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November 12, 2008

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Das postdramatische Theaterstück war eine große Enttäuschung, da keine Täuschungsversuche auf der Bühne stattfanden.

Ok.

You know, I thought I'd noticed this before.

It's a terrible thing, growing old.

Yes, the title of the section of the Phenomenology where he talks about the famous Bildung is "Der sich entfremdete Geist; die Bildung". Sich entfremdete? WTF? I translated it as "The Auto-Assimilated Spirit: Culture" but I was wrong, since entfremd clearly means the same thing as verfremd (just like "Verstand" is etymologicamally equivalent to "understanding".

since entfremd[en] clearly means the same thing as verfremd[en]

Except it doesn't; verfremden is better defamiliarize than alienate or estrange (even if the effect of estrangement is—surprise!—a making strange), while entfremden is, well, estrange in a more colloquial (ie nontheatrical, interpersonal) sense.

Yes, that was implied: the distinction is most familiar from Brecht's famous Verfremdungseffekt, which is given a positive valuation which Hegel does not give to Bildung (a waystation to morality and religion, rather).

Thanks for subtly cuing the reader that the adjectival form given was wrong by giving the verb form, though: entfremdet and verfremdet. Homemade Germanistik: don't do it, kids.

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