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Story By Emmjay*
The French have much to teach Australia. They have worked out the sociopolitical landscape and like Bedouins, have struck their social networks and disappeared into the desert night, well before the Kangaroos have hopped into the oasis.
But we are smart marsupials and we have the capacity to learn, if not exactly quickly, at least eventually.
There are two beautifully apt French slang terms that describe our political landscape – and the general state of disrepair of our contemporary political discourse.
“Bobo” is an acronym for “Bourgeois Bohemian” or loosely interpreted – people who talk left but walk right.
“What ? Is he talking about Kevin?” I hear you ask.
And “Catofascio” refers to “Catholic Fascist” – or someone who talks Catholic but walks even further right.
“No ! Surely he’s not talking about Tony” I hear you protest.
How could the French have seen this coming ? Is LePen mightier than the sword ?
Will we ever escape this rapidly drying up oasis in such an arid clime ?
OK Australia, start looking for tracks in the sand, and get used to grit in the sandwiches for the foreseeable future.
* Thanks to Maciej for the Informacio
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Review of David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There
J. Bradford DeLong
………………………….
I read the cover flap of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, David Brooks’s work of “comic sociology”–a (much funnier and wittier) updating of C. Wright Mills’s The Power Elite. I chuckled at the cover flap’s pointing out that the “Bobos”–bourgeois bohemians, Brooks’s semi-acronym for America’s new dominant class–regard extravagant spending on luxuries as vulgar, but extravagant spending on high-quality versions of “utilitarian” necessities as praiseworthy.
I began chapter 1. Brooks was describing his reactions to reading the New York Times wedding announcements page:
When America had a pedigreed elite, the [New York Times wedding announcements page] emphasized noble birth and breeding. But in America today it’s genius and geniality that enables you to join the elite…. [On] the Times weddings page, you can almost feel the force of the mingling SAT scores. It’s Dartmouth marries Berkeley, MBA weds Ph.D…. and summa cum laude embraces summa cum laude (you rarely see a summa settling for a magna–the tension in such a marriage would be too great).
I (B.A. summa cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard, M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard) looked across the bedroom at my wife (B.A. summa cum laude in American Studies from Amherst, M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, J.D. from Harvard Law School). I looked up at the $750 ceiling fan in our bedroom. (It is a true necessity in our un-airconditioned house for about two months a year–vastly more effective at cooling our top-floor bedroom than the old $200 ceiling fan it replaced). I thought: “Bingo. This guy David Brooks has just reduced me to a sociological category.” I thought “this is a book to pay attention to.”
And it did turn out to be quite a good book.
On one level, the book is about upper-class taste and style in America at the beginning of the twentieth century. It used to be that upper-class style was based on the display of wealth: the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island; the lines of Cadillacs; the power to import large chunks of Italian palazzi and install them on a hilltop. Now upper-class style has changed: it is based on the display of sufficient taste to know what the best is and to choose it–whether the best coffee, the best parka, the best food, the best building materials, or whatever. One knows enough to know that the best cup of iced coffee is a “a vente almond frappuccino made from the Angolan shade-grown blend with raw sugar.” It is not OK to spend extravagantly on something for display along; it is OK to spend extravagantly on something that is useful in enhancing one’s authentic personality.
Brooks believes that this new sense of taste and style is the result of the collision of the “Bohemian” culture of authenticity with the “bourgeois” culture of sober achievement, and that the “Bobos” are the first group that have found a way to be both authentic, spontaneous, and creative on the one hand and disciplined, industrious, and prosperous on the other.
The problem with this, of course, is that for most upper-class buyers a Range Rover is not a tool to use in off-road wilderness exploration (although it is for my uncle W. Bradford DeLong) but something to drive the kids to kindergarten. A Wolf range is used not to run a restaurant in your home but stand idle while people who work too late bring home Chinese food, or just go out to dinner. Brooks is well aware of this. His dissection of how necessary a well-stocked ice-axe section is to an outdoor-supply store that sells to Bobos who have only seen a glacier from the deck of a cruise ship is hilarious. The best parts of the book are those in which Brooks mocks the tendency of Bobos to buy state-of-the-industrial-art heavy-duty tools–of any kind–that will rarely or never see their designed-for use. The best parts expose the hollowness of the claim that upper-class style and taste combine Bohemian and bourgeois cultures: the bourgeois is there, but it is coupled not with Bo- but with Fauxhemianism.
Yet in spite of this–in spite of the social waste and onanistic narcissism of $15,000 slate shower stalls to get in touch with “nature”–in the last analysis Brooks approves of his Bobos. The book is not, at bottom, a critique but a celebration of Bobohood.
