Civil society

Summary

Dominique Pagani understands civil society on the basis of Hegel, as the translation of bürgerliche Gesellschaft, literally "bourgeois society": in his view, "bürgerlich" and "civil" come to the same thing etymologically1. Distinguished from the State following Ferguson, it forms the middle term between the family and the State, made up of the juxtaposition of families, and it is the world into which one is thrown without ties of blood23. He makes it the site of the understanding, which separates and differentiates4, and an essential concept of modernity, linked to the city and to the mixing of classes. As a blind system of mutual dependence, it is a "wild beast" that the State must tame with severity56. For him, the problem of our time is to reconcile civil society and the State, the latter understood as the general will7. Capitalism, by contrast, has reduced it to a generalised market of desire, and it would like to make it the only horizon8. He attributes its excess to the capitalist option, not to modernity. He also notes that civil society, meaning foundations and NGOs, is used to get around the State.

1. 1Who is hiding beneath the surfaces? Aesthetics and politics20 May 2022 · 5:41
2. 2Hegel and the yellow vests (part 1)13 Feb 2019 · 27:50
3. 3A springtime of the peoples?18 Mar 2023 · 1:47:36
4. 4Tonight, we repoliticise (part 2)31 Mar 2018 · 1:14:28
5. 5A chapter of Marx written by Hegel22 May 2021 · 29:03
6. 6Naturalist ideology: answers to questions25 Jul 2025 · 25:34
7. 7#3 Harnessed to confinitude4 Apr 2020 · 1:45:27
8. 8M. Clouscard's reply to C. Morilhat (part 2)10 Sept 2019 · 1:42:45

Summary produced automatically from 20 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.