Bobos on the Road, or Would Sal Paradise Have Super Sized?

Abstract

This article studies the co-optation of bohemian life into the bourgeois realm—positioning contemporary cultural critics Peter Brooks and Thomas Frank within a critical discussion of the Beats and the social theories of the Frankfurt School. Personal concerns are connected with larger social issues, situating them within lived, autoethnographic experiences to facilitate sociological analysis. Although Adorno and Habermas avoid discussion of direct experience, Brooks avoids theoretical analysis; although the Beats idealize, Frank is overly pessimistic. By creating an equal place between historical discussion, personal reflection, theoretical analysis, and quotations from social theorists, this article offers a critical position between these modes of thought as well as raising questions of social change, identity, and class by taking McLaren’s postmodern flâneur and setting him on the road.