WEBVTT - How Did 'Bourgeois' Become a Bad Word?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren Boglebaum here. The word bourgeois has gone through some

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<v Speaker 1>serious twists and tumbles in its time. Although Americans tend

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<v Speaker 1>to think of everything French as fancy and high class,

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<v Speaker 1>the French definition of bourgeois has ranged from everything from

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<v Speaker 1>decidedly basic to effortlessly stylish. Today, let's look at how

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<v Speaker 1>this term and various slang around it, like bougie, came

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<v Speaker 1>to be. The English language started borrowing bourgeois from the

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<v Speaker 1>French sometime in the fifteen hundreds. The French developed the

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<v Speaker 1>word earlier during medieval times, from the old French word bourg,

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<v Speaker 1>meaning a market town or settlement. It's from the same

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<v Speaker 1>route where we get the burg in city names like

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<v Speaker 1>Pittsburgh or the word burrow. Anyway, a bourgeois was a

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<v Speaker 1>person who lived in a town. The plural was bourgeoisie,

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<v Speaker 1>though technically anyone living in these blooming urban environments was

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<v Speaker 1>a bourgeois. The term was usually only applied to craftspeople, merchants, landowners,

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<v Speaker 1>and the like, people who were an economic step up

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<v Speaker 1>from farmers and other manual laborers, but a step down

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<v Speaker 1>from the noble aristocrats. The bourgeoisie were people who had

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<v Speaker 1>middle class status. The word bourgeois expanded to become not

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<v Speaker 1>just a noun for one of these folks, but also

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<v Speaker 1>an adjective describing someone with certain middle class traits or behaviors,

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<v Speaker 1>and not necessarily in a positive way. In the sixteen seventies,

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<v Speaker 1>the famous French playwright Moliere wrote a musical comedy called,

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<v Speaker 1>in translation, the Bourgeois Gentleman, which pokes fun at a

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<v Speaker 1>guy who's this naive middle class social climber who hires

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<v Speaker 1>tutors and fashion consultants to try to fit into high

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<v Speaker 1>class society. Bourgeois was not a term one would apply

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<v Speaker 1>to oneself. However, this loose middle class, also called the burghers,

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<v Speaker 1>became instrumental in the late seventeen hundreds during the French Revolution. Again,

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<v Speaker 1>they didn't self identify as a single group, but they

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<v Speaker 1>were the people with the means to form the revolutionary

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<v Speaker 1>political clubs and legislatures and even militaries. The toppled the

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<v Speaker 1>feudal system and the nobles at its head, and that's

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<v Speaker 1>how by the middle of the nineteen hundreds and the

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<v Speaker 1>Industrial Revolution, the term bourgeois shifted from sometimes snarky social

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<v Speaker 1>commentary to the center of a different political movement. In

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen forty eight, the German philosopher Karl Marx published the

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<v Speaker 1>Communist Manifesto, which laid out his economically revolutionary worldview. Marx

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<v Speaker 1>believed that capitalist industrial societies were engaged in a class war.

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<v Speaker 1>The heroes were the proletariat, the working class, while the

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<v Speaker 1>villains were the bourgeoisie, the higher class capitalists who owned

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<v Speaker 1>the means of production. The argument goes that the bourgeoisie

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<v Speaker 1>took ownership from the noble class, but then failed to

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<v Speaker 1>share it with the actual workers. To Marx, the bourgeoisie

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<v Speaker 1>had ripped off the proletariat by getting rich off of

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<v Speaker 1>their labor, and therefore the bourgeoisie had to be toppled,

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<v Speaker 1>like the nobles before them. Marxist ideas crossed the Atlantic

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<v Speaker 1>in the early nineteen hundreds. There the plight of the

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<v Speaker 1>proletariat was picked up by an international labor union called

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<v Speaker 1>the Industrial Workers of the World or IWW, better known

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<v Speaker 1>as the Wobblies, which was founded in Chicago in nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>oh five. During the nineteen oughts, the Wobblis coined the

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<v Speaker 1>term bouchois spelled bushwa as slang for bourgeois. Historian Dorothy

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<v Speaker 1>Gage explained in her two thousand and nine book The

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<v Speaker 1>Dey Wall Street Exploded that the Wobbles quote bellowed out

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<v Speaker 1>revolutionary songs, scorned the niceties of boucheois society, and made

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<v Speaker 1>a point of dressing in the workman's garb that eventually

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<v Speaker 1>became the Wobbly's trademark uniform. Members of the IWW mocked

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<v Speaker 1>what they saw as empty boucheois promises and conventions. What's more,

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<v Speaker 1>this dismissive connotation of boucheois pretty much immediately slipped into

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<v Speaker 1>the common lexicon as a sort of PG version of

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<v Speaker 1>the word bullsh excuse my French. The Random House Dictionary

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<v Speaker 1>of American Slang found the first such usage in a

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen oh six issue of the National Police Gazette, which

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<v Speaker 1>politely defined boucheois as a term of derision used to

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<v Speaker 1>convey the same comment as hot air. In this use,

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<v Speaker 1>the word boucheois showed up in detective novels and the like.

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<v Speaker 1>For decades, Black American culture started remixing bourgeois too, perhaps

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<v Speaker 1>influenced by this labor movement and by the Black Panther Party,

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<v Speaker 1>which also drew ideology from Marx. The R and B

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<v Speaker 1>group Gladys Knight and the Pips released their disco hit

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<v Speaker 1>Bougie Bougie in nineteen eighty spelled b o u r Gie.

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<v Speaker 1>The song was written and produced by the legendary husband

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<v Speaker 1>and wife team Ashford and Simpson. It describes a person

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<v Speaker 1>from across the tracks who flaunt their newly acquired money

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<v Speaker 1>with fancy clothes and a shiny car with a sun roof.

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<v Speaker 1>It is a bob if you're not familiar, look it up,

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<v Speaker 1>and it's also commentary about the pursuit of the trappings

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<v Speaker 1>of wealth through this type of use. As of the

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<v Speaker 1>early two thousands, the American English term bougie spelled without

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<v Speaker 1>the R of bougie, had flipped back to a definition

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<v Speaker 1>that Moliere might recognize. It's often used to playfully or

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<v Speaker 1>more derisively call out upwardly mobile people who have upper

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<v Speaker 1>middle class tastes and affectations. As such, the term can

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<v Speaker 1>be part of larger discussions of what aspiration, propriety, and

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<v Speaker 1>authenticity even mean. Meanwhile, back in modern France, being bourgeois

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<v Speaker 1>no longer indicates that you have stodgily pedestrian tastes. In fact,

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<v Speaker 1>it's the opposite. In French culture, being bourgeois these days

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<v Speaker 1>is about having effortless style, a good manners, good education,

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<v Speaker 1>and maybe a country house to escape the city to

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<v Speaker 1>on the weekends. The flashy nemesis of the French bourgeois

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<v Speaker 1>is now the nouveau riche, or literally new rich, who

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<v Speaker 1>vulgarly flaunt their wealth and status through a lavish lifestyle,

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<v Speaker 1>which makes it pretty ironic that the American English definition

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<v Speaker 1>of this French word now basically means nouveau riche. Today's

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<v Speaker 1>episode is based on the article bougie Slang How did

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<v Speaker 1>Bourgeoisie become a bad word? On HowStuffWorks dot com written

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<v Speaker 1>by Dave Bruce. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in

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<v Speaker 1>partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by

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<v Speaker 1>Tyler klang A. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio.

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