The amazing thing about the bourgeois, who make themselves out to be the ultimate representatives of rationality, and who live in accordance with the principles of rationality as they understand them -- they cannot see their own ultimate irrationality across a much broader spectrum than the narrow spot of economic life onto which they are inclined to their gazes.
For, if someone intimates to me (through various aspects of omission as well as other modes of thought or behaviour more active) that what I have experienced is either imaginary, or unreal, or exaggerated, or in accordance with the principles of rationality in any case -- and hence morally overlookable -- then all that I can say to that is that the bourgeois do not see or think as clearly as I do.
There is nothing more definitive of bourgeois consciousness than a veiled and selective blindness which serves the status quo.
Look into it, and you will see exactly what I mean.
The bourgeois
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Henry James said it all in *The Golden Bowl.* His interpretation is especially valuable because he looks at bourgie types from Italy,England, and the U.S. in their purest fin de siecle form.
It takes too much patience to read the whole novel, though, unless you're a masochist like me.
James is devastating. And he shows that money always wins. That is, if you take on money, you are reduced to money's terms, and money will win on its own turf every time.
Great post.
And: so *that* is what the Golden Bowl is about. Gotcha.
Well, that is certainly what I got out of it. Do have other ideas?
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