After dissecting a recent study that shows while birthrates are dropping overall, we are seeing birthrates increase with families that already have many children, Dimes and Judas discuss the book “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” by Jürgen Habermas. There they explore the emergence of the bourgeoise class in Europe, how it existed as a dynamic educated space to interface with power and its subjects, and how these public and private spheres became completely inverted in the modern era.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Fertility Rate Study Showing Big Families are Having More Kids Despite Overall Decline

07:45 – “Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” Review Begins

09:56 – What Are the Bourgeoisie?

14:31 – The Public Sphere vs. Private Sphere

20:06 – The Emergence of the Bourgeois Class Through Trade

23:12 – Salon Culture

28:03 – Centralization of Individualism in the Bourgeois Family and Home

32:13 – The Educated Strata Defining the Lower Classes in its Own Image

35:15 – How the Private Sphere Becomes the Walled-Off Public Sphere

38:37 – The Modern Sham-Public Sphere of Commoditized Critique