Why? Because Brooks is a conservative. And he faces the standard problem faced by conservatives in America. Conservatives like the past. They celebrate the wisdom in hierarchy and tradition. They celebrate order, and fight change. But in America the tradition is one of democracy and mobility. Our tradition is to be untraditional. Our stability is to always be turning society head-over-heels. Thus conservatism in America inevitably falls into incoherence, soon followed by a nervous breakdown–conservatives find themselves either calling for radical change in America to reduce democratic influences or celebrating our tradition of overturning traditions. Neither position is comfortable.
Brooks wants to celebrate America’s aristocracy: those who, in a long passage he quotes from Edmund Burke’s Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs, are:
…bred in a place of estimation… see nothing low and sordid from one’s infancy… taught to respect oneself… stand on such elevated ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the widespread and infinitely diversified combinations of men and affairs in a large society; to have leisure to read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw the court and attention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found… to be taught to despise danger in the pursuit of honor and duty… to possess the virtues of diligence, order, constancy, and regularity, and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative justice: these are the circumstances of men that form what I should call a natural aristocracy, without which there is no nation…
For Brooks, because his Bobos are powerful, rich, and influential–and because he is a conservative–they must have the virtues that Burke ascribes to an aristocracy. Therefore Brooks must praise them.
But what is the connection between Burke’s “natural aristocracy” (which existed mostly in Burke’s own fantasies) and the SUV-driving, $500 hiking boot-wearing, satisfied lawyer who will drink only shade-grown coffee who is the ideal type of Brooks’s Bobo? The resemblance between Burke’s fantasy and Brooks’s Bobo exists only in Brooks’s mind. And it is the fact that Brooks cannot quite make the leap–cannot quite feel toward what he sees as America’s new aristocracy the way a conservative should–that makes the book feel, in the end, a little bit unbalanced. Brooks cannot quite accept the fact that the idol he worships has such feet of clay, and that the feet of clay are so large…
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I thought that JL might have a comment on this one?
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Must be caught up with that ‘champagne’ television show, Masterchef.
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David Brooks, “Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There”
Raom House | 2001 | ASIN: B00005AAQ6 |
How Boomers are blending the rebellion of the 60s with the materialism of the 80s to create a Bourgeois Bohemian culture.
It used to be easy to distinguish between the bourgeois and bohemians. Now they’re all mixed up and you can’t tell an espresso-sipping potter from a cappuccino-drinking banker.
Old categories:
Bourgeois: the square ones
– defenders of the tradition and middle class morality
– work for corporations and went to church
– perceived as uptight and boring by bohemians
Bohemians: the free spirited 60s generation
– flouted convention
– the artists and intellectuals – beats and hippies
Late 1990s cultural landscape:
– all bourgeois and bohemian styles mixed up
– bankers sit in coffeehouses listening to alternative music
– Apple and Gap cite Gandhi and Kerouac
– Crate and Barrell – chopping tables fashioned copied from farms of French peasant styles = A year in Provence but prices say: Two Decades Out of Medical School
More than a matter of fashion accessories
BOBO culture = synthesis of bohemian and bourgeois values permeates attitudes towards sex, morality, leisure time, work, pleasure, ambition, politics, and even God can’t distinguish between anti-establishment renegade and pro-establishment company man
Culture war between 60s Woodstock generation and 80s Reaganites
But mainstream boomers adopt attitudes and lifestyles of both
BOBOs are richer and more worldly than hippies but more spiritualized than the stereotypical Yuppies
BOBO culture = final resting spot for the baby boomer generation
…
HISTORY and EVOLUTION
Boomers born into world dominated by WASP aristocracy – late 40s, 50s, 60s
Entered college in 60s and rebelled against WASP values and establishment
Core of radicalism = challenge WASP notion of success
WASP affluence ‡ bohemian reject materialism
WASP politeness ‡ bohemian rawness
WASP chaste pretensions ‡ bohemian promiscuous pretensions
WASP success ‡ bohemian “dropout” of rat race; retreated into communes
Utopianism not popular among college grads
By late 80s INFORMATION AGE economy kicked in and rewarded education with dough
Anti-materialist boomers now rolling in stock options
INFO Economy allowed boomers to make money without abandoning their artistic/rebel roots
Ideas and knowledge as vital as natural resources and financial capital
New buzz words of 90s ‡ “INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL” and “CULTURE INDUSTRY”
Synergism between bohemian creativity and bourgeois marketplace
Anxieties of affluence: how to spend new wealth without betraying bohemian values
…
CODE OF FINANCIAL CORRECTNESS
1.Only vulgarians spend lavish amounts of money on luxuries. Cultivate people restrict
their lavish spending on necessities
$25K bathroom OK; $15K home entertainment system is crass
$10K outdoor Jacuzzi is crass; $20K slate shower stall =appreciate simple rhythms of life
$65K Range Rover > $60K Porsche
2. It is perfectly acceptable to spend lots of money on anything that is of “professional quality,” even if it has nothing to do with your profession
$300 industrial strength toasting system > $30 toaster
$55 gourmet gardening tools > $6 Kmart hoe
3. You must practice the perfectionism of small things
Right pasta drainer, distinctive doorknob, ingeniously designed cork-screws, Swiss-made KWC faucet
