Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks

Bobos in Paradise (by David Brooks), how do I love thee, let me count the ways!

This truly is one of the more enjoyable books I have read. On the one hand I don't want to get too overblown in my praise of the book. Chris Tucker of the Dallas Morning News has a blurb on the back that says "bobos will join preppies, yuppies, and angry white males in the American lexicon." Those are all transient categories and descriptions and I think the term "Bobo" will be similar. All of those are transient categories and I'm pretty sure they'll all fall by the wayside with use, as will the term Bobos. I'm sure that, with the pace of cultural change there will be some new term to describe some new demographic of people in the very near future.

However, for now, this book is very insightful, and just plain fun to read. It is a work of sociology, and I can't think of anything more snooze inducing than sociology. But, as the back cover of the book says, it is a work of "comic sociology." Truly it is—the little one liners that are peppered throughout the book keep you turning pages, looking for the next one.

One of the first, and one of my favorite, punch lines is on page 20. Describing the old bourgeois who hung out at "local clubs where town fathers gathered to exchange ethnic jokes and dine on lamb chops topped with canned sauces - cream of mushroom, cream of aspagus, cream of leak," Brooks comments parenthetically "People didn't worry about cholesterol then, since it had not yet become unfashionable to get sick and die."

The "town fathers" of yesteryear were the elites of society. Being "elite" in the good ol' days was all about breeding, being from the right family. Brooks talks about the weddings page of the New York Times of yesterday and how their descriptions of the bride and groom spoke mainly of their family history. Back then, if you were born into the right families you could go to the Ivy League schools. Brooks isn't really making a value judgment here, he is quite kind to the older elites, speaking of them as being generally benevolent.

Brooks also points out that during the olden days there was a pretty clear demarcation between bourgeois values and bohemian values. The elites were the bourgeois, the aristocracy of the day. Then there were the bohemians—the artists and assorted free spirits. The bohemians became the beatniks and the hippies.

Over time, the aristocracy was overtaken by a meritocracy. From the 50's till the 90's the Ivy League schools (and other colleges and universities) switched their admission procedures so that they admitted more on the basis of merit, than connections. Similarly, those who "merited" admission to colleges and universities, have "merited" admission into the power places of society. So, the elite are now, not merely a kind of "landed gentry," if they are that at all. They are those who have achieved success.

Article Author: David Wayne

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