Dirty Secret
Readers may recall our various, quite lengthy discussions regarding the desperately bohemian Laurie Penny and her enthusiasm for supposedly radical lifestyles, which often entail parasitism and tend to have ruinous effects on those born without means:
Laurie is following the standard trajectory of her type. Her status and career would have been much less likely without the very same bourgeois values she claims to despise and urges others to reject. If instead of a stable, rather comfortable middle-class upbringing she’d been raised in keeping with her own professed values – say, by a welfare-dependent single parent with multiple transient partners and no stability or commitment – I somehow doubt she’d have been able to spend time at Wadham College finding herself politically and playing “riot girl.” And I doubt she’d now be able to flit around the world while tweeting about how oppressed she is.
Likewise, her self-imagined role as a wordsmith revolutionary would be much harder to sustain without a great many other people cultivating those same bourgeois values and keeping things ticking over. A fact that Laurie counts on, despite her pretence. In effect, we, the bourgeois rubes whose values she rails against, are her safety net. The fact that few of us are credulous enough to take her at her words and follow her advice is what allows her to mouth it in relative comfort and security, knowing that the destruction of capitalism, marriage and the family unit (and all that would go with it), which she claims to want, won’t happen just yet.
Well, a self-styled bohemian type seems to agree:
I’m a Boho, and square society should indulge and appreciate Boho contributions, IMHO. But I also think that Boho values are RUINOUS for everyday people. Seriously: for 5% of us, living the Boho way is excellent, but for most people Boho values and life-techniques will wreck them. That’s where I differ hugely from my fellow Bohos: I WANT square society to prosper, to be proud, to do a good square job, etc. Bohemia (which I love and am committed to) is dependent on a vigorous, healthy conventional society. It ain’t the reverse! Don’t let me down, squares.
At least the honesty is refreshing.
Laurie Penny doesn’t really seem very bohemian to me, she is too rigidly conventional for that game.
Laurie Penny doesn’t really seem very bohemian to me, she is too rigidly conventional for that game.
She’s not a very flexible thinker, or particularly convincing. Hence desperately bohemian. There is, I think, an air of neediness, of very much wanting to be seen as counter-cultural, and Laurie uses the word “radical” – about herself – with comical frequency. All while following the trajectory of countless other middle-class lefties who pretended the same things.
Laurie Penny doesn’t really seem very bohemian to me, she is too rigidly conventional for that game.
Exactly. Like so much of the contemporary left, Laurie is starchy, priggish and unimaginative.
That’s why the left these days are so ghastly. They’re not only wrong about most things, but they’re also pitilessly dull and lifeless. Bohemian, they are not.
I’m a Boho, and square society should indulge and appreciate Boho contributions…
“Bohemian” I don’t think that word means what Ray thinks it means. “Poseur Bohemian”, maybe.
Just because no Laurie Penny thread should be without the classics.
I suspect there are as many “trust fund” Bohemians as there are “trust fund” artists. And they’ve all jetted off to Burning Man this week, where they gather to preen in their specialness.
Good bohos are seen but not heard. The best bohos are neither.
Welcome back!
Somebody left the lid off the pickled “egg” jar, and Cuddles got out, and, um—well, it’s all in the lawyer’s letter.
But we did use coasters. Really. We did.
But we did use coasters. Really. We did.
I’m still surveying the wreckage.
I suspect that Laurie and the other self-styled “bohemians” actually fear being too successful. That is, their self-worth is derived from being countercultural–i.e. “other.” If everyone’s doing it, it is no longer special, is it?
Second, they know that only a robust, “square” society can/will tolerate and indulge their Che Guevara LARPing. Venezuela doesn’t need a lot of overwrought, self-indulgent think pieces in the local papers or preening television interviews at the moment.
Since Cuddles hasn’t been recaptured, should we invite Laurie over for Happy Hour? To see how self-indulgent she can be while running for her life?