No gaudy possessions that make extravagant statements – crass, trying to impress
Go for rare gadgets not discovered by masses
4. You can never have too much texture.
80s Yuppies = polished lacquer floors, sleek faux-marbleized walls
BOBOs: texture i.e. roughness and irregularities connotes authenticity and virtue
5. The educated elites are expected to practice one-downmanship.
Repelled by idea of keeping up with Joneses
Reject status symbols
Possessions – furnishings, appliances ‡ more peasantry, expresses simplicity
Prize old things – timeless by their obsolescence
– turn-of-century carpentry tools, butter churns, etc
Co-optation of oppressed cultures ‡ reject European aristocratic styles; African mask, Inca statute,
Tibetan cloth
6. Educated elites are expected to spend huge amounts of money on things that used to be cheap.
Reject foie gras, caviar, truffles
Go for same items as the proletariat
– chicken legs: free range chicken
– potatoes: distinctive miniature from northern France
– lettuce: flimsy cognoscenti lettuces
Beauty of this strategy:
Allows BOBOs to be egalitarian and pretentious at the same time!
7. Members of the educated elite prefer stores that give more product choices than they could ever
want but which don’t dwell on anything so vulgar as prices.
Distinguished by not only WHAT they but also by HOW they buy; avoid mass-marketed products
Beer: order one of 16,000 microbrews, winter ales, Belgian lagers, blended wheats
Coffee: order a double espresso, half-decaf-half caffeinated, with mocha and room for milk
Markets now offer dozen of varieties of rice, milk, tomatoes, mushrooms, hot sauces, beans, even
iced tea (>50 flavors of Snapple!)
…
Midas in reverse:
Marx: bourgeois takes all that is scared and makes it profane
BOBOs take everything that is profane and make it sacred
– something that might have been grubby and materialistic and turned it into something elevated
BOBOs take the quintessential bourgeois activity, shopping and turn it into quintessential bohemian
activities: art, philosophy, social action.
BOBOs posses the Midas touch in reverse. Everything BOBOs handle turns into soul.
BOBOs turn the world upside down and transform sector after sector of American life:
BOBOs found web-page design firms and remain artists and still drive a Lexus
BOBOs turn university towns like Palo Alto and Princeton into entrepreneurial centers
BOBOs reconcile highbrow with high tax bracket
BOBOs reconciled undergrad casual fashions with upper-income occupations
CEOs and management gurus talk about smashing the status quo and crushing the establishment:
Tom Peters: “Destruction is cool”
Lucent Technologies: “Born to be Wild”
Burger King: “Sometimes You’ve Gotta to Break the Rules
BOBOs invaded the business world and brought their counter-cultural mental framework with them
1967 book by Kenneth Keniston, “Young Radicals”
..”.. in manner and style, these young radicals are extremely personalistic, focused on face-to-face, direct
amd open relationshis with other people; hostile to formally structured roles and traditional
bureaucratic patters of power and authority”
This sums up the management philosophy that prevails today in corporate America – and oddly it works
as a profit-maximizing tool.
Social critic: hippie culture will undermine capitalist culture
1990s reality: merger of these two cultures has produced a synergy which has unleashed an
unprecendented period of business innovation and producitivty.
…
BOBOs and spirituality
Boomers rejected the too conformist world of the 60s and sought greater individualism and selfexpression.
In spiritual pursuits ‡seought the transcendent experiences and pure freedom ‡ New Age and Eastern Mysticism
But found that individualistic spirituality is very hard to pass down to your kids ‡ many now reluctantly
returning to the institutionalized faiths they once rejected – doing so for the sake of the kids!
