Imaged Societies:
A Critique of Immigrant Integration in Western Europe

By Willem Schinkel

Cambridge University Press

2017

CHAPTER ONE:

IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION IMAGINARIES IN WESTERN EUROPE

1 – On the first page, he puts the words, ‘integration, multiculturalism, society, failed immigration integration, outside, noningegrated, unintegrated, immigrants, natives, and others’ in quotes.

One sentence reads, the “image of society is at once a national society, which is presumed to have particular historical roots, while it is also a society claiming certain universal values.”

2 – He calls (in quotes) “Society” a “sociological container concept.”

The book criticized “immigrant integration imaginaries.”

“Western European societies (re)articulate their identities is by . . . “ “imagining what they are not”. He says immigrants are considered (in quotes) “outside society”.

3 – Thus immigrants require “moral monitoring.”

He says “it is assumed that there exists a “society” that is whole and healthy, and that only immigrants are in some ways at a remove from it.”

This reinforces “fictive Europeanness, then imaginaries of “society” and “Europeanness” themselves are naturalized as really existing beyond the status of imaginary fictions.”

4 – He notes that if society is (in quotes) “secular” then Christians are seen as outside of society.

6 – Schinkel argues that we have never tried multiculturalism. So the backlash against it is a farce. He calls the idea that we have had multicultural policies “multiculturealism.” Schinkel says multiculturealism is a mechnism of exclusion.

A Study in Social Imagination

He says (in quotes) “society” does not exist independently of imagination.”

7 – He relies on Charles Taylor as a foil, to argue that “society” is largely imagined. He speaks of ‘dominant social imaginaries”

11 – He finally says “society is an effect of social imaginary” not a “collection of individuals, norms, or institutions that exist out there.”

A Critique of Immigrant Integration Imaginaries

11 – Schinkel uses critical theory and Foucault.

13 – He claims it is not easy to take his position within “privileged institutions.” BS! He is sooooooooo status quo in the social science.

14 – His goal is to engage in “emacipatory politics for immigrants in Western Europe.”

So, he wishes to relieve them of the call for ‘integration’ by ‘society’.

The pressure to integration on an immigrant with “say, a Muslim background, it becomes clear that measuring “immigrant integration” does not do anything at all to help immigrants lead a dignified life.”

What Happened to the Netherlands?

The idea of applauding Dutch progressiveness, “blot(s) out not only the Dutch colonial history but also the role the country played in the international slave trade.” (the West did not invent slavery, we stopped it)

18 – Germany was late to realize it was an “immigrant nation” (2015 by Merkel). It was clear by the 1980s that the Netherlands was one.

19 – So multiculturalism never really existed. We went straight to recognizing (in quotes) “Moroccan” crime.

When Rotterdam neighborhoods wanted to only have Dutch neighborhoods, the EU outlawed it. So the Rotterdam law used income as a proxy.

21 – After the murder of Van Gogh, Schenkel bemoans, the Dutch (in quotes) “Moroccan community” was called upon to distance itself from the murder. Schenkel thinks this very unfair.

The Argument: Culture, Modernity, and Citizenship as Programs of Society in Integration Imaginaries

23 – “My question is how we can see the imagination of society in what can legitimately be said in integration discourses.”

25 – The discourse wherein Muslims are asked to integrate “affirms” dominant status in terms of “culture” and “ethnicity”.

26 – While there may be status outside of these terms he belittles with quotes, he wants to know how they contribute to the “medium of governing.”

They create a “diagrammar” wherein there are faulty and good forms of culture and citizenship.

Culture, ethnicity, secularism, modernity, citizenship, gender and sexuality, the nation and security, all become regarded as “vehicles” of society.

27 – Religion, for example, becomes a program that is put through the “diagrammar” of being called “dogmatic’ or ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘traditional’ or belonging to an ‘ethnic group.’ “Culture” too.

28 – “Backgrounds” of people don’t exist, they are ‘activated.”

ETHNICITY AND CULTURE

29 – Schenkel says we ‘govern through society’ (the image of what it means to be integrated). This is a part of the “domestication of difference.”

