nouns - Translation of a German word: "Gutmensch"

The word "Gutmensch" consists of

• gut = good


• Mensch = human

Sounds like a compliment but actually the word is very insulting.

It describes someone who (for example)

• is not able to take criticism, since their cause is always just


• considers objective arguments as inconsiderate and hurtful


• instinctively tries to control any dispute and calm the situation


• suffers ostentatively at the slightest indignation


• scorns at dark humour

The list is not exhaustive, I'm just trying to convey the right frame of mind.

There is this sense of entitlement and an attitude like that of a teacher. If you argue with them, they will not listen but try to show you the error of your ways. If they are wrong, they will try to end the discussion with "it's not really that important, isn't it?".

A "Gutmensch" is not a bad person, they are perfectly normal people and can be found in any radio conversation and at most family meetings. But there is some trace of malice, some wickedness, or some almost undetectable twist of mind. This is the important part.

Let's say you dine with an activist of Greenpeace and the evening is completely filled with the fight against pollution. This person is definitely not a "Gutmensch", since he is genuinely concerned.

Or you invite a vegetarian who insists on not eating meat. Not a "Gutmensch". The person next to the vegetarian who starts the discussion about eating meat and won't accept any conclusion except "we should all stop eating meat", that's a "Gutmensch".

How would you translate this word (one of my favourites) to English ?

UPDATE:

Yes, I've tried to look up the word on my own. The results were:

• do-gooder


• goody two-shoes


• starry eyed idealist

and

good mind, this last one was actually marked as "abfällig" (derogatory)

None of those words felt like they were spot-on.
They don't feel right, because of various reasons, I'm trying to give my personal impression of each of those words:

• do-gooder : very plain, direct translation. I don't think I heard this before. Seems rather constructed to me.


• goody two-shoes : I definitely didn't hear this before


• starry eyed idealist : someone who is blinded by his ideals. The greenpeace activist from my example would probably be a starry eyed idealist. But that's not necessarily bad.


• good mind : the dictionary says this is derogatory. But it seems rather harmless to me.

Would you say "He is such a good mind" about one of your friends ? Sarcastically, I mean ? Seems like a harmless joke, only in a specific context I would consider this insulting. If you called one of your friends "Gutmensch", he would be severely injured.

I didn't post those results, since I didn't want to spoil the question. Usually if someone asks me "do you think X is an appropriate translation for ...", all I can think of is X. And I wanted to see if those terms come up on their own.

Answer

Moralist reproduces the good denotation of gutmensch with a similar dark connotation:

noun

1.0 A person who teaches or promotes morality.

1.1 A person given to moralizing.
_ODO

Almost everyone considers their own morality to be good. Most consider their moral judgments to be superior, or at least on par with the best, but in the modern mind, a moralist is often portrayed with an irrational moral opinion used unsympathetically to cajole and coerce others into conformity against their will.

John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait, by Sidney Hook, reveals the positive denotation of one who constructs a superior moral framework:

To those who know him by his less technical writings, John Dewey
appears as a great moralist and educator.

In his introduction of The Unity of Plutarch's Work, Anastasios Nikolaidis used moralist with the dark connotations of irrationality and coercion:

These findings, however, do not entail that Plutarch was a crude
moralist who stigmatized deeds and conducts, meted out prescriptions
for correct ways of living or put forward ideal, and therefore
unattainable, patterns of behaviour.

Although the preacher from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was predominantly a hypocrite, he was primarily a moralist, who struggled against his own gutmenschlich qualities at the expense of his secret mistress, Hester Prynne:

The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days, and added years, would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the
general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in
which they might vivify and embody their images of women's frailty and
sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast—at her, the child of honourable parents—at her, the mother of a babe that would hereafter be a woman—at her, who had once been innocent—as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument.
_{Emphasis added}