Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

Bobos In Paradise: A New and Funny Commentary

Bobos in Paradise is an amusing commentary on the new, younger upper class. This book is even more funny if you live in a liberal city or area where these mini essays are proven true. All of Brooks minor inspections on these people are accurate and quirky. I live in Santa Monica, CA and I live side-by-side with what I used to call yuppies but now I see them more as Bobos. These parents of my friends drive the newest hybrid vehicle, go to exotic places like Bali and Croatia for "spiritual enlightening." Brooks does not neglect any aspect of the "new upper class." He writes about how they are different from the older, more traditional affluent people. He explains how they run their businesses in a new way and what they consider appropriate to do during free time. This book gives a true insight on bourgeois bohemians.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Not Quite Paradise

One never knows what to make of David Brooks - serious thinker or comedian/satirist? Something in between? An amalgamation? Then why not amalgamate bohemians and bourgeous into 'BoBos' and come up with a tongue-in-cheek socio-comic analysis of them? That's what this book really is, and whether it is ultimately convincing or not, it is very funny and enjoyable to read. Ironically (tellingly?), the most convincing chapter (on spiritual life) has nary a single wisecrack.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Now I Know Why I Don't Like So-Called Bobo's

The Suburu driving, Starbuck sipping, uber liberals come alive in this book and now I know why I sit and laugh at the Bobo's as I slurp my Frap at the local Starbucks... uh-oh... I guess I'm a fringe Bobo myself... excellent read... should be mandatory for any Sociology 101 class.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Holding Up A Mirror to our BoBo-ness...

This book is worth the sit...I am a President of Sales & Marketing (a corporate Bobo)and could only smile at the observations being made. Brooks' insight and acute perceptions are funny...I laughed aloud on the part about consumption and the appliances we now use to stock our kitchens. A supreme intellectual blend of the last five decades without boring the hell out you.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Say what you like about Bobos . . .

Last year I wondered in my review for the hardbound version of 'Bobos in Paradise' whether the term 'Bobo' would catch on, like 'Yuppie' or 'Highbrow.' Gloriosky, it has: last week (St. Patrick's Day 2001) I read a newspaper article that mentioned 'bobos, yuppies and the traditional upper-middle class.' Apparently whoever wrote that piece had sorted out the border-rich by age: bobos: 25-35; yuppies: 35-55 (roughly following accepted sociological age norms); trad. upper-middle class (a/k/a 'bourgeoise'): 55 and up (one can join the AARP at 55). I write this because author David Brooks seems to treat Bobos as a new phenomenon but he doesn't specifically give age thresholds for Bobodom. 'Bobos in Paradise' is a work of amusing pop sociology, not a work of serious sociology housebroken for a mass audience like, say, 'Bowling Alone.' But Brooks has set himself out quite a row to hoe: he has to identify and type a stereotype in the making, establish it in our minds, then satirize and mock it without inciting envy on our part. It is not too surprising that he only partially succeeds. When he is good, he is very, very witty, but when he isn't witty he is boring. 'Bobo' is Brooks' acronym for a BOUrgeois BOhemian, a synthesis of 1980s Reaganism and 1960s Woodstockery, the folks he says are running the country today. Bobos are new money--the meritocracy of smart folk who have become rich as fast-track professionals, clever enterpreneurs, start-up capitalists, breakthrough designers, or visionaries like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Some Bobos are capitalistic hippies and some are mellowed-out business people; Bobo is their common meeting ground. Owing to their polarized cultural/economic heritage, Bobos are mixed metaphors, oxymoronic people. Drawing art from life, Brooks claims that Bobos love oxymoronic concepts and socioeconomic directives like 'sustainable develop-ment,' 'cooperative individualism,' 'planned synergy' and 'liberation management.' (But not, thank the Lord, 'compassionate conservatism.') Reconciliation is high on the Bobo list of virtues; top-down managerial authority styles are often frowned on as counterproductive and alienating. Americans love to hear and read about social class, and lacking castes as in India or inherited class/rank as in the U.K., we look to consumption patterns to rank us. (Just think of the Lacoste/Izod shirt alligator.) Bobos also know their Veblen and they dislike showing off in glitzy displays of conspicuous consumption. But since they have to show off somehow, Cadillacs and Mercedes are out, outsized SUV's are in. Jewelry is out, eco-tourism is in. Bobos buy the same things the rest of us do (bread, chicken, coffee) but pay from 3 to 10 times the mass-market price in search of something better, even if they have to justify it by calling it organic, free-range, or just more planet-friendly. In a pinch, I suppose, a really adept Bobo can pay too much for a nationally advertised brand from a ma-and-pa grocery store under the pretext of supporting local business and shunning that nasty plebeian Wal-Mart. Major portions of 'Bobos in Paradise' are a laugh-aloud hoot. Brooks' satire is delicious. Bobos install AGA ranges in their kitchens that could boil water for macaroni and cheese 'in seven seconds' if necessary. Although America teems with the newly rich, Bobos are most easily spotted in 'Latte Towns' like Madison, Wisconsin or Northampton, Massachusetts. Ideally, such venues have 'a Swedish-style government, German-style pedestrian malls, Victorian houses, Native American crafts, Italian coffee, Berkeley human rights groups, and Beverly Hills income levels.' That's where you'll see the businessman wearing hiking boots patiently explaining 401(k) plans to the aging hippie who's making a killing selling bicyles, or software, or sandwiches. The funny satiric tone drops down into mere good-hearted reportage when Brooks talks about American intellectual life

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Entertaining, but fantasy or fact?

