Bildungsbürgertum
It was a cultural elite that had received an education based on the values of idealism and classical studies and which steered public opinion in art and patterns of behaviour.
Wilhelm von Humboldt shaped the Bildungsbürgertum's ideal of education as a process of life-long learning that valued all-around knowledge over training for a profession.
"Secular religions" such as nationalism, social Darwinism, antisemitism and ideological imperialism became more prominent, and the class came to see its status more and more as an entitlement rather than an achievement.
Many of its members saw democracy as a threat and supported a return to authoritarian rule, but under the Nazi regime, what remained of the Bildungsbürgertum as a class faded out.
[4] The social relevance of the Bildungsbürgertum as elite interpreters of cultural phenomena was largely based on its dominant position in universities and schools[6] and in the production and dissemination of public opinion through the press and literature.
Social interaction in theatres, opera houses, concert halls, and museums in large cities became a defining characteristic of their milieu.
They campaigned for the construction of cultural buildings, which – often designed in a classical, temple-like style – became extended public salons of social and political life, such as Museum Island in Berlin (1830), the Vienna State Opera (1869) and the Städel in Frankfurt am Main (1833).
Under the aegis of the Bildungsbürgertum, the arts pages of the major German-language newspapers took on an important role, placing the examination of culture on the same level as that of politics and economics.
In England the process began in the late Middle Ages with the increasingly powerful House of Commons in which both the urban, bourgeois and mercantile elites (as well as religious minorities) and the rural, conservative (and Anglican) gentry were represented.
Unlike the older patricians, they no longer aspired primarily to nobility by acquiring rural estates but emphasised bourgeois values such as achievement in commerce or science and a certain modesty in the display of wealth.
From the end of the 18th century onwards, during the course of revolutions and industrialisation, the older bourgeois ruling classes were often replaced by new economic elites in their local spheres of influence.
Although universities had existed in Europe since the early Middle Ages, the social importance of the academy grew in the wake of industrialisation when it became essential to draw on scientifically well-trained citizens for economic growth and for the new western state structure.
[10]At the beginning of the 19th century, Wilhelm von Humboldt, with his model of an ideal education, created the most important intellectual product of the Bildungsbürgertum, one which at the same time became its objective.
The Bildungsbürgertum was able to assert its standards of achievement, often against the resistance of the nobility, and as academically trained civil servants to shape and execute national policy.
The growing complexity of society in the era of industrialisation and rapid urban growth also led to the need for experts in such fields as engineering, law and medicine.
In the revolutions of 1848, its strong representation in the Frankfurt National Assembly gave the class significant influence in the framing of the Constitution of St. Paul's Church.
[17] After the failure of the revolution, German liberalism split into smaller parties which resembled interest groups, and the growth of social democracy among the working class led to the Bildungsbürgertum losing its status as the leader in progressive politics.
Protestants among the educated class saw the founding as a Providence-driven victory of the "German mission" – a "national Protestantism" that increasingly replaced traditional religion.
Upper-level civil servants, because of their highly valued management qualifications, diligence, focus on achievement and strong sense of duty, also exercised considerable political influence in federal, state and city governments.
When governments had to take on such new problems as rapid urbanisation and became in general more interventionist, there was an ever broadening need for the scientifically educated, which expanded opportunities for those seeking to move up.
[21] During the imperial era (1871–1918), the Bildungsbürgertum's expansion through additions from the petite bourgeoisie led to some dilution of social cohesion and the consciousness of being part of an elite.
[24] Competition from other "secular religions" such as nationalism, social Darwinism, antisemitism and ideological imperialism also weakened the hold of the Humboldtian educational ideal.
[24] Philosopher and educator Friedrich Paulsen criticised the Bildungsbürgertum's "inhuman pride" and love of pomp as a way to show off its gentility to those they saw as socially below them.