“Difference, once domesticated, becomes “diversity,” a marketable value ridden of possible antagonistic elements.”

“Dutch” liberalism is neutral in its tolerance of all things but Muslims (which it addresses as an “ethnic community” or a ‘religious community.’

30 – Thus, Schenkel says in his deconstruction, “Culture determines behavior, but only in the case of “non-Western Cultures.””

To properly integrate, the “dominant culture” requires you to integrate into the “culture of Enlightenment.” Which determines behavior without constricting freedom of the individual.

SEXUALITY, SECULARISM, and CITIZENSHIP

31 – What is French or British, etc, is also Western and therefore, “modern.” Integration means becoming “modern.”

32 – culturism is “a discourse of alterity that has racism at its core.”

32 – Modernism is just a way to reinforce, “collective imagination.”

It is not just the absence of religion, it is (says Craig Calhoun) a presence that helps construct society.

33 – Citizenship has become synonymous with “integration.” Thus citizenship aquires a “moralization” aspect, that is different from “formal citizenship.”

34 – If we bring this awareness to social sciences, we can empower “alternative publics” that do not wish to understand themselves using integration immaginaries.

CHAPTER TWO:

IMAGINING SOCIETY: SOCIAL THEORY AND / AS SOCIAL IMAGINATION

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THE ORGANICIST IMAGINATION

35 – His complaint is that we are yet “not entirely removed” from organicist thinking. [Nor should we be! ] Sociobiology is real.

He says our organicist tendencies lead to residual concepts like “society” and “integration.”

40 - He has read Ward, Hobbhouse, Kidd and Geddes, yet learned nothing.

He claims the term “society” is “empty and theoretically useless save for its existence as a form of social imagination.”

49 – He worries that Harrison White gets rid of the idea of ‘society’ but then sneaks it back into dialogue with the idea of “civilization” which is equally hallow.

[I must wonder if he could try this deconstruction with the Ummah or China. Is the West the only region whose reality is to be attacked?]

51 – Ultimately, he says the concept of society “artificially divides the social and the natural, and it does so for political reasons.” [This is the Left going into self-referential word rabbit holes. We must reify the continuity of nature and society!]

53 – He dings the ‘clash of civilizations’ model for starting with a “hegemonic fram of antagonism. In fact, the antagonism may be a result of an articulation.” [So if we stopped mentioning Jihad it would disappear. If only the crusaders knew!]

54 – There is, in such language, “the assumption of actuality of “conflict” “ (he puts “conflict” in quotes). [So let’s talk about the Gates of Vienna. Let’s discuss Iberia.]

55 – He attacks our national motto ‘e pluribus unum’ because it relies on “emergent properties’ or a ‘meta-unity’.

58 He uses Derrida to argue that a priori arguments, that assume society, are logically invalidated by their a priori nature.

59 - So there is no fixed “dominant culture” or any other kind of “hard core,” because all is in flux. [so we are going back to the sophists and if something moves it is not the same in all respects, and so totally different}.

Thus, he argues, the fixing of ‘society’ as an idea can only happen as a result of repression.

61 – He is mystified that one could believe in parts and a whole at the same time. [A tree is wood too!]

DIAGNOSIS: SOCIAL HYPOCHONDRIA

62 – The poor, the young, the elderly, “those who do not use computers,” must be re-integrated into society. So they are outside of society. And, this is how society purifies itself.

63 – He does not like the search for the roots of society. The social contract and noble savage were no good and we [he is relieved] moved away from organicism. But, not far enough away. [We must completely ignore all we know about science in order to undermine the idea of society. Wonderful! I can’t wait until Jihadis take over!!]

66 – [It is interesting that his boogie-man, in the end, is “society” rather than “The West”.

CHAPTER THREE: MEASURING SOCIETY: MORAL MONITORING and THE SOCIAL SCIENCE of “IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION.”

70 – He believes the “performativity of integration imaginaries,” . . .

