Tom Loozen

Mental Communism – How to Recognize It. You don't need a party card to be a communist anymore. You don't even need to have read Marx. Mental communism is not an ideology. It is a way of thinking – and you meet it every day: in the office, in the newsroom, at the dinner table, in the ministry. Here is how to recognize it. 1. Words before things. Rename a problem and it's solved. Insecurity becomes "a feeling of insecurity." Rioters become "youths." Censorship becomes "fighting disinformation." 2. Intentions before results. A policy is good because it means well and sounds good. That it failed is a detail – usually someone else's fault. 3. Humanity before people. He loves humanity. He can't stand his neighbor. 4. The model before reality. When the world doesn't fit the theory, the world must change. A new law, a new program, a bigger budget. 5. An enemy for every failure. The plan never fails. It is sabotaged – by the rich, the speculators, the "far right," the weather. 6. Appearances before reality. Poses before acts: the flag in the profile picture, the slogan at dinner, the open letter signed with a hundred others. Then nothing. 7. Rights for me, rules for you. Free speech for his side, "hate speech" for yours. Private schools for his children, public ones for yours. 8. He never pays. Being wrong costs him nothing – he moves on to the next cause, the next post, the next promotion. 9. Consensus instead of evidence. "Experts agree." "Studies show." "Everyone knows." Ask which study, and you become the problem. 10. No exit. Ask him what would prove him wrong. Silence – or outrage. Poles recognize it instantly. We lived inside it for forty-five years: the meetings where everyone knew and nobody said, the newspapers reporting record harvests, the slogans on the walls. The regime only partly fell. The habit stayed. And in the West, it never even needed a regime. What unites all ten? One thing. For the mental communist, reality doesn't exist – only his wishes, his words, his poses, and the power to impose them. Every sign is the same gesture: putting something in reality's place. Words instead of things. Intentions instead of results. A model instead of the world. An enemy instead of a mistake. A pose instead of an act. Consensus instead of evidence. That is also why he never pays and never admits he was wrong: you cannot be wrong about a world you don't believe exists. Like children living in their fantasies. Children believing that wishing makes it so – except these children have power. The good news: a habit of mind can be broken. It starts with one sentence, said out loud: the world doesn't work like that.

Sinds RutteII is Nederland afgezakt van de top naar een beschamende 89e plaats. Gewoon het gevolg van beleidskeuzes. Het is symptomatisch voor de politieke wind in Den Haag. Of het nu energie, nuts, infra of pensioenen betreft, bestaanszekerheid is van ondergeschikt belang, en realiteitszin is zoek. Het motto ‘onze fabrieken draaien als de zon schijnt’ kun je net zo goed vertalen naar: we krijgen pensioen als het meezit, onze bruggen werken tot ze instorten; wonen doe je maar in een tent en de economie van het platteland offeren we op aan een dwaze ideologie. Met ordentelijk bestuur heeft het allemaal weinig van doen. Ergens in het begin van de 21e eeuw is Nederland haar gezond verstand verloren en het gekke is, we hebben het niet eens door.