It's hard to miss them: The epitome of casual 'geek chic' and organised within the warranty of their Palm Pilots, they sip labour-intensive café lattes, chat on sleek cellphones and ponder the road to enlightenment. In the US they worry about the environment as they drive their gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles to emporiums of haute design to buy a $50 titanium spatula; they think about their tech stocks as they explore speciality shops for Tibetan artefacts in Everest-worthy hiking boots. They think nothing of laying out $5 for a wheatgrass muff, much less $500 for some alternative rejuvenation at the day-spa - but don't talk about raising their taxes.
有这样一群人很难不引起你的注意：他们穿着随意且具有“极客”风尚；他们玩掌上电脑，把日常活动安排的井然有序；他们喝劳动密集型拿铁咖啡，用时尚手机通话，思考如何开启灵性开悟之路。在美国，他们开着高油耗的SUV去高档商场买一个50美元的钛合金抹刀，同时担忧着对环境造成的污染；他们穿着足以登珠峰的登山靴去特产商店淘西藏手工制品的时候，还在想着他们的科技股票。对于他们来说，花5美元买一副草编手套根本不算什么，花500美元做spa休整身心更是不在话下—但是不要跟他们提增税的事。
They are 'bourgeois bohemians' - or 'Bobos' - and they're the new 'enlightened élite' of the information age, their lucratively busy lives a seeming synthesis of comfort and conscience, corporate success and creative rebellion. Well-educated thirty-to-fortysomethings, they have forged a new social ethos from a logic-defying fusion of 1960s counter-culture and 1980s entrepreneurial materialism.
他们就是布尔乔亚-波西米亚族，或波波族。他们是信息时代新兴的“社会精英”，他们富有而繁忙的生活看起来简直就是物质舒适和道德良知，事业成功和创新反叛的综合体。他们受过良好的教育，在三十至四十岁之间，他们将逻辑相悖的20世纪60年代的反主流文化思想和20世纪80年代的功利主义加以融合，创造了一种新的社会思潮。
So proclaims David Brooks, the American journalist and self-avowed 'Bobo', who coined the phrase to describe the new cultural and corporate hegemony of his cosmopolitan, computer-savvy contemporaries, many of whom will no doubt recognise themselves in Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There .
这就是David Brooks所描绘的bobo族。David Brooks是美国记者，自诩为bobo族。他创立了该名词，用来形容那些见多识广、擅长电脑的同龄人。很多人都会在“天堂里的布波人：社会的上等阶层和他们的奋斗史”一书中找到自己的影子。
'These Bobos define our age. They are the new establishment. Their hybrid culture is the atmosphere we all breathe, ' Brooks declares in his 'comic sociology' of Bobo manners and mores. 'Their status codes now govern social life.' A phenomenon in step with the hard-driving digital utopianism promised by the internet and its money-spinning 'new economy', not to mention the 'Third Way' politics of President Clinton and Tony Blair, the Bobos have seized upon an ingenious way to sell without selling out - or so they tell themselves.
“波波族定义了我们的时代。他们是社会的新生代。他们的混合文化是我们所呼吸的空气，”Brooks在他描述波波族文化和习性的“滑稽社会学”中写道，“他们的状态编码支配了整个社会生活。” BoBo族是伴随飞速发展的互联网数字乌托邦以及资本高速运转的新型经济而出现的一种现象，当然也受到克林顿和布莱尔总统“第三种路”政治观点的影响。他们以一种巧妙的方式自我推销而不是自我贩卖—或者说这是他们把自己和别人区分开来的一种方式。
Combining the free-spirited, artistic rebelliousness of the bohemian beatnik or hippie with the worldly ambitions of their bourgeois corporate forefathers, the Bobo is a comfortable contortion of caring capitalism. 'It's not about making money, ' writes Brooks, 'it's about doing something you love. Life should be an extended hobby. It's all about working for a company as cool as you are.'
