Bildungsbuergertum / Intelligentsia

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gerwin from the Free University, Berlin, [?] commented on Gadamer, and
referred to the German concept of the


        Bildungsbuergertum


What is the English translation of this word?

The dictionary gives "Educated classes". But the German word has
incorporated within it the essential nuance that this
social group is likely to support the bourgeois establishment.

The German word Buerger retains the ambiguity between citizen and member
of the bourgeoisie, for which we have two words in English: we have
the English word, citizen and the French word, bourgeois.
German, like French, however retains the nuance of continuity of civic
respectability with the power structures of capitalist society.

Perhaps this accounts for some of the woodenness of English speakers in
handling these vital abstract concepts, which seem foreign and alienated from
our ordinary concrete experience.

One of the most important questions is to have a more detailed,
more dialectical understanding of the role of the intelligentsia under
capitalism. Not least for the civilised handling of contradictions on this
list, where it seems as risky to be a professor as a Jesuit!

I am unclear whether Gerwin was implying that "national conservative elites"
is an appropriate translation for Bildungsbuergertum just in the context of
Gadamer and the assassination attempt on Hitler of 20th July 1944 [?]
or more widely.

What is the appropriate equivalent concept in English?

Does this stratum exist in England, USA, Canada, Australasia? Can anyone help?



Chris, London.


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