#bourgeois

Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#classism #social-criticism #food

Naphta loathed the bourgeois state and its love of security. He found occasion to express this loathing one autumn afternoon when, as they were walking along the main street, it suddenly began to rain and, as if on command, there was an umbrella over every head. That was a symbol of cowardice and vulgar effeminacy, the end product of civilization. An incident like the sinking of the Titanic was atavistic, true, but its effect was most refreshing, it was the handwriting on the wall. Afterward, of course, came the hue and cry for more security in shipping. How pitiful, but such weak-willed humanitarianism squared very nicely with the wolfish cruelty and villainy of slaughter on the economic battlefield known as the bourgeois state. War, war ! He was all for it – the universal lust or war seemed quite honorable in comparison. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#cowardice #security #umbrellas #war #love

The intellectual is a middle-class product; if he is not born into the class he must soon insert himself into it, in order to exist. He is the fine nervous flower of the bourgeoisie. ↗

— Louise Bogan

#bourgeoisie #class #exist #fine #flower

I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars. ↗

— Michael Caine

#cockney #dollars #every #i #intelligence

What have we achieved since the end of the Second World War? We have allowed petty, bourgeois regimes in which everything is average, mediocre. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#allowed #average #bourgeois #end #everything

I live a bourgeois life. ↗

— Mark Ruffalo

#i #life #live

It's an old ploy of the bourgeoisie. They keep a standing 'art' to defend their collapsing culture. ↗

— George Grosz

#bourgeoisie #collapsing #culture #defend #keep

If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession. ↗

— Uta Hagen

#bourgeois #existence #profession #want #wrong

Culture and possessions, there is the bourgeoisie for you. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#culture #possessions #you

…he noticed that the free thinkers, the doctrinaires of the bourgeoisie, people who claimed every liberty that they might stifle the opinions of others, were greedy and shameless puritans whom, in education, he esteemed inferior to the corner shoemaker. ↗

— Joris-Karl Huysmans

#intellegentsia #education