Bobo族将波西米亚披头士的自由精神和艺术家式的反叛，和布尔乔亚共同祖先的世俗野心结合起来，成为了一种自然的关怀资本主义矛盾体。“这跟赚钱没关系，”Brooks写道，“做你喜欢做的事情。生活应该是一种延伸的嗜好。要为和你一样酷的公司工作。”
It is a world inhabited by dotcom millionaires, management consultants, 'culture industry' entrepreneurs and all manner of media folk, most earning upwards of $100, 000 a year - their money, claims Brooks, an incidental byproduct of their maverick mores, 'the kind of money you happen to earn while you are pursuing your creative vision'. Often sporting such unconventional job titles as 'creative paradox', 'corporate jester' or 'learning person', Bobos work with a monk-like self-discipline because they view their jobs as intellectual, even spiritual. 'It is a reverse Midas touch: everything a Bobo touches turns to spirituality, everything has to be about enlightenment. Even their jobs are a mission to improve the world, ' says Brooks, himself a political columnist for the conservative Weekly Standard.
这是一个栖息着互联网百万富翁、管理咨询家、“文化产业”企业家和各种媒体人的世界，他们中大多数人年薪可达10万美元。如Brooks所说，他们的钱只是他们特立独行的一种偶然的副产物，是”在追求创新时不小心赚到的“。Bobo族经常戏谑地把他们的工作称为”创新矛盾体“，”企业小丑“，或”学习人士“，他们工作时具有僧侣式的自我约束力，因为他们视工作为智慧的，甚至是灵性的过程。”这是个逆向的点金术：bobo们触碰过的任何东西都有了灵性，一切都和开悟有关。甚至他们的工作也成为了改变世界的使命。” Brooks写道。他自己就为保守党杂志”标准周刊“的撰写政治专栏。
Clearly the Bobo is not entirely new - think Virgin's Richard Branson, the Body Shop's Anita Roddick and Apple Computer's Steve Jobs. But suddenly Bobos are everywhere, or so it struck Brooks after four years abroad in the 1990s. His wealthy white-bread Pennsylvania hometown was now firmly focaccia, with half a dozen new gourmet coffee shops, independent booksellers and countless purveyors of 'fat smelly candles' and 'hand-painted TV armoires'.
很显然，bobo族不是完全新兴的群体—想想维珍航空的Richard Branson，美体小铺的Anita Roddick，和苹果的Steve Jobs就知道了。但是忽然间，bobo族遍地开花，这让Brooks在20世纪九十年代出国旅行四年之后非常震惊。他那富有的以白面包为传统食物的家乡Pennsylvania，现在到处都在卖意大利面包，开了六个新的美食咖啡厅，出现了独立的书商，和无数”有香味的油脂蜡烛”和“手绘电视壁橱”的供应商。
'It was now impossible to tell an espresso-sipping artist from a cappuccino-gulping banker, ' observed Brooks - but it wasn't just a matter of style. 'I found that if you investigated people's attitudes towards sex, morality, leisure time and work, it was getting harder and harder to separate the anti-establishment renegade from the pro-establishment company man. Most people seemed to have rebel attitudes and social-climbing attitudes all scrambled together.'
“现在想要把小口呷espresso的艺术家和大口喝cappuccino的银行家区分开来，是不可能的，”Brooks说， — 但这不只是形式的问题。“我发现，如果你去调查人们对于性、道德、休闲时间和工作的态度，就越来越难区分开反传统的叛逆者和维护传统的好好先生。大多数人似乎将反叛和追逐名利的态度糅杂在了一起。”
Sounds familiar, says British trend-spotter Peter York. 'I am a good example of a bourgeois bohemian, well a little more bourgeois than bohemian, but I'm it. I've been thinking about Bobos for months; they are all around me, and they've been a long time coming, in a sense, a no-brainer, an inevitable "end of history" phenomenon, with all ideological wars ended, religious schisms over.'