71 – Is an effort to forget the Dutch Empire that makes immigration necessary. [Wait, we don’t need to deconstruct the idea of ‘emire’ and “imperialism?]]

We should not forget that the discussion of integration is almost exclusively done by white men. Thus, it is in continuity with the colonial past.

The scrutiny of morals is done by “Europeans” [Yes, he put that in quotes].

72 – People used to measure poor whites in regards to how “Dutch” “French” or “European” they were. The taxonomy supposedly used made natives childlike or animal light. [So this is his reason for discounting all discussions of culture].

73 – Observation is a technique to make people “observable.

74 – Via moral monitoring the idea of “society” gains scientific credibility.

79 – In Belgium, statistics don’t register second generation immigrants as different. They are Belgian. And, the French burka ban is another example of trying to do away with all difference.

80 – The Netherlands has long had a pluralist point of view, due to guest workers of the 1960s being expected to return home. [His view of ‘long” being in my lifetime, is due to a refusal to engage with history or culture].

81 – He claims allowing for radical diversity via ‘pillarization” among religious and ideological lines. This was based on our not having a ‘thick culture’ in the West.

[He acknowledges the difficulty of governing diversity even when all are Christian. But does not draw from this that there may be trouble in managing completely foreign and hostile cultures in “society”]

82 – The EU has a Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX). It does not measure immigrant integration but national integration policy.

Thus “national discussions often involve the invocation of a supposedly civilizational heritage. Thus, in various countries “Islam” is constructed as clashing with national culturees, but only because these are “Western” or “enlightened.” But, he says the West is a problematic concept as it is bigger than Europe, (so?) and the EU has countries whose connection with “the West” is contested. (no specifics) (82)

83 – There is no consistent European regime of moral monitoring. The French make them invisible and the Dutch visible. But both are wrong and ‘moral monitoring.’

But all invoke false appeals to “”Western,” “European,” “Enlightenment, “Cosmopolitan,” “modern,” or even “Universal values.” (all in quotes)

84 – In the Netherlands, the Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS), does the monitoring. This is also done by the SCP the Netherlands Institute for Social Research.

89 – Their methods have been “influential in promoting the idea of “ethnic minorities,” characterized by “cultures.”

90 – And even though they are diverse, the researchers are characterized by their “whiteness.”

91 – The researchers define integration as learning the Dutch language and adopting the norms, values and forms of social conduct prevalent in the country. This he considers absurd.

92 – They also measure contacts with Dutch folks. 93 – They found 64% of Turks associate mainly with their own people. 35% never have contact with Dutch people.

98 – The researchers ask about people’s opinions of gender roles.

99 – They measure if people feel that they belong to the host nation.

102 – The Dutch society is defined as secular. And, Enlightened. So it is ironic that they’re intolerant, he argues.

“The research, “equates “ethnicity” with “nationality” and thereby objectifies and reifies it as a fixed attribute an individual cannot shed.” [Well when people reinforce distance with mosques, they are not shedding it].

The Dutch are thereby transformed into “nonethnic” people. Ethnicity becomes the marker of the “other.” [But this is all true!!!]

103 – White becomes the standard.

104 – He is also puzzled and troubled by the terms 2^nd and 3^rd generation immigrant (since they are not immigrants at that point). [What a genius!}

107 – When those who study integration study crime, he thinks it implies that crime has never happened in society before [genius]. He has never heard of no go zones.

108 – He thinks we should not use the term ‘integration’ at all. He would rather “counter inequality in labor or education,” without reference to integration. [So again, culture can have zero impact].

CHAPTER FOUR:

TRANSFORMATIONS OF RACISM AND THE RISE OF CULTURISM

112 – “In talk about minorities, white people often speak as dominant group members.” Is the quote that starts this chapter. [Ummmm, cause they are???] He uses this quote from the 1990s to say that you can get in trouble if you say the West is racist. [Really? Now you can’t get tenure unless you do. ]

113 – He admits that people are now afraid of being called racist. But he thinks we should feel guilty about colonialism and not deny our racism. The Netherlands contributed to the global slave trade! [Whoopie da doo. And, were likely once victims of it. The West did not invent slavery!!!]

