Actual scholarly question

Hmmmm. I guess that freewriting really is an excellent activity (though I didn't really doubt this), because in six minutes of noodling around trying to describe an as-yet-incomplete-and-therefore-somewhat-hypothetical book chapter, I think I realized something fundamentally important about an argument I'm trying to make about medieval masculine identity (part of what I'm working on). Seriously, trying to sum up chapters that don't yet fully exist is turning out to be a truly valuable and revealing enterprise, because I keep having to distill everything to its essence and in so doing, I articulate arguments that I didn't quite realize I was making. It's pretty awesome.

Anyway, this really important revelation (with which I'm totally thrilled) has led to a related question about terminology, and I decided I would throw it open to the interwebs - to anyone and everyone, as I'm honestly interested in all opinions here, not just medievalists' or academics', because it's a question of terminology and I want to know how this terminology reads to everyone (I mean, I'll be lucky if this book is of interest to anyone other than the six people working in this field, but I can pretend it will be of broader interest):

How do you define "bourgeois"? Edited for clarity: Thank you for the responses so far! I'm really interested in it both as an adjective and a noun.

(I know all about dictionaries and all that, but I really want to see leaps to people's minds when they see the term before I use it. In the interest of full disclosure, I've carefully avoided it to this point, but I want to make sure that's been an appropriate choice.)

Comments

[sleepycat]

"middle class" is the first thing that jumps into my mind. Though in historical context that would probably be merchants and skilled tradespeople like masons and smiths and such. Those in the middle between subsistence and nobility.

[Barb]

Of course, as a late medieval/early modernist, my definition may be different than the general one, but: wealthy, urban professionals and merchants in larger towns and cities. My students seem to go with "middle-class" as their default definition, and when we discuss it in class, they get stuck on "urban" and want to differentiate between "peasant" and "bourgeois" as if the bourgeoisie formed a fourth order.

[kristiface]

If I hadn't taken an English Civ class, I would probably default to Middle Class. But, there was a bourgeoise before there was an actual middle class, so I know that doesn't work. In the medieval (English) context, I would think primarily of the rising wealthy merchant class. If I think about it in the context of the Middle East, though, they (the bourgeoise) were actually a landed elite that migrated to the cities to become absentee landowners and political elites; in some cases the wealth was augmented by trade, but frequently that wasn't the case. In the modern context, I think of my in-laws :)

I wonder, then, if the thing that ties all of these things together (including my in-laws) is the idea of "new" wealth somewhere between comfortable subsistence level and being extremely wealthy-- and of course having some sort of urban base. That's my strange and (probably) useless definition.

Thanks for making me think this morning :)

[Ancarett]

What first comes to mind is "possibly prosperous urban merchants, artisans and other elites" -- possibly because we're well aware, these days, of how precarious such an existence is! (I also just automatically translate the phrase in my head as burgher which somehow makes it a bit easier for me to shed the Marxist emphasis.)

[hilaire]

Interesting...The emphasis where I am (in terms of what I do, what I've been taught) has always been on the modern period...The bourgeoisie as having really come to be in the first part of the nineteenth century as a result of industrialization. Broadly "middle-class", professional, but also connected to being the owners of the means of production, for Marxists. Also, in the modern period at least, there is that whole host of associations like "conventional", etc.

[Michelle]

Middle class is the first thing that pops to my mind. Perhaps upper middle class.

[Dr. Crazy]

I want to piggy-back on what Hilaire said about the connotation of "conventional." Another association that comes to mind for me is "nouveau riche" (though I realize it's not identical to being bourgois or a member of the bourgeoisie). At any rate, not nobility, somewhat anti-intellectual, all about controlling the means of production. These are the associations I make.

[Medieval Woman]

upper middle merchant class!

[deeni]

upper middle class merchants, professionals, urban.

[turtlebella]

What hilaire and Dr. Crazy said about the class that controls the means of production. Caveat- I'm a biologist, my understanding/use of the word is entirely in the general conversational light. The word generally has some negative connotations for me, meaning conventional, as well as reading "of the oppressors." As in "That's SO bourgois!" We were fond of saying that in the labor activist and POC communities I hung out in during college.

[Mrs. Coulter]

OK, I skipped all the comments because I wanted to write without looking at what other people said. Forgive me if this is redundant.

To me, bourgeois connotes several different things, depending on the era under discussion. If we are talking about the medieval period, bourgeois are definitely city dwellers, both artisans (skilled tradesmen) and merchants. They earn a living through money-based trade, whether it is the products of their own labor or by exchange of products produced by someone else. They are therefore people who have money to spend, occasionally (or sometimes not so occasionally) splurging on luxury goods, but they are not part of naturally governing or warrior class. Bourgeois also implies to me the power that comes from having money--the urban poor don't enter into my mind when I hear the term.

In the modern era (say, 18th-19th century), "bourgeois" becomes a bit different. In my mind, it ceases to include those who earn a living with their hands (skilled artisans) and comes very much to mean the trading and financial classes: bankers, merchants, and, in the 19th century, the managers and other professionals. "Middle class" still doesn't really fit as a synonym yet, though, because in terms of real income, compared to the vast majority, these people are fabulously wealthy. Again, the power comes from money, not from warrior prowess or by the charisma of blood.

I don't think "bourgeois" in the pejorative sense of ostentatious but small-minded taste, really comes into play until the 20th century, unless you're a marxist. :-)

[Another Damned Medievalist]

Because you're a medievalist, I immediately reacted in medievalist terms -- and almost exactly the way Ancarett did! I always translate it to burgher, and explain it to my students in terms of urban life. For all things pre-Mark, I would connect it to townspeople who don't fit into the three orders, with a gradual inclusion of craftsmen and artisans once (and where) the guilds are strong enough to have influence/authority on urban government. I tend to think of the professions (as they eventually become) as definitely not bourgeois in that sense, at least till fairly late, because of the university/clerical connection at first, and then as kind of their own sub-order.

The urban/rural is the strongest distinction for me, though.

Post Marx -- no, even as early as the Enlightenment -- I'd say I tend to default to bourgeois as a combination of (still) primarily urban-dwelling/what one does for a living non-noble/cash-based class. Oh, hell. I can see good arguments for that kind of bourgeoisie as early as the rise of the nobles of the robe in France and as early as the 16th c. with the Price Revolution. But no earlier.

[mythoclast]

I think: upper middle-class, tradesmen, professionals, city dwellers, boring i.e. "oh how terribly bourgeois"

[Rob]

There's a great discussion of the history and meanings of the term 'bourgeois' in Robert Pippin's book "The Persistence of Subjectivity" (Cambridge UP, 2005), footnote 3, pp. 3-4. It's the best thing I've seen on the subject.

[yankee,transferred]

Not reading the comments, so as not to be influenced, because, god forbid I sound semi-intelligent:

upper-middle class, more urban than not, and not terribly unique or interesting.

But what do I know?

[af]

People who have money but not that much money; nouveau riche, less sophisticated than they think they are, have pretensions to be upper class but are doomed to failure.