We're All Bohemian Now (Or Is It Bourgeois?)
By Rob Walker
Posted Wednesday, April 19, 2000, at 3:01 PM ETHello again Joe,
That concluding point of yours is actually fascinating--makes Day 3 quite worth the bourgeois effort. If you're right, then maybe Brooks adopted such a light voice through much of the book because it gives a pleasant tone to the real message, which is that all that's left of the bohemian idea are a bunch of trendy stores that sell things that are sort of bohemian-ish. Which leads me back to the theme I guess I've been circling around for the last couple of ideas, which is whether "Bobos" really exist as a class of people, or whether there has been a sort of widespread bohemian chic running through the country for several years now. And if it's the latter, why has it happened?
I think it's the latter, and I'll just go ahead and say one last time that I think it was clever of Brooks to notice it, and he does have an eye for telling details, even if he makes (in my view) a mistake by turning "Bobo" into a class of people instead of a wider trend.
What's probably really happened is that bourgeois has simply crushed bohemian, neutered it, made it something that can safely be purchased, showed off, and, if the fit is wrong or it looks bad next to that fake antique table from Pottery Barn, returned, no questions asked. What hadn't occurred to me is that because being tagged mainstream has become (as Brooks himself notes) such anathema, to come out with a book not only pointing out the bourgeois victory but celebrating it, just wouldn't do. Particularly if you're going to frame it as a boomer phenomenon--there are no boomers who want to hear that the 1960s generation is now thoroughly bourgeois. So if one is going to paste some ideology on top of the current bohemian chic, one has to say that it's all about how the two sides have been reconciled, and you, the idealized (boomer) reader, may now commence flattering yourself that you have not wholly sold out after all, and the proof is right there in your espresso.
I guess that sort of gets at the "why" issue, but I do think Brooks could have had a stronger book if he'd asked some of his specimens a few questions about motive--about whether they see themselves as partly bohemian and why. My own little theory is that for a long time, for a lot of people, bohemianism was a sort of phase they went through, something that got left behind as one grew up and made a series of compromises. It has gradually become easier and easier to avoid making those compromises, or at least to feel like they've been avoided. But I'll admit that's just an unsubstantiated theory, and makes sense only if you buy into fauxhemian chic as a societal phenomenon.
But as we know, Brooks sees his Bobos instead as a generational thing. As I think about that last chapter, and your closing point, I more and more see this framing device as a trap for Brooks. It's precisely what causes the inconsistencies. The withering and hilarious dissection of, for example, people who have no intention of getting in touch with nature buying their rugged outdoor gear--"comfort paying homage to adventure"--runs smack into the inevitable conclusion that whatever the boomers are up to must be a net positive for everybody, because the boomers are the smartest, cleverest, wisest, most all-around significant generation ever, and isn't it lucky for the rest of us that there are so many of them around to say so? In light of that, Brooks can do little with his observations of glaring inconsistencies between word and deed and conclude that the bohemian ideals have been mysteriously absorbed. But domesticating and commercializing these ideals sounds less to me like an embrace of the bohemian and more like the negation of it.
Anyway, you're also certainly right that while this has been fun, this last round was the hardest. I could use an afternoon cup of luxury coffee myself. Although what I'd really prefer is a glass of this Australian chardonnay we've become quite fond of. That's sort of bohemian, isn't it? I mean, bohemians drank wine, didn't they? Oh, never mind. But yes, let's do it again some time. The Krispy Kremes are on me.
Yrs,
Rob
We're All Bohemian Now (Or Is It Bourgeois?)
By Rob Walker
Posted Wednesday, April 19, 2000, at 3:01 PM ET
This week, a discussion of David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise (click here to buy it and here to read an excerpt). Joe Nocera is editor at large for Fortune magazine and lives in Northampton, Mass. Rob Walker writes Slate's "Moneybox" column. Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the final entry:
The Bobo dichotomy reminds me of a point that Tom Frank has been making over and over again: that 'revolution culture' is a largely self-congratulatory corporate joke. Frank wants a revolution culture with the energy to transform society into a more just vision--basically, he wants class conflict, and he sees the endless propagation of the word 'revolution' in advertising, management theory, and leftish academia as an individualist narcotic. So it sounds like this WSJer is finding himself in similar contempt of the same phenomenon. Of course, if Frank's right, then the Bobos' bohemianism poses no real threat to their role as a ruling class (or, more precisely, a professional-managerial class in charge of maintaining order for a ruling class). Would Brooks fault the Bobos for betraying the bourgeoisie? Or does he just think it's silly to pay a lot for coffee?
