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Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (2000)

by David Brooks

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1,5702511,367 (3.45)21
"It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. The bourgeois worked for corporations, wore gray, and went to church. The bohemians were artists and intellectuals. Bohemians championed the values of the liberated 1960s; the bourgeois were the enterprising yuppies of the 1980s." "But now the bohemian and the bourgeois are all mixed up, as David Brooks explains in this description of upscale culture in America. It is hard to tell an espresso-sipping professor from a cappuccino-gulping banker. Laugh and sob as you read about the information age economy's new dominant class. Marvel at their attitudes toward morality, sex, work, and lifestyle, and at how the members of this new elite have combined the values of the counter-cultural sixties with those of the achieving eighties. These are the people who set the tone for society today, for you. They are bourgeois bohemians: Bobos." "Their hybrid culture is the atmosphere we breathe. Their status codes govern social life, and their moral codes govern ethics and influence our politics. Bobos in Paradise is a witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age and a penetrating description of how we live now."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved… (more)
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Showing 1-5 of 25 (next | show all)
The most notable thing about this book is that it clearly is built from a series of articles strung together into a central hypothesis. There isn't terrific flow between the chapters -- the voice, style, and the goal of each chapter is highly variable and it really undermines the idea that the book is supposed to be an expose of a central social thesis.

That being said, the book is enjoyable -- there are many funny parts (although non quite as funny as Brooks seem to think) and many insightful parts. I particularly enjoyed the introduction about education, and the sections on vacations and spirituality. In contrast, the parts on business and academia were dull, repetitive and highly exaggerated. ( )
  settingshadow | Aug 19, 2023 |
Badly out of date
  j.alice | Jan 8, 2023 |
This is really a 4.5 star book but I settled on 4 in the end. It is obviously interesting and inherently unfair to judge it by reading it 16 years after it was written but so be it. I found the underlying ideas in this book to be very interesting but I occasionally found his examples to be unfair. For instance I think when traveling it DOES make sense to sometimes not go to the over popular site (the Serengeti) but instead find a less visited version of the same genre. He attributes this to a snobbism that forces one to eschew anything that is popular with the masses. I see it as a rational choice to get more out of your time, for instance in the Louvre my time in the Mona Lisa room will be measured in milliseconds. I want to see and experience things not check things off a checklist. Despite that example, I think the Travel Snob section was my favorite and his recounting of his trip to the REI store in Seattle had me laughing out loud. All in all a very insightful book and one that has caused me to do some thinking. I'll never tire of that happening to me. ( )
  MarkMad | Jul 14, 2021 |
It is really interesting to read this book in light of the fact that it was written in 2000, before the economic downturn and the popularization of idea of "emerging adulthood." Yet so many of the things that Brooks addresses in his descriptions of the "bohemian bourgeois" are similar to today's emerging adults or "hipsters" -- the socioeconomic gap between the educated and the uneducated, the disengagement with partisanship, the vast pool of potential and freedom of choice available to the children of the suburban upper-middle class, the prizing of vintage and repurposed goods (or at least those which appear so). ( )
  resoundingjoy | Jan 1, 2021 |
What kind of person buys new furniture put through a distressing procedure to make it look old? Many of us, according to author David Brooks in his book, Bobos in Paradise. With keen insight and occasional wit, he dissects the urban educated elite of today, a weird amalgam of the bourgeois and Bohemian, or “Bobo” for short. Brooks sprinkles his book with a good dollop of research, which fortifies his thesis but feels needlessly academic at times. While there is many humorous rest stop observations along the way, Brooks takes his time getting to his punch lines; for example, the telltale tendency for Bobos to feel everything in their life must be approached as if it’s an aptitude test, including comfortless vacations that serve as grueling endurance tests rather than relaxing and enjoyable getaways. If you want to know who the Bobos are around us, read this book. Be warned however, you find you’re holding a mirror. ( )
  sixslug | Jan 18, 2015 |
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I'm not sure I'd like to be one of the people featured on the New York Times weddings page, but I know I'd like to be the father of one of them.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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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 gray, and went to church. The bohemians were artists and intellectuals. Bohemians championed the values of the liberated 1960s; the bourgeois were the enterprising yuppies of the 1980s." "But now the bohemian and the bourgeois are all mixed up, as David Brooks explains in this description of upscale culture in America. It is hard to tell an espresso-sipping professor from a cappuccino-gulping banker. Laugh and sob as you read about the information age economy's new dominant class. Marvel at their attitudes toward morality, sex, work, and lifestyle, and at how the members of this new elite have combined the values of the counter-cultural sixties with those of the achieving eighties. These are the people who set the tone for society today, for you. They are bourgeois bohemians: Bobos." "Their hybrid culture is the atmosphere we breathe. Their status codes govern social life, and their moral codes govern ethics and influence our politics. Bobos in Paradise is a witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age and a penetrating description of how we live now."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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