Hello 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