--jugoso
(To reply, click
here.)
It's funny. "Bobo" translates to "dumb" in Spanish. Hmmm, the author may be onto something here.
--C.Power
(To reply, click
here.)
[Gary Frazier
said his first thought was that Bobo was the name of Monty Burns' teddy bear on The Simpsons. To find out what it means in Japan, click
here. Saralee
asked: Shouldn't it be pronounced boo-bo? But then it would probably sound like bubo, as in the bubonic plague. So maybe it's better to be dumb than a disease.]
Krispy Kreme a product of Bobo luxification? I think not! Since neither of you guys seems to be from the South I can forgive your lack of historical insight on the subject, but Krispy Kreme has been around for many, many years. They've been clogging arteries and showing up in school fund-raisers since the dawn of time (or since the dawn of doughnuts, anyway). The Bobos may rave about them now, but the Bubbas have worshiped them forever.
Long live Hot Doughnuts Now!
--Autumn
(To reply, click
here.)
Most people are unimaginative. Affluent people tend to be self-indulgent. Boomers are people. Therefore affluent boomers are often self indulgent in unimaginative ways. That gives us overpriced Starbucks coffee, SUV's among other things.
I have long observed one of the problems of my generation. We were, on the whole, the beneficiaries of the most secure, affluent childhoods that "ordinary", i.e. not rich or royal, children ever had. I don't think we ever got over it, frankly. Now that we are the adults, we are obsessed with security. The uncertainty of the world seems to scare the hell out of us, now that we are the adults and must deal with it. I see parents smothering their children with the sort of surveillance we never had to endure. I feel sorry for today's kids. We have morphed into the most stifling, self-righteous old farts ever.
--Ken
(To reply, click
here.)
I take baby boomers to be the demographic group who were lampooned in the seventies as "preppies" (as if preparing one's brain for a self-sufficiency is a disvalue) and vilified in the eighties as "yuppies" (as if the pursuit one's personal happiness and career success are somehow evil). But what, precisely, are the criticisms of them? The anti-achievement losers who invented and have perpetuated these terms confess a great deal in such diatribes, though they seem almost certainly oblivious to what should be cause for burning embarrassment. They hate what is best in the constituent members of that demographic: The drive to achieve, to succeed, to build, to progress, to produce. They hate the fact that vast numbers of the Left-wing boneheads who flailed around in boastful brainlessness during the hallowed 60's decade, eventually grew up. They discovered the values universal to the maintenance and furtherance of human life, and embraced those values in large part: rationality, productivity, pride (sinful!), independence (i.e. "selfishness"--doubly sinful!) The aforementioned, anti-achievement losers are reactionaries in the most profound sense: they're not only stuck in the 60's, they're rabid advocates of the ethics of Medievalism.
--Zaphod B.
(To reply, click
here.)
It's not the age, it's money. The real essence of the Bobo stereotype is wealth. Rich people have always pretended to scorn material comforts without actually forgoing them; have always spouted grand rhetoric about duty and selflessness while studiously avoiding any hint of self-sacrifice; have always cast their snobbery as high-minded admiration for taste and quality; and have always taken their privileged status to be proof of their moral superiority and personal merit.
--Dan Simon
(To reply, click
here.)
The author of the book sounds as though he is indignant at the idea that people might change social classes and develop a significant disposable income that they continue to use on things they had consumed in their more "bohemian" years. Are boomers supposed to change tastes from espresso to fine wine simply because their income rises? I suspect the author is offended that the class system isn't being properly reinforced by increased prosperity and is annoyed that "those people" are joining the ranks of the affluent.