Also, the henchlesbians refuse to clean up the wreckage without hazardous duty pay. Should we engage a bunch of desperate fools—I mean, an outside hazmat team—instead?
Oh. I thought we’d finally got off the blacklist. Never mind.
And they’ve all jetted off to Burning Man this week, where they gather to preen in their specialness.
Oh, yes, the bohos and other hipsters do go to Burning Man these days, where with apparently very rare exceptions, the actual artists who founded Burning Man don’t bother any more and haven’t been there in years . . .
When I first heard of Burning Man—because I was doing some project work with said founders and we were all quite within walking range of a Bart station, instead of heading off to the middle of nowhere—the overall assessment was already that Yeah, well, it just hasn’t been the same since they banned the drive by shooting range.
There’s a kind of a credit bubble to do with being a rebel. Like attending college, it’s being encouraged for everybody and not just those with a gift for it. There’s no price to pay upfront, and the long term risks are soft pedaled, so deluded young wannabes end up making lifetime commitments that they’re unsuited for.
The culture supports this bubble by presenting scenarios where the rebel enjoys both the thrill of being “subversive” and the final security of conventional success and social approval. The rebel in James Dean movies ends up dead or in jail. The rebel in Robin Williams movies ends up being applauded by the professional colleagues he thumbed his nose at. Modern Hollywood rebels can trade in their hot rod for a Rolls Royce. It’s not a realistic life plan, unless the hot rodder is a rich kid who’s slumming it.
The job of the squares in a “vigorous, healthy conventional society” is to apply skepticism and social disapproval to wannabe rebels. This scares away the phony rebels who are really just conformist, and ensures that the real rebels have paid a price and are prepared for the life they’ve chosen.
Oh, yes, the bohos and other hipsters do go to Burning Man these days…
In style, of course. This is how I’d imagine Ms. Penny and company arriving:
https://monarchairgroup.com/burning-man-private-jet-and-air-charter-flights/
P.S. That drive-by shooting range sounds fun!
There’s a kind of a credit bubble to do with being a rebel. Like attending college, it’s being encouraged for everybody and not just those with a gift for it.
The read I’ve gotten over time is not so much of Being A Rebel as much as what hipsters would like to make of the imagery—Oh, I am to be admired!!!! or where there’s an attempt to frantically reject actual reality—Noooo!!! The Nineteen Empties had clothing instead of butt ugly costuming!!!.
What the hipster, et al, would like to frantically ignore is the repeated actuality of someone wondering What happens if . . ., or, Hang on, what about that loose thread over there. . . and then that “rebel” noting Uh, people, whether you like it or not, there is that reality that you’re now frantically denying . . .
Of course, whet prolly isn’t helping the hipsters is that very carefully arranged instances of What happens if . . . also happen to be the standard practice of actual scientific method and experimentation.
There’s a kind of a credit bubble to do with being a rebel. Like attending college, it’s being encouraged for everybody and not just those with a gift for it.
Well, quite a few wannabe radicals are discovering, much to their shock and dismay, that an expensive education in “social justice” voodoo and general self-flattery is, and I quote, “apparently worthless in the current job market.” Though some have yet to register that being an unspecified “creative” armed only with a degree in Gender Studies is not entirely practical as career trajectories go. And others remain puzzled by the fact that announcing yourself to potential employers as a “political troublemaker” isn’t the most obvious path to a self-supporting adult life.
It’s a kind of farcical wreckage.
I’ve only taken 2 college classes: Principles of Accounting I (ghastly) and Business Law I (quite interesting). So I may not know what I’m talking about, but since that has never stopped pundits paid well into the 7 figures, I see no reason it should stop me. So consider this. It is an article of faith in your family that Everyone Must Go To College, so you dutifully sign up for, let’s say, organic chemistry, and quickly find out that you are not smart enough for it .(I mean no criticism; whatever native intelligence God and your parents endowed you with is not your fault and, by definition, half of us are below average intelligence.). So you try accounting. That also is beyond you. By degrees (sorry) you come to Angry Studies, which anybody can pass. Now you’re 5 figures in debt, unemployable in any remunerative field acceptable to your caste, and your outstanding cooking skills are going to waste.