114 – They the Prime Minister says the Netherlands are racist, but still suffers from a ‘post racist imaginary.’

115 – He attacks those who say “assimilation is not racism.” But people don’t see it as racism because the emphasis is on culture.

116 – Schinkel refuses to see a difference between racism and culturism. Both are completely unjustified. Culturism is “functionally equivalent to racism, and . .. racist at its core.” He seeks to locate the racism within the logic of culturism.

And it involves a differentiation of “”culture” or “Civilization” (his quotes). There is also the idea of the “dominant culture.” (also in quotes). It is dominant in a statistical sense, people argue (yes!!) and in regards to issues of gender oppression and freedom of speech. [Well, yes again],”

Has he never heard of Charlie Hebdo?

118 – The state sets up agencies that engage in culturism, for example, the Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration.

119 – While the UK doesn’t have this, it does have ‘counter-terrorism.’ And, post Manchester, this is totally arbitrary construct imposition?

CULTURAL PROGRAMMING AND WESTERN EUROPEAN STATE POLICIES OF IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION

117 – The use of the terms “Islamic culture” or “Muslim culture” attest to the dominance of cultural programming.

121 – THE RISE OF CULTURE IN INTEGRATION POLICY DICOURSES

Historically, the Dutch went from a pluralist phase in the 1960s with workers; to an economic structural analysis and now have moved to a culturist analysis.

This to him shows the arbitrariness of all. Perhaps it represents changes in demographics and realizations?

122 – The motto of the 1990s he says was “integration with preservation of identity” [And yet he says there was never a multicultural phase because people thought retaining your culture was a step towards assimilation].

123 – In the 1990s people mostly worried that immigration was hurting the economy, via low education and high welfare and also high crime rates. He is calling this ‘culturist.’ Damn right it is!!

He says Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a proponent of this. It reacted against a multiculturalism that never existed.

124 – “The culturist turn explicitly relates the negative socioeconomic indicators (including the emergence of a migrant underclass) to “culture.” [As it should!]

“This meant that “Islam” was causally linked to relative deprivation and crime.” (his quote and his disbelief).

124 - Shinkel, like all on the left, does not take culture seriously. He writes, “The culturist turn explicitly relates the negative socioeconomic indicators (including the emergence of a migrant underclass) to “culturist” and to the incommensurability of the culture.” (124)

“Indeed , contemporary culturism often puts “culture” and “religion” on a par, for instance by speaking of “Islamic culture.” (his quotes). [He sees no connection between Islam and culture?].

He calls the third phase of policy, the “discovery of culture.” [It was discovered during the Crusades].

125 – In 2000 an article stated that multiculturalism had failed. This was a start for multiculturealism – the notion that multiculturalism had been tried in the past.

126 – After this article those on the left had to say they weren’t multiculturalists.

127 – There was a focus on sexual oppression and sharia. And, also an attempt to understand Moroccans as police took trips there. Thus culture became a way to understand crime. But the parents, much more Moroccan, were less likely to do crime.

128 – Culturism appears as assimilationism. The Netherlands adopted civics tests. This was a form of ‘orientalism.’

129 – This fetishizing of culture, making culture inevitable (while disowning racism) makes it just as essentializing as racist as racism.

129 - Forced sterilization was discussed. Income demands when marrying someone out of the country were started. A historical canon project was undertaken.

130 – Multiculturalism didn’t fail, it wasn’t tried.

The culturist imagination on integration has 5 characteristics.

1) It focuses on the low status, high crime and high unemployment of immigrants.

2) It is essentialist in regards to culture.

3) Individuals are the focus. They are not assimilated and so responsible.

4) (131) Culture is an explanatory variable.

5) Culture is potentially intrinsically problematic. It is apparently ‘raced.’

131 – The ‘ubiquity’ of culturism in politics and the public sphere, where for instance, conservative politicians and second-wave feminists form unlikely coalitions to battle “Muslim” oppression of women.” [nothing is real]

It may not be totally racist, so he will consider the negative argument first.

