Civil Society - Zivilgesellschaft

There it is again. The mythical "Zivilgesellschaft", the civil society. Whenever I hear it, and one hears it often in speeches of German politicians, I wonder what it means. Google think there are three sectors in society: the government, businesses, and the civil society. You can almost make out the intent that lies behind this construct. It dispenses with the free citizen, who is too much trouble, and it gets rid of the inconvenient separation of power between legislative, executive and judicial branches.

If one wants to introduce "sectors" of society, then I believe there are only two: the free citizens who have the constitution and free elections to protect themselves from the government, and there is the government. Citizens have the freedom of commerce and association as they see fit. Those are rights of citizens, not separate sectors of society that are somehow separate from the people.

So, what is the civil society supposed to be then? Is it meant to be used in contrast to the uncivilized society? Is civil society anything that is not government, and if it is, why would you need a special qualifying name for it? Or, is civil society the part of society, that is in possession of the truth as opposed to the part of society that tends to have the wrong opinions?

I do not know what the term really means, but I believe that in the mind of the people who use this term, civil society encompasses the many government-financed "non-government" organizations and every other organized group that subscribes to the ideologies of the people who "have already been in power for longer." Mr. Pfaffernoschke mentions a few of those, including the "Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung".

The reader of the article should know that the "Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung" is a government-financed foundation that is affiliated with the communist party "The Linke" (The Left). This is the party which renamed itself twice but is otherwise identical to the Socialist Unified Party ("SED") who ran the open-air prison called East Germany for 40 years. I wonder how Mr. Pfaffernoschke believe this organisation will "…​ contribute to democratic resilience …​!"

There are more comments one could make about this article. But, I will just say, this article could have been published in "Das Neue Deutschland" with few changes. The same succession of meaningless phrases and convoluted nothingness.