--Dean
(To reply, click here.)
Boomers' "heroic" parents? The boomers don't lynch blacks, don't incarcerate Japanese-Americans, don't oppress women, don't support pollution and environmental destruction, and don't hate immigrants. Their parents (some of them, at least) did, and continued to pass laws to uphold doing these things. Thank goodness for some of what the boomers did.
--Carl Briggs
(To reply, click here.)
I happen to be one who sampled and survived, paradoxically, some of the best and the worst that the generation manifested: civil rights activism (Selma March and voter registration, '65), Eastern Ivy League college (class of '68), all of 1968, fraternity life, beer on campus/drugs in 'Nam (Army '69), homecoming to the Land of the Big PX (guns and butter in equal profusion for the first time on the planet, I'll bet), marriage, sexual orientation confusion, "open" marriage, departure from heterosexuality to homosexuality, divorce, strings of male lovers, career changes, career re-invention(s), extreme losses of friends to AIDS, a face that I now deserve, a married stepchild, addiction and recovery, spiritual awareness and a spiritual practice in middle middle age.
I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.
I do believe that as a generation we were/are deeply spoiled by plenty and by all the models of waste. And yes, what quiet heroes our parents' generation was. But we have world enough and time yet to surprise ourselves and our younger admirers/scorners/X-ers/etc. We will be old, in great numbers; some of us will also become wise.
--David B.
(To reply, click here.)
It makes we wild with exasperation when book reviewers go on and on about books that are not in the stores yet. Bobos in Paradise isn't in stock at my local bookstore yet.
--Leslie Goodman-Malamuth
(To reply, click
here.)
[This posting was most unusual because it at no point attempted to define, attack or defend the boomer generation.
To read the other 99% enter The Fray: who says boomers are self-obsessed? Read it, contribute--or, in the words of Barry, who says he's a Bozo, Hey, have a donut, relax... Discussion on Krispy Kremes continues
here.]
(4/19)
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Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the final entry:
The Bobo dichotomy reminds me of a point that Tom Frank has been making over and over again: that 'revolution culture' is a largely self-congratulatory corporate joke. Frank wants a revolution culture with the energy to transform society into a more just vision--basically, he wants class conflict, and he sees the endless propagation of the word 'revolution' in advertising, management theory, and leftish academia as an individualist narcotic. So it sounds like this WSJer is finding himself in similar contempt of the same phenomenon. Of course, if Frank's right, then the Bobos' bohemianism poses no real threat to their role as a ruling class (or, more precisely, a professional-managerial class in charge of maintaining order for a ruling class). Would Brooks fault the Bobos for betraying the bourgeoisie? Or does he just think it's silly to pay a lot for coffee?
--jugoso
(To reply, click here.)
It's funny. "Bobo" translates to "dumb" in Spanish. Hmmm, the author may be onto something here.
--C.Power
(To reply, click here.)
[Gary Frazier said his first thought was that Bobo was the name of Monty Burns' teddy bear on The Simpsons. To find out what it means in Japan, click here. Saralee asked: Shouldn't it be pronounced boo-bo? But then it would probably sound like bubo, as in the bubonic plague. So maybe it's better to be dumb than a disease.]
Krispy Kreme a product of Bobo luxification? I think not! Since neither of you guys seems to be from the South I can forgive your lack of historical insight on the subject, but Krispy Kreme has been around for many, many years. They've been clogging arteries and showing up in school fund-raisers since the dawn of time (or since the dawn of doughnuts, anyway). The Bobos may rave about them now, but the Bubbas have worshiped them forever.
Long live Hot Doughnuts Now!
--Autumn
(To reply, click here.)
Most people are unimaginative. Affluent people tend to be self-indulgent. Boomers are people. Therefore affluent boomers are often self indulgent in unimaginative ways. That gives us overpriced Starbucks coffee, SUV's among other things.