WHY NOT SPEAK OF “CULTURAL RACISM”?

Racism appears out of vogue in the West.

132 – Much discourse takes race to be entirely illusory, a social construct. But some see it as a biological category.

Yet race is not an objective existing thing, so we must pay attention to racism. And, it is often code as ‘culture.’ ‘Cultural racism’ or ‘neo-racism’ have been noted.

133 – The culturalist position (with an ‘al’) Schinkel correctly documents, is that of anthropologists who say all cultures are equal. But, culturism, he says, is a neo-racist position wherein cultures cannot mix.

Neo-racism says just “that if cultures are to mix, trouble inevitably ensues.” [Because he has never considered that cultural diversity is real, he sees only on or off. What of the real culturist position, wherein some cultures, say Hindus or Asians, blend better than others and, we actually also critique current white culture? He cannot conceive of this. It is either racist or not!]

But there are problems with this formulation. First of all is the pretention of racism’s newness. Fanon even noted ‘cultural racism.’

134 - And, secondly, all forms of racism are cultural.

Pleonasm (excessive use of redundant words). He buys into racism appearing in “hidden rhetoric’s and structural orders of hierarchy.” (hidden rhetoric’s? really?]

He will untangle and retangle to “locate the racism in culturism.” [He could just look at my videos for an honest discussion about race].

FROM CULTURALISM TO CULTURISM

Western Europe . . . has effectively incorporated anti-racism as the foundation for culturism.

135 – Culturalism says all cultures are equal. It was an antidote to racism.

Culturism still takes the idea that cultures are bounded. [This is opposed to the author’s complete inability to acknowledge that culture exists.]

136 – Unlike culturalism, culturism does not forego the possibility of normative evaluation. [yes it does, in terms of survival. If Schinkel read history, he’d know that cultures compete. But, he knows nothing of Iberia or the spread of Islam].

Culturism is a ‘discourse of alterity’ wherein people are made ‘other.’

THE NORMATIVE LOGICS OF RACISM AND CULTURISM

137 – Using the Iris and Jews, Hall argued that racism and culturism have always been mixed. So it is alterity mixed with a rhetoric of incompatibility.

It also entails “terranormativity: a logic located in some sort of “ground.” (place or biology). [Can we not postulate that Europe has been the homeland of Europeans? Is this a construct?].

138 - A natural ground determines outcomes. Actually, agranormativity, not terranormativity characterizes culturism.

That is because “Culturism involves a highly anthropologized outlook on the person as a Lockean tabula rasa, until “culture” shapes him or her.” [as opposed to Schinkel’s view rooted deeply in evolutionary psych?] Thus pushing attention back to “cultivation.”

The desire to remain the dominant culture implies a “hierarchization” which is a natural fallacy. Dutch culture is to be considered the best within it’s territory. YES AGAIN!!

Yet there is inevitability of difference based on “Islamic culture.”

THE RACIST CORE OF CULTURISM

The difference parallels blood versus soil.

140 – He uses the term ‘culturistically.’ Very cool.

[Dutch culturism ultimately functions on the nativist premise that here, on Dutch territory, the “Dutch culture” is the dominant culture and that it should remain so.” [YES YES YES! Is there no Dutch culture? Why should the Dutch submit to Islam on their own territory? Why is it controversial that that is bad?]

141 - Anti-Islam is the new anti-Semitism.

CUTURIST ANTIRACISM

141 – Culturism includes the idea that other cultures are more xeno-phobic than the dominant one.

56% of Dutch people think Muslims are the most racist people in their society.

142 – But his beef is that such surveys take it for granted that “Muslims” “Turks” or other such groups exist, a priori. How might Schinkel react to “no go zones”?

143 – Schinkel is shocked, shocked, shocked at the suggestion that holding a foreign passport could inhibit your loyalty to the country into which you’ve integrated. Who could think such a thing?

CULTURIST ATTRIBUTIONS

143 – This rhetoric creates the divide between ‘society’ and Muslims. It is all a construct created by non-liberated social scientists.

144 – Muslim youth are a part of “society.”