'Bobos in Paradise' starts out at an exciting pace that would seem to draw all readers to the appeal of Brooks' portrayal of the new ascendant ruling class. BoBos, formed by a combination of good schooling, high salaries, and beliefs without conviction, have supplanted the traditional stuffy image of the wealthy and have even taken over their neighborhoods with their muddy Rovers. Brooks' analysis of this new class is an entertaining and easy read but leaves the reader thinking, 'Is this guy for real?' BoBos are experts in everything but are actually mere dilettantes without strong beliefs or values -- except for amassing sums of wealth. The emergent class, sadly, is thus composed of typical Americans who just happened to excel in school and have more money to finance more expensive lifestyles. For example, according to Brooks, an academic in his right mind would form (or has formed) his image and messages in a way to garner the most notoriety and cable news slots. Of course, the academic (he gives an example of a family with 180K net income)is still dwarfed by the mega-wealthy with whom he rubs elbos who live on Chicago's gold coast while the professor goes back grudgingly to her 'diversified neighborhood'. The academic would have been an international financier if she, I paraphrase, 'could work with numbers'. BoBos in Paradise can be taken two ways, depending on your slant: (1) Brooks might be right on the money in describing a new wealthy class, which would speak volumes with regard to American society; or (2) Brooks has missed some fundamental redeeming quality of BoBos that would have described the emergent class in a better light.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

IT WAS LONG AND BORING

Bobos in Paradise was long and boring, and what kind of author is David that the book is not about a continous story that finishes to the last page. Yes, some parts of these essays were interesting, but a bunch of facts that were useless, though David did use them well to make his point. If you are not in your twenties or do not like read essays, then a word of advice... DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. If it is up to me, I would not chosen this book, I only read this book because it is a requirement in A.P. English.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Humorous Satire of the Educated Elite's Aspirations

You get two books for the price of one here. The overall book explains how the social elite was transformed from old family, old money lineage to a mass elite based on education and social values. David Brooks isn't sure he likes the new elite, and lampoons them as savagely as Swift did the English aristocracy. Whether or not you agree with his criticisms, the material is often very funny and could serve as a comic's monologue. His point is a subtle one that many will mistake. He is describing the arrival of an educational elite as the reigning class. Those who are older will get the Bohemian part of Bobo -- they've all seen pictures of the Village in the 50s or read On the Road. It's the other 'bo' that will confuse some people about this book. It stands for Bourgeois. To Brooks, Bourgeois is concerned with all the classic middle class values -- income, savings, uprightness, proper appearance and behavior in public, and hard work. Elites have always wanted to be set apart from those values, even though they might have to espouse them in public. So it's interesting that this new elite is connected to these values. His thesis is actually pretty good. In these politically correct times, educated people have been conditioned since that first preschool class to look down on traditional patterns of the rich and powerful. When they, in turn, become rich and powerful, they want to have a little fun with it, but have to put on a social mask to make that fun acceptable. A variety of things work in this context: being environmentally sound; politically correct; and not having any connection to a status symbol of the old elites. Naturally, it's a cynical view that all of this is posturing. I'm sure that most of what people do is actually based on their own firm values about having a healthier, more open, and environmentally safer world. One of the funniest parts of the book for me was how status and money play off against one another. It's okay to make a lot of money, but you have to do it in a noncommercial way to be esteemed. A writer can have a best seller about ecology and have high status, while a script writer for a James Bond movie might make 100 times the money and have very little status. Despite enjoying the humor, I'm not offended by that result. The connection from where we were in the 1950s and earlier is much too long, and isn't really very necessary. The fundamental contradictions of the current lifestyle of Bobos has to be funny to almost everyone, including the Bobos. The book could have done a lot more to talk about how the fusion of the two sets of ideals could be made better for all concerned. Hearing about the meetings of the leather-clad people to do B & D soon becomes tiresome. Surely all of this energy can be directed into something more wholesome! Perhaps the funniest story in the book was about the woman who builds her dream house in Montana, and the Grim Reaper calls. I won't spoil it for you, but be sure to read that section near the end. Enjoy . . . even if the humor is at your own expense! Learning to laugh at ourselves is a great lesson. Donald Mitchell, co-author of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise

Gets Old Fast ...

This book has its moments but for the most part is just tiresome, pedantic ribble-rabble. The material would make a great New Yorker article (and maybe already has) but is a real stretch to turn into a book.

