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April 14, 2003

bobos, superiority complexes, and the commons @08:19 PM

I was thinking today about this book I read a couple years ago called Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks - an editor at The Weekly Standard and a frequent contributor to Atlanic Monthly Anyway, it's a good book - a look at the fall of the old, entrenched elites (think the Vanderbilts, the big_family_name) - old money families - and the rise of a new elite who he dubs a "Bourgeois Bohemian." Bobos are educated elites - their spouses are chosen by similarly extraordinary academic backgrounds rather than sterling bloodlines. "They want an oven capacity of 8 cubic feet minimum, just to show they are the sort of people who could roast a bison if necessary." Ok, so how is this topical, or even relevant to interactive media? Let me take a brief stab, with a highly underdeveloped arguement:

I was talking with a friend today about this book, and they were saying that the bobos have helped, in a sense, change the public perception of technology into something less elite and more a part of pop culture. And I would say I totally agree with that. Technological culture has transitioned from an exclusive group to the public sphere, and I think that while the internet was largely responsible for that shift, I think that this "new upper class" was moving in parallel with it - coming up with solutions that made this amorphous network concept marketable - and therefore transferring it to the public sphere. Think of the "dot-com millionaires," and their belief in the perpetual casual friday - stinks of bobo-ism. So what does this mean for this new culture and the future of emerging technolgical spaces like those that Howard Rheingold calls "Wireless Quilts?"

The saturation of technology has serious implications for how the wireless internet will develop. Lawrence Lessig has written that the internet exploded because it "was held in commons-- an innovation commons--instead of auctioned off." Lessig fears that the sale of the radio spectrum to huge corporations will circumscribe this commons, and therefore drastically limit the potential for the wireless web to develop in the productive, unencumbered manner of the internet - as he says, "we need a radical decentralized opportunity to innovate and create using this medium." Which side of Lessig's argument will this new ruling class fall, and how will their influence affect the way that the wireless internet develops? The problem is, that while bobos probably represent the most educated class of elites this country has seen since 1789, and while they have some of the social attributes of the 1960s, they still have the economic attitudes of Reagan era capatilism. Under this style of economics, the idea of the commons more than likely doesn't hold much water with folks who need to sustain specific (high) levels of consumption.

Prompting cause for further concern is the growth of societal passivity that parallels the rise of the bobos. Brooks has a piece in Atlantic Monthly about the development of a Superiority Complex in this bobo elite society - a democratization of elitism in America. He writes "Communications technology has expanded the cultural space. We now have thousands of specialized magazines, newsletters, and Web sites catering to every social, ethnic, religious, and professional clique. You can construct your own multimedia community, in which every magazine you read, every cable show you watch, every radio station you listen to, reaffirms your values and reinforces the sense of your own rightness. It is possible, maybe even inevitable, that you will slide into a solipsism that allows you precious little contact with people totally unlike yourself. But in your enclosed sphere you will feel very important." Such localized spheres of expertise lead to elistist attitudes, regardless of your socio-economic position in society. Even though Bill Gates is smarter and infinitely more wealthy than I am, I still feel superior to him, because I have entrenched myself in a smaller community that finds his company to be morally reprehensible and his products to be full of security holes (among other things). So there, Bill Gates. So a byproduct of this democratic elitism is that people become very passive very quickly, locked in the spheres they occupy where they are at the top. I don't want to engage in the Iraq debate because it might take me out of my little world where I'm always right. Or, more scary from Lessig's perspective: I may resent the fact that AT&T is buying up all the radio spectrum for their wireless operations, but I know that my morals and standards are higher than theirs, so I won't really worry about it. These all are attitudes that are brought about by the rise of bobos and their inherent paradox - consume, yet refute consumerism. We have finally found a way to be apathetic and justify that apathy with this elitist rhetoric we all possess in our little group, and this is a cause for concern in a number of areas, including the way that wireless technology will be developed.

