"oh noes bourgeois!"

[muckefuck]

SSC: It always irked me that That One Blog named Vampire Weekend "the whitest band ever", but I was never really able to put my finger on exactly why. Fortunately, Nitsuh Abebe is way smarter than me when it comes to analysing stuff like this. This entry of his on how bourgeois one-upmanship constantly overwhelms the proper aims of music criticism is about as far from "You don't like my favourite band so you suck" whining as you could possibly imagine.

(Ganked from moominmolly.)

Comments

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I've come to believe that the thing which most fundamentally characterizes the bourgeois mindset is "planning". All kinds of attitudes, not all of them particularly wonderful, evolve from that one value. If you are a person who believes in a vision of your personal future and actively works to secure that vision, then you are almost inescapably bourgeois. Poor people don't enjoy that confidence, for innumerable practical reasons, while very wealthy people can take it for granted. Only those in the middle have reason to be concerned and engaged with it.

There are real pleasures to be had in not being concerned with the future. But that's not me, and I can't pretend otherwise!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Interesting. When I challenged myself to come up with same, the quality I focussed on was "restraint". (Can't find that LJ entry now, unfortunately.) But I suppose there's a clear relationship between the two: If you can't restrain your immediate desires, how will you ever be able to plan for anything?