What I’m suggesting is that these people have good reason to be angry, but they are angry at the wrong people. It wasn’t white deplorables who decided Everyone Must Go To College and it wasn’t white deplorables who invented Angry Studies—we were too busy manufacturing and transporting goods, plumbing, building, landscaping, caring for your caste’s children and old people, cleaning your houses, and manning cash registers. If victims of Angry Studies are looking for justifiable targets for their wrath, they might start with family and friends.
Speaking of wrath, Cuddles got into the men’s room so the deplorable plumber is deplorably refusing to go in and unclog the toilet unless HE gets hazard pay. Since henchlesbians work cheaper than plumbers, even on hazard pay, do we want to give one a plunger and send her in?
On the other hand, we have another esteemed member of Clown Academia arguing that capitalism is bad because it makes people unfree
Of course, his definition of “freedom” is “free stuff” with absolutely no consideration on how that “free stuff” is to be provided when people are not required to do anything for it.
“All while following the trajectory of countless other middle-class lefties who pretended the same things.”
In the second decade of the 21st Century, a Guardian-reading socialist woman with brightly-coloured hair is about as unremarkable as you can get.
“But we did use coasters. Really. We did.”
They fly really well. Like little frisbees.
Welcome home.
On the other hand, we have another esteemed member of Clown Academia…
…who, being a political “scientist”, lives in Wolkenkuckucksheim.
What I’m suggesting is that these people have good reason to be angry, but they are angry at the wrong people.
Like so many others, the examples I linked above are suckers and dupes, whose vanities and credulity were exploited by older lefties in the Clown Quarter. Though I suspect few of them will dare to acknowledge it, even belatedly, as doing so would make their own narcissism difficult to miss.
Speaking of angry, the plumber wishes to speak to the proprietor. Something about being hit with a mini-frisbee?
I don’t know why he didn’t just fend it off with the plunger—. Oh. Cuddles ate the plunger.
Hmmm. We’ll let our leader tackle this problem.
Oh, yes, the bohos and other hipsters do go to Burning Man these days…
Do they still have naked chicks with glow-in-the-dark hulahoops? That’s the only thing remotely interesting I’ve seen about it.
If the regular hazmat team is unavailable then you might consider hiring San Fransisco’s new Poop Patrol. It’ll only run you $184,678 a man (I’m reasonably certain that few to no women will be employed)
https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-poop-patrol-employees-make-184000-a-year-2018-8
I’ve just realised Monday is a bank holiday over here. I could have had a long weekend off too. Bugger.
It’ll only run you $184,678 a man (I’m reasonably certain that few to no women will be employed)
Cue the Outrage™ in 5… 4… 3…
They need to give out trowels and explain the idea of digging a cathole.
Cue justification of shitting on sidewalks as creating high-paying jobs in 3…2…1…
Seriously, this is a “problem”? These people are idiots. “Grappling with the steady influx of tech workers…” indeed…
“A fact that Laurie counts on, despite her pretence. In effect, we, the bourgeois rubes whose values she rails against, are her safety net.”
I rewatched Jack Reacher recently, and the scene where he looks out the high rise office window at the ‘drones’ opposite spoiled it for me. He can be rebellious and drop off the grid, but who the fcuk does he think maintains the busses and runs the Western Union outlets he relies on? Twat.
At least the honesty is refreshing
He has a point, I think. A few years ago I watched a documentary series on one of the BBC channels called “How to be Bohemian”, presented by Victoria Coren Mitchell. What struck me then, other than just how narcissistically self-absorbed many of the so-called “Bohemians” were, was that if it weren’t for the “squares” and “rubes” like us, their special lifestyle would ultimately be devoid of meaning. And had many of them not come from prosperous, square, bourgeois backgrounds, then their Bohemianism would have been much less shocking.
