Once married, the Bobo newlyweds have different consumption patterns from previous elites. Hence, they buy peasant fabrics from Colombia instead of chintz for their couches and distressed furniture instead of Louis XV antiques. Upending the hierarchies of the ancien r gime, we want people to think that we spent less on our stuff than we actually did. Absolute relativism Bohemians advocated free love, whereas the bourgeois had conventional sex lives or if they did not, they did not talk about them. Brooks describes how the Bobos have melded the two into one.
Sex is used as a way to achieve deeper moral understanding and advance social change.
It's a weird version of propriety, but it's propriety nonetheless. Aspiring intellectuals start by attaching themselves to a greater intellectual, then they develop a subject niche, find an appropriate demeanor, market their ideas to editors, participate in conferences and talk to the right people. Then, the ultimate - they go on television. Few can afford Range Rovers, and the number sold is a tiny fraction of total car sales, but sales of Japanese SUV-type vehicles are taking off. Schoolchildren rebel in many ways, say by taking a puff of marijuana, but they respect the environment so much that they would not throw trash from a moving vehicle.