Other notes / thoughts: It is impossible to create a social commons when everyone is in a closed area...These closed nodes are unable to leverage Metcalfe's law. So there. So much to be said about this - so much more I need to think about and write down. Other thoughts: I am better than you all. I am better than you all because I am eating s'mores without putting them in a microwave or toasting them. Microwaves are for losers, and I don't think I need to be bothered with those of you who insist on spreading that low level radiation throughout the immediate vicinity of the microwave. Campfires cause forest fires, and I'm vastly a better person than those of you who would consider destroying our natural resrouces.

FACT: I have work do to that is...gasp...related to classes. Perhaps I should be doing that. Hmmm.

posted by will | comments (3) | permalink

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comment on BOBOS in PARADISE
I didn’t read the book, but I did hear David Brooks interviewed about it on Fresh Air (NPR) – so I’m appropriately qualified to comment. And, I read the Atlantic article. I find the article way too glib…he has a point but there were self-styled experts and gurus long before narrowcasting and the web gave us 256 channels + infinite discussion groups. Niches aren’t new, they are just easier to find.

His lament that we have lost unifying cultural channels is a conservative, old money (superior!) whine. I’m old enough to remember Walter Cronkite and LIFE magazine and it was a world without Daria. The mainstream got all the attention but there were plenty of lonely tributaries.

Brooks is painting a revisionist picture if he thinks that the three network past encouraged more cross-cultural fertilization than the zillion channel present. Then, as now, it required individual motivation to get out of the ruts and the loops. I’ve spent a great deal of my life looking into corners where I don’t belong, but I had to make the effort. You are right to question how or whether media (mobile, consolidated, distributed, inter, hyper, multi) can motivate these efforts.

Superiority? I’m not superior, but my cat is: My cat is better than yours. My cat is bigger than yours. My cat is goofier than yours. My cat has more issues than yours…

Posted by: peggy at April 15, 2003 05:51 PM

Yeah - Brooks creates a lot of problems for himself - there are many contradictions that run through much of his work. I tend to think he probably realizes these conflicts in his arguments. I don't necessarily think that the idea that "we have lost unifying cultural channels" is a conservative / old money idea (or whine), as I think that the absolute saturation of these different media outlets has created an exponentially greater number of "lonely tributaries," and I'm not even sure a mainstream media exists in the way that it did in in the decades following WWII. I'm trying to think of a precedent for this whine in conservative ideology, and I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on this matter. Lamenting the lack of these cultral channels is certainly a way to justify looking the other way, and therefore absolve conservative policymakers. Hmm.

I don't think Brooks is trying to be a revisionist. In fact, I think that he would tend to agree with your statement that "it's just as hard now as it was then." I think however, that the saturation of online communities, etc., has created a culture in which everyone is an expert in something, and that such localized expertise makes it difficult for people to want to step outside those boundaries. I don't think this was the case in the "three network past." Back then, I don't think that everyone had the support structures to engender this "superiority" that they do now, and therefore, I think that they had less of a reason to stay within a specific group.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts. I think that what is really interesting is trying to figure out how social networks will continue to develop - do these individual clusters of networks stay closed and refuse to leverage Metcalfe's law? Or is it the opposite, (and it seems you would argue this line) that these networks, as they become more and more specific and specialized, in fact have more shared nodes, and thus create a larger, more valuable social network. For example, to use one of Brooks' examples, a specialized network of "skateboard jumpers" (a painfully out-of-touch example, by the way) may share a number of nodes with a network of "bmx street riders" who may share nodes with free ride mountain bikers, who may share nodes with cross country mountain bikers, who may share nodes with road bikers, who may share nodes with businessmen. Ok, so this is all sort of a a "six-degrees-of-separation" thing, but it may be relevant when thinking about social networked structures.

My dog is probably bigger than your cat, unless your cat is really big, like a REALLY BIG CAT (scroll down)

Thanks for the comments. I appreciate it.

Posted by: will at April 15, 2003 06:45 PM

P.S. I don't necessarily mean my last comment to be a defense of Brooks, who I tend to see as sort of a conservative asshole. I do however, think he makes some decent points, and I tend to be more challenged by readings that don't necessarily fall in concert with my typical lines of thought. Again, thanks for the comments - i really appreciate this dialogue.

Posted by: will at April 15, 2003 08:50 PM