one else Placing your own styles, tastes, standards, behaviour orpreferences above those of others is not done Telling others what to do, or what

is right, is even more awkward Such display of power evokes discomfort andresistance

Consequently, trickle down is faltering An informal, egalitarian, complaisant

elite is hard to imitate For the uninitiated, attributes of status may be nearimpossible to identify – moreover, when prompted, status will be downplayedand adamantly denied Seen from below, there is no necessity or pressure toadapt to the upper strata The discomfort about status differences makesconscious passing on of standards – educating and civilising people, teachingthem norms and values – a complicated affair After all: what can one base one’sauthority on in these informal times?

What does this mean for the formation of national habitus? Previously, the

structure of national societies was rather like a clearly stratified grid with sharplydefined outer boundaries Nowadays, it is more like a pile of clumsily stackedplates Vertical relations are somewhat disorderly, outer boundaries are porous,and the relation between the layers is sometimes precarious This dissolution ofthe traditional, vertical, patriarchal nation state comes with a risk: growingdistance between social strata

Egalitarianism is not the same as equality The informal, egalitarian ethos hasnot ended inequality but rather obfuscated it As a consequence of this veiledstatus politics, one of the main engines of national habitus formation falters:trickle down Hence, similarities between social groups are diminishing, resulting

in a growing distance and avoidance between higher and lower social strata

Informal, egalitarian codes lead to subtle forms of exclusion Even when, inprinciple, all tastes are of equal worth and everyone is informal not all