In the 1960s, the Netherlands became known as an 'anarchists social laboratory,' producing one of the earliest examples of political correctness. Strong taboos in areas such as governmental control, privacy, and racial relations were the rule. While the Netherlands has become a country with a large degree of personal freedom, the ideas that originated in the openness of the 1960s have since spilled over from the private into the public sphere, resulting in an era of anxious conformity. Vuijsje, a Dutch journalist, examines why notions of political correctness became so strongly ingrained in the Netherlands and how the results have not always been positive. The ideology of political correctness created totems and taboos that made it difficult to deal with, or even signal the presence of, the real problems in Dutch society. This has often led to a worsening of the situation for precisely the social groups that society wanted to protect, such as racial minorities. Vuijsje traces this
