The Dutch Golden Age, which lasted just three generations, was 400 years ago. And still, there after-tremors of it are being felt today. The buildings, the canals, the engineering, all the amazing works, the contents of Rijksmuseum — these are the fruits of those generations.
When asking myself why Amsterdam is such a beautiful and well-run city, that was where my explanation stopped. And indeed, this was my answer when asked why any place of grandeur and splendor is grand and splendid.
If a place goes through a Golden Age and accumulates great works of culture, engineering, building, puts up universities and establishes a great tradition of scholarship, and so on — there are permanent gains to that. You could call it capital accumulation.
This was my old explanation. A Golden Age or Imperial Period meant capital accumulation.
The Turks have changed my opinion on this.
Well, to be sure, the inheritors of Byzantine Rome and the Ottoman Empire have wonderful architecture, churches, mosques, ports, buildings, institutions of culture and tradition, and so on. The capital is there, of course. It is a magnificent city.
But something I notice:
The Turks constantly polish their windows.
There is a lovely cafe I go to in the afternoon. A Turkish tea costs only 1.50 lira, abut 75 U.S. cents. A filtered cofee is 8 lira, 4 dollars. It is, without a doubt, one of the finest coffees I've had in my life.
The cafe plays nice music. There are chessboards around if you want to play.
It's a small neighborhood without many tourists, and they seem to like when I stop in. It's an old neighborhood that was once splendid, then went out of fashion, and is now coming back.
There is absolutely no reason why this cafe should have sterling polished windows and mirrors every day.
And yet, they do.
Sitting here with a friend, I remarked — "Look at the glass... have you noticed it's never dirty? ... I wonder how often they polish it."
And the answer is: a lot.
Yesterday I was in the cafe working, as normal. The owner of the cafe usually hangs out there, and greets me warmly. He's always just lightly doing a thing or two, moving things around just a bit. Not too busy, not distracting. Just always improving things ever so slightly as he moves about the property.
The staff, too. They're always polishing just a bit. One older gentleman works there. He's very warm and nice, and a little bit slow. I don't mean that in a bad way, not at all. I mean, he's quite literally slow. He moves very slowly.
Is it his natural temperament or his age? Unknown. He is not a hurry, he does not bound or spring with energy.
He relaxes a lot. He's often sitting, sometimes napping when I come in.
Even then, he's methodical and quite proud. When he closes his eyes to nap, he does so in a dignified way. It is hard to describe; it is very different than you'd see elsewhere. Who knows how long he's been working at this cafe; a long time, perhaps?
Even with low energy and slow movement, he still treats people warmly, helps people, and — again — he takes time to polish the mirrors.
My old apartment in Istanbul was near Taksim Square and right off the major Istiklal Avenue, and unfortunately the internet was down at hom that particular day. Awake at 5AM and needing to check my email to prepare meeting-notes for the day's calls, I found a cafe that wasn't open yet that let me in early, and served me tea.
The cafe was, of course, in pristine condition and the proprietor was friendly. But this wasn't the point that surprised me.
The point that surprised me was when a Turkish man came at 6AM to start opening his barbershop across from the cafe.
It's a very traditional-looking barbershop, with a large plated window so you can see people getting their hair cut from the outside.
Despite the fact that the window was already spotless, he carefully wiped and polished it in the morning as one of the first things he did.
He then took a bucket of soapy water and poured it on the little staircase leading to his shop, and polished his stairs.
Both the window and stairs were already quite clean, and did not need cleaning. I sat in the cafe for a few hours, and I did not see anyone go into the barbershop before I leave around 9AM. But there the barber was, setting up, getting his tools in order, making his shop look pristine, and conducting himself with pride.
What is the cost to doing this?
In terms of water, soap, and a cloth to polish with — not much.
The real cost, at first, is in being conscientious. In having a higher standard, and the time that goes with that.
A popular theory of management that originated in the 1960's said that people innately dislike work, and need to be managed with incentives and punishments in order to not have them be lazy.
But the Turks, no one is coercing them to be diligent and conscientious. There is a genuine pride and satisfaction in having clean windows, clean mirrors, clean stairs into one's shop or workplace.
The "cost" of being conscientious, in fact, does not seem like a cost at all. It seems like the Turks get genuine enjoyment and satisfaction from the perfection of their environment.
The other cost is, of course, time. The barber must have been awake no later than 5AM to show up groomed, dressed, and probably breakfasted.
That, in turn, means he needs to sleep earlier. If he were to arrive at 8AM instead of 6AM and "pick things up enough," then he'd have more time in the evenings to eat, drink, watch television, and otherwise be entertained.
But is this really a cost, either?
These entertainments of the nighttime, are they so pleasurable?
Across the world, I've seen many people go drinking or watch television. Are they happier than the Turkish barber polishing his large plated window and washing his stairs?
I don't think so.
Indeed, probably most people have their worst judgment and decisionmaking late in the day. By waking earlier, the barber goes to bed earlier. Isn't it true that, very late, we're most likely to make stupid decisions, get into stupid arguments, eat terrible foods, and numb our minds with things not-at-all-valuable for our long-term well-being?
The barber, up at 5AM, probably goes to sleep around 9PM. That's enough time for a dinner with his wife, inquiring about his children's schooling, spending time as a family, taking a little leisure reading, and then sleeping well. In the morning, he can slowly have breakfast and coffee, appreciate the morning, and take to cleaning and improving his shop with a methodical joy in the immersion of making the world better.
This constant over-polishing of windows — is it a major improvement over doing it how often people normally would?
Perhaps not. It is only a slight improvement.
But this slight improvement permeate everything the people of Istanbul do. Everything is slightly better maintained, slightly more preserved, slightly better polished, slightly more refined in quality. Restaurants serve slightly better food, hosts are slightly more welcoming, everyone smiles slightly more, and is slightly more welcoming.
The effect of any one of these actions is perhaps to make an establishment only 1% better. But that constancy of making things 1% better means that, gradually, Istanbul becomes 5% better, 10% better, 20% better than other places... as the weeks and months accumulate, as years pass, the shops, streets, businesses all run better, creating magnificent experiences and continuing to inspire their people to do more.
And perhaps that's the effect of a Golden Age or Imperial Period. Capital and institutions are obviously important, but capital that is not maintained rapidly decays, and institutions are only as good as the people who run and participate with them.
No, the greatness of Holland or Turkey must be less about the paintings, calligraphy, and architecture, and more about the sense of pride and determination.
"I am Dutch, and we do things well."
"I am Turkish, and we do things well."
Canals, waterways, buildings, and art are magnificent and inspire; certainly, there must be a feedback loop between the inspirational atmosphere of a country and the inspiration of its people.
But if you took away all of the buildings and art, and people had to start again, in a few generations Amsterdam and Istanbul would rise to be great cities once more — if the Dutch and Turks kept the Dutch and Turkish attitudes, and kept thoroughly polishing their windows.