无独有偶，英国时尚观察家Peter York也这样说过。“我是一个bobo族的好例子，更偏向布尔乔亚一些，但仍然属于波波族。几个月来我一直在思考bobo族；他们无所不在，他们存在了很长时间，从某种意义上来说，是一种自然的，不可避免的”终结历史“的现象。这种现象终结了所有意识形态的战争和宗教上的分裂。”
York says there are more than a million British Bobos, sharing with their US counterparts the same proclivities for spiritual growth, creative fulfilment, Tuscan-tiled stainless steel kitchens, distressed Third World antiques and hi-tech titanium sporting gear. 'Most likely they live in Notting Hill or some other urban confluence of dressed-down bohemian wealth, and their home decor says, "I've been there, I smoke a bit of dope".'
York说英国有100万以上的bobo族，和他们的美国同类一样，专注于心灵成长，追求创意，喜欢托斯卡纳瓷砖装饰的不锈钢厨房，刻意打旧的第三世界古董，和高科技钛合金运动器材。“他们最有可能住在诺丁山或其他穿着低调的波西米亚富豪聚居地。他们的家居装修师会说，”我以前去过那，我曾经吸过一点毒。“
Names, I want names, I tell Brooks. 'Well, writing for The Observer counts, ' he tells me, 'and the BBC, the BBC is a red-hot centre of Boboism, though [Jeremy] Paxman is too angry to qualify.
名字，我想知道他们的名字，我对Brooks说。“那就写”观察家“吧，”他说，“还有BBC，BBC可是bobo族的聚集中心，尽管（Jeremy）Paxman太易怒，不够Bobo的标准。
'As for me, I'm a confirmed Bobo. Now half-author, half-salesman, I've been stunned by how much I've taken up the selling fervour.' But not everyone is buying it.
”至于我，我可是个如假包换的bobo族。一半时间写作，一半时间做销售，我都惊讶于自己对销售的热情竟会如此强烈。“虽然如此，但可不是所有人都买账。
'It's a misnomer, a simple- minded idea and a convenient cover for baby-boomers to feel proud of themselves, ' says Debbie Geller, an American who produces BBC arts and culture documentaries. 'These Bobos are just normal middle-class people who can't accept that status because they've always hated it. They are living out a protracted adolescence.'
"所谓的”Bobo族“就是个思想简单、名不副实的误称，是婴儿潮出生的人们为了自我感觉良好一点而做的简易伪装，”Debbie Geller，一个为BBC制作艺术文化类纪录片的美国人，这样说道。"这些bobo族只是那些不肯接受现状的普通的中产阶级，因为他们讨厌现状，所以不肯从青春期里走出来。“
Toby Miller, a professor of popular culture at New York University, suspects Boboism has more to do with style than substance. 'But Brooks is on to something significant: the Bobo is at once a social liberal and an economic conservative; freedom and justice for all, they say, but don't worry about systematic economic inequality.'
纽约大学流行文化教授Toby Miller，怀疑bobo族更重视形式而非内容。“但是Brooks抓住了很重要的一点：Bobo族既是社会自由主义者，又是经济保守主义者；尽管他们主张自由公正，但从不考虑系统化的经济不平等。”
Their political interests, Miller says, are either 'intensely close and personal' (abortion or gun control), or very remote (the rainforests, Tibet or Third World poverty.) But they will most likely express their conscience in their consumerism, relieved to be helping someone somewhere by collecting the hand-carved artefacts of distant cultures.
他们的政治趣向，Miller说，可以极近，也可极远。近的和比如堕胎或枪支控制，远的可以远到热带雨林，西藏问题，或第三世界的贫困。不过，他们的道德良知最有可能表现在他们的消费行为上，比如帮某地的某人去收集边远文化的手工雕刻艺术品。
While bemoaning the Bobo's 'boring politics', Brooks believes the Bobos to be an élite superior to their intolerant and warring predecessors - 'they've certainly made shopping more fun, and they have a good morality for building a decent society, ' he says.