More than interesting, less than a hit

Like the little girl with the golden curl, 'Bobos in Paradise' can be very, very good but when it is bad it is . . . well, not horrid, but somewhat beside the point. The author makes a pretty good case that a new socionomic caste has emerged in America not to be confused with Yuppies or the traditional upper-middle elite. He calls them 'Bobos', an acronym for BOurgeois BOhemian. Think of the head of a software company worth millions who rides a bike to work and espouses casual Fridays (on the west coast, perhaps casual everyday) and you'll begin to understand that there is no longer much of a split between the enterpreneurs of the 1980s and the mellowed-out hippies of the 1960s. Bobos are distinctive for many reasons. For example, they have narrowly prescribed ways of showing off. Never a Cadillac, not even a Mercedes. But a huge imported SUV is okay. An industrial-strength range in the kitchen is nice, even if you never use one. Going to Vegas is tacky, but spending an equivalent amount on a new shower stall is simply showing concern for one's own space. To show how our culture got where it is, Brooks has to show where we've been, and he spends a great deal of time (too much, in my opinion) talking about the intellectuals of the 1950s). He's quite sincere about this, but it is of limited utility in this book, and more to the point it isn't funny. And the whole point of a satire is to be funny, isn't it? So I couldn't go the full five stars. But be on the lookout--you'll start seeing references to Bobos in print media if you haven't already.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Insightful, but not necessarily academic

Upon completion of Bobos, one thing is certain. You will never view the world, or the recent history of US culture, in the same manner. Those tv ads for mundane things like cookies and stockbrokers that are accompanied by riffs of aging boomer rockers will disgust you in a way that you've never been disgusted before. Brooks succinctly points out the blatant materialism of the baby boomers, yet overlooks that it really is just that. While grappling for deeper meaning by tying a bohemian culture of liberal open-mindedness, he neglects to discuss that this rampant spending on overpriced items is merely the avarice and excess of the Eighties cloaked in a search for spirituality, concern for the common person, etc. One gets the feeling that he actually believes that the Bobos have these conscious views, when they are merely showing their goods as ostentatiously as previous generations of wealthy individuals. It is unfortunate that this search for deeper meaning continues throughout the book, painting a slightly skewed picture of the American landscape. There are many points in the book during which you will be nodding your head in agreement with Brooks; however, there are times when you will want to throw down the book and say 'this is untrue!' Such inconsistencies are what prevent this book from being outstanding. The ponderous stories of wealthy habits have a way of leaning too far in the direction of opinion only and not fact. Nonetheless, it is an interesting read that will impact your outlook on the aging yuppies and their homogenization of all things creative and artful into a contradictory, mass-production of so-called quality and uniqueness.

I found out who I am

I have never read such a fantastic book. Despite the situations of many countries differ, I found myself in the book. The book awakened me a new self identitiy.....

Strange Trip

Brooks' book is a realization, albeit somewhat more cerebral, of Hunter S. Thompson's predictions in 'Fear and Loathing' and other writings with respect to the Boomer/Bobo generation. The peace generation is finally at peace with itself. 'Bobos' is a deft, witty window into the contemporary American upper class mores and values as we head into the next century. The only question is how far those values will take us into the new millenium.

An Interesting Essay in Comic Sociology.

This book explains the contradictions of the new 'upper class', which Brooks calls Bobos, short for bourgeois bohemians, and how they have combined the ethos of the eighties with the idealism of the sixties. The author displays a great sense of humor when he describes today's executive as having gone from SDS to CEO and from LSD to IPO. A neoconservative, Brooks celebrates this transformation and cites Cesar Grana's 1964 work, Bohemians versus Bourgeois, which described the intellectuals' contempt of bourgeois culture in early 19th Century France. You may also recall that Thorstein Veblen in his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), used the satirical concept of conspicuous consumption to explain why people acquire goods for their status rather than for their utility. Since then, other writers have tried to do the same. However, Brooks, who is obviously one of them, is ambivalent about the Bobos' behavior and it is left to the reader to decide whether the Bobos are enlightened revolutionaries or revolutionaries who have sold out. It is ironic that having praised the virtues of Bobos' lifestyles, at the end Brooks seems to be afraid that 'we are threatened with a new age of complacency'. Are the Bobos exhausted already or are they shallow yuppies? Nevertheless, the book is indeed comic sociology worth reading.

A new name for an old problem

This book is an excellent read for the younger generation who want to know what happened to all the idealists from their parent's generation.It should come as no surprise to we few remaining hippies from the 60's that our enemy is still among us. We used to call them 'Sell-outs.' David Brooks has proven, once again, that a break to live (not vacation) in Europe brings reawakened senses and clear eyes with which to view the problems of the greatest nation on Earth.This is also an excellent read for the rest of the Baby Boomers as it may serve as a wake-up call and put us back on the path to working at solving some of these problems not just working for a living.

Bons Snobs?

Having heard David Brooks twice on Public Radio in one week, I was warming up to the idea of purchasing and publically reviewing the book. Now after reading the reviews I'm freezing up: my audience is interested in the dangers of religion on society and this author only addresses it in one word: 'flexidoxy'.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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