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AfD calls itself "bourgeois": This is Bürgerbeleidigung

2019-09-03T19:37:24.372Z


AFD people stage themselves after their electoral successes as "representatives of the bourgeoisie". They stand for the exact opposite. Why we should not give the term without a fight.



opinion

When it comes to the bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, wild associations start: one thinks of dress code and manners, fighter fences and home-style cooking. Walter Kempowski called his book "Tadellöser & Wolff", in which the story of his Rostock family is described, a "bourgeois novel" and certainly Loriot is the epitome of bourgeois humor.

Now theAfD praises itself as a bourgeois opposition, Alexander Gauland calls his people the "representatives of the bourgeoisie in this country", even if the Brandenburg top candidate has spent half his life in right-wing extremist circles.

The term: citizen as honorary title

Historically, the adjective bourgeoisically says that something is not of the nobility, the clergy or the workers and peasants - categories that convey only limited information today. The concept of the citizen has always changed, lately it has been rather positive. As a citizen, as a citizen, one should and can take care of the interests of the community, and get involved.

For centuries, such a status referred to a city. Citizenship in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was expensive and subject to many conditions, such as the birth of a spouse, the decent way of life and the ability to participate in the defense. For this one might have had a lance at home, a spit - the origin of the curse word Spießer still in use today.

In the French Revolution, civil rights were suddenly understood quite differently - all men were citizens of the nation, the citizen became the general form of address. Citizen was now a political honorary title, which also committed. In this sense, however, all parties are bourgeois, because they turn to voters.

The classic story: citizens as part of the community

Before getting lost in the labyrinth of strings of pearl necklaces and cloth napkins, one can resort to a classic history that, like no other, has shaped the notion of what bourgeois beliefs are.

Herodotus tells of the visit of the wise Solon at the legendary rich king Croesus. He shows the guest all the riches of the palace complex and then asks him a question, namely, who he, the well-traveled and wise Solon, thinks he is lucky. He asked the question with the intention of being named himself.

Solon, however, kept to the matter and initially refused to give a name, because one can not judge before death whether someone had a happy life. Pushed further, he finally called Tellos of Athens - a complete Nobody. His fortune was, Solon claims, to have lived as a respected citizen in a city, founded a family and raised children, and finally honored his honor in the fight to defend the city.

Civility, according to Herodotus' relevant judgment, contrasts with the despotism of immense wealth. Movements led by multimillionaires or worshiping the heavyweight Russian president are not bourgeois. Donald Trump does not lead a bourgeois life, Putin does not. Both emulate Croesus - movements and parties of their spectrum are therefore not bourgeois.

Neither power nor gold influence the bourgeois judgment, on the contrary. Therefore, the fascists, National Socialists, Stalinists and Maoists were not bourgeois: in these movements power was everything, ideology or world view only means for the purpose of maintaining power. By contrast, living in a community or community, that is, living together and respecting what neighbors think of you, is a bourgeois thing - in such a society, no one seeks a monopoly of power or wealth.

With the answer, Solon makes himself independent of the expectation of the mighty king. He stuck to it - perhaps the essential feature of bourgeois discourse. One should strive for an independent, factual judgment, for the truth, regardless of what the ruler - in the monarchy, the king, in democracy, the people - expect.

The present: Populists are not bourgeois

Therefore, a populist party can never be bourgeois: its rhetoric, such as the warnings of overpopulation, the downfall of the West or the thesis of the threatening, large population exchange - all this serves the purpose of emotional stirring up the listeners.

The symbolic exaggeration of individual crimes or misfortunes is pursued in the same way in a wave of knife attacks: stirring up emotions is never bourgeois - the moderation of affects, differentiation and objectivity is bourgeois.

Solon does not indulge in the praises of the already highly praised king, but he does not even seek the very poorest people to praise its needlessness and to shock Croesus with it. It is about the discursive description of the middle - and about verifiable judgments. Solon did not invent the citizen, uses his life to debate and recommend his bourgeois ideology.

The life of good Tellos, with its commitment to family and community, was marked by continuity. In this respect, it can not be bourgeois to want to turn things around from a bourgeois perspective, to incite the revolution or to exclude people - common sense and moderation are characteristic of a bourgeois worldview.

The same applies to the tolerance: Solon is a guest of Croesus, trying to inform him in dialogue and educate - but he does not exaggerate it. It is not bourgeois to impose on others their own world view. Just as the praise of the ruler contradicts a bourgeois habitus, so much the more for the self-praise: Solon did not call himself, the famous wise lawgiver of Athens, a happy man, but a stink normal citizen who would have fallen off the stool if he had heard as he is called as an example to one of the richest and most powerful men of his time.

It is unrighteous to praise oneself as oneself - even as a bourgeois.

Source: spiegel

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