尽管对bobo族“无趣的政治见解”表示惋惜，Brooks仍然相信bobo族是优于他们偏执好战的祖先的精英—“他们无疑让购物变得更加有趣，而且他们具有建立和谐社会的良好道德品质。”他说。
'This is an élite that has been raised to oppose élites. They are by instinct anti-establishmentarian, yet somehow sense they have become a new establishment. They are prosperous without seeming greedy; they have pleased their elders, without seeming conformist; they have risen toward the top without too obviously looking down on those below, ' he says.
”他们是反精英的精英。他们出于本能的抵抗现存制度，但在某种意义上来说他们又成为了一种新的社会现象。他们富足但不贪婪；他们取悦长者，但不循规蹈矩；他们站在高处，但却不盛气凌人，至少表现的不是太明显。“
Motivated by 'spiritual participation, but cautious of moral crusades and religious enthusiasms, they tolerate a little lifestyle experimentation, so long as it is done safely and moderately. They are offended by concrete wrongs, such as cruelty and racial injustice, but are relatively unmoved by lies or transgressions that don't seem to do anyone any obvious harm.'
“他们受到灵性参与的激励，但对道德入侵和宗教狂热却谨小慎微。他们可以容忍尝试一点点生活方式的变革，但前提必须是安全适度的。他们非常反感实质性的错误，比如虐待和种族歧视。而对于那些没有造成任何明显伤害的谎言或过失，却相对表现的无动于衷。“
For now, the old fiery antipathy between bourgeois and bohemian is a distant memory, tensions reconciled, and corporate advertising is finding inspiration in Jack Kerouac, Gandhi and 'Born to be Wild'.
在现今社会，布尔乔亚和波西米亚之间的紧张关系有所缓解，以往的水火不容已经成为了遥远的记忆。企业广告正在Jack Kerouac、甘地和电影“天生狂野”中寻找灵感。
We have reached the point, says Brooks, where 'the hedonism of Woodstock mythology has been domesticated and now serves as a management tool for the Fortune 500.
我们已经迎来了这样一个时代，Brooks说，“Woodstock音乐节神话所造就的享乐主义已经被驯化了，摇身变成了财富500强公司的管理工具。”
'The intangible world of information merges with the material world of money, and new phrases that combine the two, such as "intellectual capital" and "the culture industry", come into vogue. So the people who thrive in this period are the ones who can turn ideas and emotions into products.'
虚拟的信息世界和物质的金钱世界得以融合，由此出现了一些时髦的新短语，比如“智力资本”和“文化工业”。所以这个时代的成功人士都是那些能将想法和情感转化为产品的人。
Indeed, the one realm of American life where the language of 1960s radicalism remains strong is the business world, says Brooks. 'We're by now all familiar with modern-day executives who have moved from SDS to CEO, from LSD to IPO. Indeed, sometimes you get the impression the Free Speech Movement produced more corporate executives than Harvard Business School.'
确实，在美国人的生活中，商业世界是20世纪60年代激进主义语言依然强烈的领域之一，Brooks说。“现在经常有执行官从SDS变成CEO，从LSD变成IPO，对此我们已经非常熟悉。我们的确有时有这样的印象，言论自由运动比哈佛商学院造就了更多的企业高管。”
'Where do you want to go today?' asks the Microsoft commercial. Somewhere ex-otic. Somewhere lucrative. Somewhere 'fashionably en-lightened', maybe Brooks's new local supermarket. 'It's taken the ethos of California in the 1960s and selectively updated it. Gone are the Sixties-era things that were fun for teenagers, like free love, and retained are all the things that might be of interest to middle-aged hypochondriacs, like whole grains.'
“今日汝意欲何往?” 微软广告这样问道。Bobo族也许会回答道，我要去一个惊世骇俗、大把捞金、时尚开悟的地方。也许Brook在书里描绘的当地的新超市就能满足这种要求。“它汲取了20世纪60年代加利福尼亚的思潮，并选择性的加以升华。六十年代青少年的享乐主义，比如自由恋爱，已经不复存在，取而代之留下的是中年忧郁症患者可能感兴趣的一切东西，比如全麦食品。”
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