Here is a very obnoxious statement: It is a “proto-sociological truism to state that a “rift” exists between “Muslims” and “society,” thereby assuming “society” as a fixed and unified whole, and reducing “Muslims” to a religious identity that apparently excludes all their other identities and actions from the domain of “society.”

RHETORICS of “SOCIAL EXCLUSION” and the MODES OF CON-CLUSION

147 – This is his tricky rhetorical way to get us to see that inclusion and exclusion are forms of being-with (con). [To him all is a word game]

IMAGING BELONGING: ALLOCHTHONY and AUTOCHTHONY

148 – He contrasts ‘Autochthony’ (from this ground) and ‘allochthony’ (not from this ground) to claim the Dutch royal family is not Dutch. Schinkel does not understand the concept of “the West.” They are Christian royalty. They are deeply dipped in the West.

148 – He goes through PC twists to get non-offensive language and toys with them. He notes that it is odd to call Indonesians ‘Western.’

149 – Schinkel thinks non-western means ‘non-poor.’ [Since he is so sensitive about verbal determinism, he might note that it is just his sort of PC over-sentitivity that leads people to not be blunt).

151 – With policies focused on 3^rd generation immigrants, it seems the stigma will never be lost.

CULTURIST CODING AND THE NEGATION OF THE ECONOMY

151 – Culturism is a form of body building.

153 – Migrants are “economically deprived.”

154 – Such discussions focus on a neo-liberal vision of society. All is economic. So our mission in the West may be called “Operation Obesity.”

CHAPTER FIVE:

TRADITIONALLY MODERN: CONTEMPORARY FRAMEWORKS of SEXUALITY AND RELIGION

156 – Prime-Minister Cameron said Islamic extremism happens because we don’t give them something stronger to believe in.

157 – He wrote, “A passively tolerant society says to its citizens, as long as you obey the law we will just leave you alone. It stands neutral between different values. But I believe a genuinely liberal country does much more; it believes in certain values and actively promotes them.”

This is again ‘moral citizenship.’

158 – At Germany Day Merkel said “Islam is a part of Germany.” But said the nation had made too few demands on immigrants. They must learn our language and agree to our core values, she said.

159 – France is dedicated to being culturally neutral.

The UK had a 1988 Education Reform Bill that stipulated the Christian character of school assemblies.

How many Sikhs actually prefer a turban over a crash helmet? [What of FMG or Jihad or Polygamy. The Left refuses to acknowledge the depth of cultural diversity. This is their ‘elite versus the street’ problem. ]

Even when leaving people alone, when allowing parallel societies, this is not what an academic would call multiculturalism.

163 – The neutral values to which immigrants are to adhere center around a) sexuality and gender and 2) religion.

164 – Gender equality is part of the promoted Swedish culture.

165 – In trying to reduce assertions of the West’s cultural existence to mockery, Schinkel writes “The body is accused of having loyalties to foreign bodies and to premodern sexual practices and gender relations.” What of FMG and Hijab requirements?

UNIVERSALIZING THE NATIONAL SOCIETY

167 – The national culture takes precedence. When called “western” they are assumed to have “universal substance,” equated with “modernity,” and the “Enlightenment.”

168 – These values are not called Christian, or national,

but “liberal.”

168 – “As such, Enlightenment culture is imagined as tolerant, but only with respect to other equally tolerant cultures. “Islam” is imagined as an intolerant culture that is hence incompatible with Enlightenment culture.” [Well, Islam does mean ‘submission.’]

169 – Horkheimer and Adorno of course said the Enlightenment was totalitarian and it “irrationalizes everything that gets in its way.”

“The quasi-ethnic Enlightenment is contrasted with the darkness of the veil, and Muslim women are portrayed as repressed.” [According to our culture they are. And, the problem with the Enlightenment is that it isn’t seen as a product of culture. We fail to see the Enlightenment as western.]

It is Enlightenment culture, against cultures.

