Bien pensant

Question

The NSOED says that 'bien pensant' means
(A person who is) right-thinking, orthodox, conservative.

I'll buy the 'right-thinking' and the 'orthodox' but, in my experience, 'bien pensant' is almost always used by conservatives sneering at liberals.
Comments?

Mickwick

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]The NSOED says that 'bien pensant' means (A person who is) right-thinking, orthodox, conservative. I'll buy the 'right-thinking' and the 'orthodox' but, in my experience, 'bien pensant' is almost always used by conservatives sneering at liberals. Comment?[/nq]
The HarperCollins Robert French-English dictionary says "***-fearing," so perhaps that indicates the direction in which the term originally tended. Of course there's a lot of eau sous le pont since the term entered the English language.
I think "conservative" is correct if we write it with a very small c, to mean "tending to conform to established thinking," rather than a specific political stance. In other words, if you're bien pensant you tend to hold to the position that's already been established by the intellectual leaders of your faction. Something like that.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The NSOED says that 'bien pensant' means (A person who is) right-thinking, orthodox, conservative. I'll buy the 'right-thinking' and the 'orthodox' but, in my experience, 'bien pensant' is almost always used by conservatives sneering at liberals. Comments?[/nq]
Go with "orthodox" and the "sneering", and you get a sarcastic use: I don't see a problem. Much like "politically correct". But then I'm a chattering bien-pensant bleeding-heart do-gooder, so what would I know?
Mike.

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[nq:2]Comment?[/nq]
Very drôle.

Mickwick

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The NSOED says that 'bien pensant' means (A person who is) right-thinking, orthodox, conservative. I'll buy the 'right-thinking' and the 'orthodox' but, in my experience, 'bien pensant' is almost always used by conservatives sneering at liberals. Comments?[/nq]
From a review of a book on feminism in The New York Review of Books:

Clearly Susan Gubar believes that her dogged criticism of the new insurgency has left her with a reputation (if only in some soi-disant bien-pensant or at least soi-pensant bien-disant quarters) as an essentialist and a reactionary.

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[nq:1]From a review of a book on feminism in The New York Review of Books: Clearly Susan Gubar believes that ... soi-disant bien-pensant or at least soi-pensant bien-disant quarters) as an essentialist and a reactionary.[/nq]
Start of a Washington Times review of David Hare's play 'Stuff Happens':

New leftist plays to make bien-pensant Britons smug

We know what to expect from the literati who make up the north London-north Oxford axis of banality...
From the last US election, New York Observer:
Many people for whom I have warm feelings have declared for Mr. Gore, who is the clear favorite among the bien-pensant types. Bien-pensant literally translates as "well-thinking" but is usually rendered (by Harrapâ??s, for instance) as "right- minded." I donâ??t know about the latter, since it has been my experience that the people I know who seem to incarnate what is meant by bien-pensant are those who pensent bien mostly about themselves. They do tend to be people who are as guilty about their money as they are proud of having gone to Harvard; a vote for Mr. Gore, they seem to think, is a demonstration of personal high-mindednessâ?? which should doubtless make it all the easier for them to accept, with moral grace, the tax cuts proposed by George W. Bush, should the Republican win.
From a book review in History Today (no, it doesn't say bien-pensant: I just like it):
What Edmund Burke called the prejudices of the people are not to this author's elite metropolitan tastes. Like a Lord Snooty who isn't sure that he likes his Pals any more, Winder cannot write convincingly about the worst of being British because he hardly writes at all about the best.

Mickwick

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Gosh, MW! You're not going all anti-liberal on us, are you?

Mike.

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[nq:1]Gosh, MW! You're not going all anti-liberal on us, are you?[/nq]
'Liberal', not 'anti-liberal', surely?

Lord Mick-'Not sure about his Pals no more'-wick

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Gosh, MW! You're not going all anti-liberal on us, are you?[/nq]
[nq:1]'Liberal', not 'anti-liberal', surely?[/nq]
Oh dear. I'm using too much of that irony stuff: been talking to too many Americans, I guess.
Mike.

Bien pensant

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