Who are bobos? What are bobos?
As one of my friends put it, rather bluntly:
"They're privileged middle-class cunts
who think they're cool"
The French were the first to embrace
the new expression to describe those
who have it all. It's radical chic
Bobo Pin-Up
Two days before the great Caucasian Caucus in Iowa,
one unusually forthcoming Obama and self-critical supporter
(the Obamanistas were by far and away
the least open to conversation and reflection)
did tell me something I already knew:
That Obama is a way for liberal and moderate whites
to “pat themselves on the back for not being too prejudiced”
Obama’s race encouraged a lot of “progressives”
not to do their homework on him
or on the U.S. political culture he reflects
The Bourgeoisie Back Obama
Who are bobos? What are bobos? As one of my friends put it, rather bluntly: "They're privileged middle-class cunts who think they're cool."
The French were the first to embrace the new expression to describe those who have it all.
The term is short for bourgeois and bohemian, two social castes no one ever expected to find mixed up together.
Bobo takes over where the old Mitterrand-era label "gauche caviar," or caviar socialist, left off. The British used the term champagne socialist. Americans call them latte liberals.
Less political and more materialistic than that group, French Bobos design their lifestyles in a mix that includes the rarest luxuries, middle-class classics, senior citizen string-collecting strategies and student-style cheap 'n' chic.
Just because Bobos are wealthy doesn't mean they have to wear establishment cashmere.
And when they haven't a fortune to spend, Bobos will invest in the latest technology or an exotic vacation and feel privileged despite a shoestring budget. Bobos have what money can't buy: almost total freedom of choice.
Bobo sightings began in the French press late last summer, but almost all the reports failed to acknowledge that the term doesn't have its origins in France.
It comes from a book by David Brooks called "Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There," published in the United States.
Brooks's definition of the group as "highly educated folk who have one foot in the bohemian world of creativity and another foot in the bourgeois realm of ambition and worldly success" outlines the happy state of contradiction Bobos enjoy on both sides of the Atlantic.
While he admits to being a Bobo himself, Brooks manages neither to defend nor condemn his hedonist cohorts.
He points out Bobos' shortcomings — "self-absorbed and narcissistic" — while praising their ability to live a pleasurable and constructive life without suffering from guilt, nor closing themselves off to outside influence.
Brooks's thesis in Bobos in Paradise was that this "new upper class" represented a marriage between the liberal idealism of the 1960s and the self-interest of the Reagan era.
Critics of Brooks's thesis argue that he did not provide an argument for why this elite was specifically "new," and that the bobo trend merely represents changing tastes and preferences of a pre-existing upper-bourgeois class (not a product of social mobility).
Bobos are noted for avoiding indulging in high acts of conspicuous consumption in favor of spending the greatest amount possible on the "necessities".
Brooks argues that they feel guilty consuming in the way typical of the so-called "greed era" of the 1980s so they prefer to spend extravagantly on kitchens, showers, and other common facilities of everyday life. They "feel" for the labor and working class but may refuse to buy American made goods.
My theory is that bobos represent the core support for Barack Obama. The most important element in that core is the so-called chattering-class bobos.
Often called the punditocracy, they are well-paid columnists for the top-end media corporations.. Like David Brooks himself, now writing for the NYT.
Brooks and his fellow pundits at The Times [Dowd, Rich, Herbert] have been avid Obama supporters. Political pundits like them are significant trendsetters. They are eagerly consumed by class-conscious bobos who are desperate to appear hip, fashionable and 'in-touch.'
They're not an official category of voters whose tally is measured in exit polls, like whites or blacks, women or men, old or young. And since they're not an official category, we may never really have the evidence.
But I have a feeling I know which group really handed Hillary Clinton - or maybe they were thinking even more of that other Clinton - her decisive loss to Barack Obama in the primary caucuses.
Call them "high-information Democrats." So-called middle-class 'progressives', both white and black, who turned out to vote for their new-found hero.
It is important to remember that western democracy is, essentially bourgeois democracy. It is the bourgeoisie who vote in large numbers. "Democracy' is run for the benefit ot the middle classes.
One of the questionable benefits of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 70s was the emergence of a well-defined black bourgeoisie.
Needless to say, bourgeois and reactionary go hand-in-hand. Obama is the 'shining' example of an African-American, middle-class, conservative, high-information Democrat. A member of the chattering class - privileged and self-important.
These are the people who follow all the ins and outs of the contest. They read The New York Times.
They watch cable television, probably Keith Olbermann first and foremost. They read blogs. They know every twist and turn, every thrust and parry.
"Obama", the brand, is a way for liberal and moderate whites to “pat themselves on the back for not being too prejudiced.”
Obama’s candidature has encouraged a lot of “progressives” not to do their homework on him or on the U.S. political culture he reflects.
Of course, it’s all premised on Obama being a "good [bourgeois and right-acting] black" – one who promises not to actually confront white supremacy in any meaningful way.
Like the white-friendly media mogul and mass Obama marketer and ally Oprah Winfrey, Obama expresses and capitalizes on whites’ partial transcendence of “level-one” state-of-mind racism.
At the same time, he reassures them he will honor their refusal acknowledge and confront the continuing power of deeper, “level two” state-of-being” - societal and institutional – racism in American life.
Barack Obama is a Great White Hope. He is perfectly suited and crafted to wrap establishment corporate politics and the related American Empire Project in rebel’s clothing.
He advances the use of race (albeit in a new and “post-Civil Rights” kind of way) to advance the top-down business-class agenda.