What struck me then, other than just how narcissistically self-absorbed many of the so-called “Bohemians” were,
Not entirely unrelated.
What struck me then, other than just how narcissistically self-absorbed many of the so-called “Bohemians” were, was that if it weren’t for the “squares” and “rubes” like us, their special lifestyle would ultimately be devoid of meaning. And had many of them not come from prosperous, square, bourgeois backgrounds, then their Bohemianism would have been much less shocking.
There’s far too many relevant bits to quote, but I recently revisited a book on this very theme and found it even better than I’d remembered.
“That’s where I differ hugely from my fellow Bohos: I WANT square society to prosper, to be proud, to do a good square job, etc.”
“Not me, of course, I wouldn’t lower myself. So get busy, worker bees, that honey doesn’t gather itself.”
Not to be a bad sport, but after the war, these lousy bastards will be the first ones sent to hoe weeds in the fields.
“(I mean no criticism; whatever native intelligence God and your parents endowed you with is not your fault and, by definition, half of us are below average intelligence.)”
You didn’t like maths as well as accounting 🙂
Not entirely unrelated.
Oh boy! I’d forgotten about the bottle rockets!
(In the comments – R. Sherman, that was genius.)
Oh boy! I’d forgotten about the bottle rockets!
The Guardian piece by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett also reveals a common dishonesty among the supposedly alternative demographic. In that Ms Cosslett evidently wants the trappings of a bourgeois life – indeed, of a very well-heeled bourgeois life – she just doesn’t want to have to earn them or have to bother with any of the concerns and obligations that come with them. In Ms Cosslett’s case, what she wants, and feels entitled to take, with a crowbar, is an “impossibly grand house” on Park Crescent in London.
And she declares this while denouncing others as “selfish.”
That’s true, Bloke, I should have said “mean.” I’m busted. 😄
Oh boy! I’d forgotten about the bottle rockets!
Thanks. Two weeks ago, I revisited those old haunts when I delivered the youngest for his freshman year in college. This included an historical tour, the end of which resulted in the question, “Is Mom aware of any of this?”
“Is Mom aware of any of this?”
Ah, the patriarchy.
“Is Mom aware of any of this?”
I like your kid. 😉
…she is too rigidly conventional for that game.
You cannot be radical if you are not uniform.
In Ms Cosslett’s case, what she wants, and feels entitled to take, with a crowbar, is an “impossibly grand house” on Park Crescent in London.
Yes, this is a better arrangement, more just.
Exactly, Darleen. But I feer most are whistling past the graveyard. Of course it’s hyperbole to say that such things can happen here. I’m sure Comrad Zhivago would have said the same in his day…before he got home. But of course he’s fictional. How silly of me. CIA plant as well.
we, the bourgeois rubes whose values she rails against, are her safety net
It’s the fundamental flaw with the New Utopians’ Socialism – This Time.
If the proles decide to sit on a beach gargling Margaritas rather than labouring for the common good, the Narod can’t have their New Utopia.
And as David posted three years ago, the same Boho conceit is at the heart of The Good Life.
What bottle rockets?
Isn’t there something in game theory about strategies that only work for a minority? Stealing, for example, only works when most people don’t steal. The best strategies being those that still work well if everyone adopts them.
They need to give out trowels and explain the idea of digging a cathole.
Hmmm! San Francisco does have more than nonstop sidewalks and unending cement, but the established problem is going to remain though.
Hipsters being too hipster to learn to be adults aren’t going to learn anything else either.
The Good Life…ahhh…so anyone know how Felicity Kendal is getting on? Does she need anything? Anything at all? Asking for a friend.
Felicity Kendal…
Last I saw of her she was still gardening. Also, still cute.
What bottle rockets?
These bottle rockets.