The organization of cultural activity and social life in The Netherlands began to change significantly in the 1960s. Until then, most facets of Dutch life were organized systematically in what are called pillars, or groups. In education, politics, the communications media, medicine, the trade unions, and other segments of Dutch life, institutions were specifically Protestant, Roman Catholic, or public (nondenominational) and were represented on committees at all levels of government. As the country underwent change, socialist and liberal nonsectarian pillars joined the denominational pillars, and some institutions became independent of the pillar system. By the 1980s most people had become less firmly attached to a specific pillar.