FLEXIDOXY: rabbi preaching a style of Judaism
Starts with flexibility and freedom and a desire to ground spiritual life within tangible reality, ordained
rituals and binding connections that are based on deeper ties thant rationalaity and choice
…
DANGER OF BOBOism
Could result in national shallowness and disengagement with corporate life
Aim for decency but not saintliness, civility but not truth
Too pragmatic a lifestyle resulting in an
Age of Complacency – too comfortable and soft
Lost faith in public institutions and many private ones
Healthy skepticism , corrosive negativism
Consumed by pursuits of the good life … to the neglect of patriotic service and the challenges of national life and global leadership
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Is this all from the book? I must say that everytime I read any comment or accusation aimed at Boomers I get very angry. This doesn’t help much. I do not and never will plonk any generation into some warped single view of what they represent (I include X Y Z and wonder why War Babies and Depression generations get off so lightly – Howard was born on the eve of WW2 and I don’t think any Liberal MP ever fought in WW2 or Vietnam etc).
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This is what the book is about, Vivienne. I didn’t read it yet! I found about it today. I am sure there is a download version somewhere. I think it is aimed at those Bobos and not all
Baby Boomers. I am one of the BBs for instance and quite different than our *pal* over there.
🙂
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Different from.
All my still living boomer pals are just great and have great kids too. Generous and hardworking and all to the left. Still real feminists and original greens. Most are widowed or divorced and never re-married or partnered up.
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Thanks for the correction, Vivienne. I was typing and listening to Michael Buble singing “sway with me”, at the same time 🙂
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It’s American stuff creeping in. Makes you question yourself. At that time I was at Independent Australia enjoying some fine like minds.
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Man, O man. I can’t wait to share this with my source. I know he’ll fall off his perch. Thanks heaps, hph !
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You are welcome, Mick.
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people who talk left but walk right. => Social Democrats in Europe & Australia
Generally they bend whichever direction the political-wind blows!
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“Bobo” is an acronym for “Bourgeois Bohemian” or loosely interpreted – people who talk left but walk right.
Bobo! .. Hah haa .. I like this. I learn something new everyday.
Thanks, Emmjay 🙂
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It will be either Kevin Abbott, or Tony Rudd at the helm, steering the Good Ship Austraya f!@# knows where!
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Kevin Abbott, or Tony Rudd at the helm,
This is a good one, too. Thanks Big M
Can I use it at The Dumb?
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You can use anything you like at The Bum!
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Dear me – my first dog – I named him BoBo. He was a ‘sausage’ dog.
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Down at our local shops 4 Nazi mushrooms are standing there with their how to votes. I watched them one moved to replace the sandwich board that had fallen over. In the 15 minutes I was there I didn’t see them hand out anything or even talk to anyone.
Along come the Labor party people complete with balloons and dog bed for the dog. Of course they’d start talking to people and handing out their how to votes. Says it all really say it with dogs.
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There’s a nice article on dogs ‘n’ pollies here: https://theconversation.com/politics-on-four-legs-presidents-and-their-pets-17306
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Did you notice one of the dogs was called Bo.
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Yes, I find the Presidential-dog-ownership thing quite fascinating!
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It’s clear that the right has gone right off the planet. They are going into boat buying in Indonesia. Already thousands are queueing up with a quick antique varnish over a few rotten planks hoping to impress Morrison in handing over a couple of grand.
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…right off the planet? …More likely right off the Solar System. I wonder how many people out of 240 million own old boats, not to mention those who don’t own are now preparing to pull down their old timber huts to construct makeshift ones. They are going to keep a close eye on our elections and if I were an owner of a hardware store near the coast there, I would immediately stock up with nails.
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I don’t see the left/right division as the poor/rich division.
I see the left/right division as cares for others/ cares only for one self.
Many very wealthy people are often Labor voters, many poor uncaring people vote Liberal, because they are foolish and believe their lot will improve under Liberal…
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Here in Newcastle, we have/had Greg Combet. Just up the road we have Bob Baldwin, Liberal Member for Patterson. Both are great blokes, both strive to raise money for hospitals, schools, even local parks, etc. Both are well spoken and respectful of each other, as well as the local press, council, etc. Why can’t the rest of them be like that?
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Dire times ahead indeed.
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I suppose the one possible upside will be that when the media wants to put the Christmas hold on the government, at least it wont be our team’s eyes watering.
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Well I suppose their sponsors might get a little nasty when they blow raspberries at them, then wonder why the tirade of abuse. I also can’t see the boy lover, burping its daliy abuse either.
Then I suppose they’d be saying it would be other sides fault.
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Seems apt.
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Minimalist comment 🙂
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I’m good at that.
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Sometimes.
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Bow to great exponent 🙂
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