I have long observed one of the problems of my generation. We were, on the whole, the beneficiaries of the most secure, affluent childhoods that "ordinary", i.e. not rich or royal, children ever had. I don't think we ever got over it, frankly. Now that we are the adults, we are obsessed with security. The uncertainty of the world seems to scare the hell out of us, now that we are the adults and must deal with it. I see parents smothering their children with the sort of surveillance we never had to endure. I feel sorry for today's kids. We have morphed into the most stifling, self-righteous old farts ever.
--Ken
(To reply, click here.)
I take baby boomers to be the demographic group who were lampooned in the seventies as "preppies" (as if preparing one's brain for a self-sufficiency is a disvalue) and vilified in the eighties as "yuppies" (as if the pursuit one's personal happiness and career success are somehow evil). But what, precisely, are the criticisms of them? The anti-achievement losers who invented and have perpetuated these terms confess a great deal in such diatribes, though they seem almost certainly oblivious to what should be cause for burning embarrassment. They hate what is best in the constituent members of that demographic: The drive to achieve, to succeed, to build, to progress, to produce. They hate the fact that vast numbers of the Left-wing boneheads who flailed around in boastful brainlessness during the hallowed 60's decade, eventually grew up. They discovered the values universal to the maintenance and furtherance of human life, and embraced those values in large part: rationality, productivity, pride (sinful!), independence (i.e. "selfishness"--doubly sinful!) The aforementioned, anti-achievement losers are reactionaries in the most profound sense: they're not only stuck in the 60's, they're rabid advocates of the ethics of Medievalism.
--Zaphod B.
(To reply, click here.)
It's not the age, it's money. The real essence of the Bobo stereotype is wealth. Rich people have always pretended to scorn material comforts without actually forgoing them; have always spouted grand rhetoric about duty and selflessness while studiously avoiding any hint of self-sacrifice; have always cast their snobbery as high-minded admiration for taste and quality; and have always taken their privileged status to be proof of their moral superiority and personal merit.
--Dan Simon
(To reply, click here.)
The author of the book sounds as though he is indignant at the idea that people might change social classes and develop a significant disposable income that they continue to use on things they had consumed in their more "bohemian" years. Are boomers supposed to change tastes from espresso to fine wine simply because their income rises? I suspect the author is offended that the class system isn't being properly reinforced by increased prosperity and is annoyed that "those people" are joining the ranks of the affluent.
--Dean
(To reply, click here.)
Boomers' "heroic" parents? The boomers don't lynch blacks, don't incarcerate Japanese-Americans, don't oppress women, don't support pollution and environmental destruction, and don't hate immigrants. Their parents (some of them, at least) did, and continued to pass laws to uphold doing these things. Thank goodness for some of what the boomers did.
--Carl Briggs
(To reply, click here.)
I happen to be one who sampled and survived, paradoxically, some of the best and the worst that the generation manifested: civil rights activism (Selma March and voter registration, '65), Eastern Ivy League college (class of '68), all of 1968, fraternity life, beer on campus/drugs in 'Nam (Army '69), homecoming to the Land of the Big PX (guns and butter in equal profusion for the first time on the planet, I'll bet), marriage, sexual orientation confusion, "open" marriage, departure from heterosexuality to homosexuality, divorce, strings of male lovers, career changes, career re-invention(s), extreme losses of friends to AIDS, a face that I now deserve, a married stepchild, addiction and recovery, spiritual awareness and a spiritual practice in middle middle age.
I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.
I do believe that as a generation we were/are deeply spoiled by plenty and by all the models of waste. And yes, what quiet heroes our parents' generation was. But we have world enough and time yet to surprise ourselves and our younger admirers/scorners/X-ers/etc. We will be old, in great numbers; some of us will also become wise.
--David B.
(To reply, click here.)
It makes we wild with exasperation when book reviewers go on and on about books that are not in the stores yet. Bobos in Paradise isn't in stock at my local bookstore yet.
--Leslie Goodman-Malamuth
(To reply, click here.)
[This posting was most unusual because it at no point attempted to define, attack or defend the boomer generation. To read the other 99% enter The Fray: who says boomers are self-obsessed? Read it, contribute--or, in the words of Barry, who says he's a Bozo, Hey, have a donut, relax... Discussion on Krispy Kremes continues here.]
(4/19)