Bobos in Paradise

In this witty report, Brooks identifies the Bobos, bourgeois bohemians, the new strivers whose culture, tastes and attitudes have replaced the older elite by melding into the bohemians.

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It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. The bourgeois worked for corporations, wore grey, and went to church. The bohemians were the artists and intellectuals. Bohemians championed the values of the radical 1960's; bourgeois were the enterprising yuppies of the 1980's. Now the 'bo's' are all mixed up and it is impossible to tell an expresso sipping artist from a cappuccino-gulping banker. In attitudes toward sex, morality, leisure time and work, it is hard to separate the renegade from the company man. The new establishment has combined the countercultural sixties and the achieving eighties into one social ethos. These Bobos define our age. Their hybrid culture is the atmosphere we breathe, their status codes govern social life and their moral codes govern ethics and influence our politics. Our hybrid Bobo culture is going to be dominating society for a long time to come. Read all about it in this serious and witty essay on how we live now.