170 – I love this quote, “The current strength of culturism lies in its possibility of uniting opposites: it brings together the political left and right, proponents of Enlightenment and Romantics, feminists and conservatives, Christians and secularists – all under the heading of a “modern dominant culture.”

Schinkel uses quotes to mock the following as “cultural”: honor killings, female circumcisions and genital mutilations, forced marriages, intolerance of homosexuality, and domestic violence, all discursively associated with “Islamic culture.” Schinkel refuses to take cultural diversity seriously.

181 – People who argue against Islam from a point of “secularism” posit a form of liberal neutrality. They say “radical religion” has no place in the West. Herein his critique is correct.

“The idea that the Dutch are characterized more by Christianity (and hence Judaism) and by humanism is not restricted to extreme right-wing populism.” NO it is common sense! Not all citizens are as insane as leftist academics.

183 – From the liberal position, the veil is only a problem as it offends the “liberal neutralization of religion.”

186 – “But what equally defines the liberal subject in contemporary capitalism is its constant need to transform, the continuous reinvention of the self, revolving around an empty, “neutral” core. He, again, is right. The modernist argument misses it’s deep connection to Christianity and our particular western history.

186 – 187 “The veil, the Qur’an is read as covering the body of the “Muslim” and thereby covering the liberal subjecthood that is the disavaowed core of the person.”

188 – “One might say that what is conceived as “liberal” is at once “neutral” and “universal.” The contemporary Western European invocation of liberalism in matters of religion in a sense involves an attempt at neutralizing the universal.”

CHAPTER SIX: THE USES OF CITIZENSHIP

194 – The “marketing” of the modern includes views of female gender roles that are not said to be “Muslim.”

196 – The “regionalized,” imagination of society is threatening to lose credibility in times of ‘globalization.” (only in the West).

197 – “Nation-states have not taken up social scientific calls for “global citizenship.” They have reconfigured citizenship, especially its symbolic value and the image of citizenship, as a form of nation branding.” Schinkel consistently fails to understand the world as it is and is instead amazed and mocks it.

198 – There is a distinction between moral citizenship (citizen participation – Kellor’s ideal) and formal citizenship (rights).

Moral citizenship includes being a good citizen via participating. It involves paying your taxes. But it also includes being an active political participant.

200 – It was via such logic that the Dutch parliament made ‘choice’ a central part of Dutch citizenship. The flipside is that this makes citizenship the individual’s ‘responsibility.”

201 – The Dutch position was if all were active citizens they would ‘bond.’

This is, again, Kellor’s bureaucratic view of citizenship, it has NO CULTURAL CONTENT.

202 – This move towards looking at citizenship as moral, needing to be active, means it is virtual, not actual. In other words, it is potentially real, not automatically.

204 – Citizenship has to be ‘earned’ by showing fealty to Dutch norms.

CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL SCIENCE: BETWEEN MORAL MONITORING AND PUBLIC SOCIOLOGY

222 – Schinkel refers to the “fiction of ‘society’” A strong focus on “exclusion” reifies “society” as a solid container that one can actually “be outside of,” while others remain “inside.” NO GO ZONES!

224 – The ‘medium of governing’ reifies the ‘productive fiction’ of society. It provides the ‘notion of a population.’ He says the idea of a body is ‘biopolitical.’ And, for his foray into science he quotes the scientific expert Michel Foucault!!!

225 – But, of course, Foucault only mocks the idea of consilience as a stab at ‘governamentality.’ Schinkel, needing his own jargon, calls it ‘zoepolitics.’

He does so to “denote bare, naked life, the life before it is entered into a community or bios.” ( Is this before the start of multicellular organisms? Here we see a problem. Schinkel knows NOTHING about biology. )

226 – He only uses biology to double down on his complaint that the idea of ‘society’ makes an inside and an outside and that this is arbitrary and unjust.

229 – So social sciences add to purification. “It imagines society as a pure domain, which has no problems, since all its problems are part of its “outside.”

[This is doing what liberals do with capitalism. Compare it to a pristine ideal. He is projecting. You cannot use a comparison with purity to say, so, society is an imagined concept. It is a shallow form of ‘argument’]