I dont understand why bourgeois is used as an adjective

[the Left™]

Whenever someone refers to something as bourgeois i just think in my head

"That sport is (ownership of production) as fuck"

Why do people use a term for marxist class analysis in such a weird way, can something actually have the physical characteristic of being "bourgeois"?

[Halleluhwah]

Well for example, you could talk about the French Revolution as a bourgeois revolution, the United States as a bourgeois state, etc.

It's often used to refer to a bourgeois mentality or anything that might have a strong ideological dimension. I think a lot of people who don't know the first thing about marxist theory, but like to wear all black and recite beat poetry, picked it up to sound more radical. Any sport reminds them of the jocks who picked on them in high school, so it must be bourgeois.

[hatzel]

Usually when people say it they just mean 'socially middle class' because they love using words in totally ludicrous ways until they are devoid of all meaning. In your example, tennis would be a 'bourgeois' sport because people associate it with the upper crust of society for some reason, whilst football would be a totally 'proletarian' sport because poor kids love that shit and a lot of the pros have working class accents. Yeah...

Some people who actually give things a semi-decent analysis might be able to justify using it in certain situation. 'Bourgeois art' could perhaps be used to refer to those pieces which explicitly bolster or embody bourgeois ideologies. Plenty of the futurists - what with their fascist ways - could be described as creators of 'bourgeois art.' But I don't really think even this kind of use of the phrase has had all that much legitimacy since WWII; this whole bourgeois/proletarian divide feels far too simplistic. Whilst the likes of Dada and Fluxus (to carry on our example of art) could certainly be described as politically radical, and there remain subversive and revolutionary currents within art to this day, there are too many intersecting ideologies and currents at play to really justify calling certain things 'bourgeois' and others 'proletarian,' certainly if one then wants to believe that this then transfers cleanly to 'in support of capitalism' and 'in support of socialism.' Hmm...no, I'd try to steer clear from this urge to associate particular ideas, aesthetics etc. with this or that group, though it may still be reasonable to speak of those which (broadly) support and those which (broadly) oppose the prevailing social order...

[JustMovement]

As a case in point, futurism itself is divided. The Italian futurists as a whole leant towards fascism (with some exceptions) but the Russian futurists were another can of worms, Mayakovsky was a Bolshevik for example.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

simply stated; any idea or attitude expressed which mirrors and mimics the owners of the means of production, expresses their intersubjectivity, ambitions and existential angst.

[Lynx]

It is used as a pejorative.

[human strike]

'Bourgeois' also refers to the cultural and ideological characteristics of the bourgeois class.

[hatzel]

It is used as a pejorative.

"That sport is cauliflower as fuck" amirite?

[Lynx]

"That sport is cauliflower as fuck" amirite?
You'll be hearing from the Cauliflower Grower's Association for that one.

[Ocean Seal]

Whenever someone refers to something as bourgeois i just think in my head

"That sport is (ownership of production) as fuck"

Why do people use a term for marxist class analysis in such a weird way, can something actually have the physical characteristic of being "bourgeois"?
Because its associated with a certain class of people. Those who own the means of production. For example, wind sailing, and playing polo.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What's with all the threads about semantics lately?

[Ostrinski]

"That sport is cauliflower as fuck" amirite?we get the point quit being such a cauliflower

[o well this is ok I guess]

Cuz bourgeois and bourgeoisie were words before Marx ever even wrote stuff.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Cuz bourgeois and bourgeoisie were words before Marx ever even wrote stuff.And language is fluid over time and the meanings of words are often associative.

I don't mind people saying it, I,m sure I say it. Semantic arguments are bourgie as fuck :P

[Lynx]

Meanwhile, "socialism" and "communism" have been thoroughly bastardized.

[o well this is ok I guess]

And language is fluid over time and the meanings of words are often associative.

I don't mind people saying it, I,m sure I say it. Semantic arguments are bourgie as fuck :P Doesn't mean I can't use it the old way, bruh. Books don't change the way the use their words for no one.
Besides, I really like how "bourgie as fuck" feels on the tongue.

[Anarpest]

Because it refers to a class which exists in itself, as a social and historical phenomenon, and in relation to other classes, rather than simply being a group of random, separate individuals who happen to have the same relationship to the means of production.

[Mr. Natural]

The answers to the OP confirm a deep suspicion of mine: the left does not understand capitalism systemically. Systems generate relationships and characteristics that are represented by their parts, and the human species is now a "part" of global capitalism.

"Bourgeois," which first referred to ruling class characteristics generated within capitalist systemic relations, seems to have now come to refer to general human relations within capitalism. Such "bourgeois relations" would include the isolated, commodity-greedy individual who is herself a commodity. Such capitalist relations would also most definitely include a systemic mental control:a reductive, quantitative human consciousness developed within the reductive, quantitative system of capitalism that affirms and reproduces The System.

[Mr. Natural]

A computer glitch cut my post in half. Here is the brief conclusion.

Capitalism is a systemic process, as Marx, Engels, and their materialist dialectic recognized. Parts are heavily influenced by the relations and values of their whole, and a globalized capitalism's people-parts have become thoroughly "bourgeois."

I often refer to global capitalism's systemic mental control of humanity, but get no responses. This is our "bourgeois reality," though. Here is one of Marx's many apt comments on this reality: "The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." (preface, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)

Humanity has become "bourgeois": enveloped mentally and physically by The System.

[A Marxist Historian]

Usually when people say it they just mean 'socially middle class' because they love using words in totally ludicrous ways until they are devoid of all meaning. In your example, tennis would be a 'bourgeois' sport because people associate it with the upper crust of society for some reason, whilst football would be a totally 'proletarian' sport because poor kids love that shit and a lot of the pros have working class accents. Yeah...

Some people who actually give things a semi-decent analysis might be able to justify using it in certain situation. 'Bourgeois art' could perhaps be used to refer to those pieces which explicitly bolster or embody bourgeois ideologies. Plenty of the futurists - what with their fascist ways - could be described as creators of 'bourgeois art.' But I don't really think even this kind of use of the phrase has had all that much legitimacy since WWII; this whole bourgeois/proletarian divide feels far too simplistic. Whilst the likes of Dada and Fluxus (to carry on our example of art) could certainly be described as politically radical, and there remain subversive and revolutionary currents within art to this day, there are too many intersecting ideologies and currents at play to really justify calling certain things 'bourgeois' and others 'proletarian,' certainly if one then wants to believe that this then transfers cleanly to 'in support of capitalism' and 'in support of socialism.' Hmm...no, I'd try to steer clear from this urge to associate particular ideas, aesthetics etc. with this or that group, though it may still be reasonable to speak of those which (broadly) support and those which (broadly) oppose the prevailing social order...

The only difference between :"middle class" and "bourgeois" is that middle class is vaguer and bourgeois is more precise. The term in its original usage referred to the middle class in feudal societies, in between the upper class aristocrats and the common people. In other words the capitalists. Literally, it meant "urbanite," people living in burgs.

So middle class is more useful in casual conversation, and bourgeois when you are trying to be precise and scientific.

In the 1930s, when the left was big, the term bourgeois got Americanized and entered halfway into popular discourse, as "bushwa." A slang term that disappeared as America went right.

As forth rest, you have less clarity as to classes and class influence in culture these days 'cuz the bourgeoisie is a lot stronger and the workers are demoralized, disorganized, and not really conscious of themselves as a separate class. Hopefully that will change, and people can start using the term again without sounding phony.

-M.H.-