The proletarianised bohemian intelligentsia

La gauche divine

Imagining it has a divine spark (as opposed to what it thinks of as the bovine self-contentment of the bourgeois), the proletarianised bohemian intelligentsia

• claims political allegiance with the proletariat
• pretends to some of the tastes of the proletariat, for example that for association football
• has a bohemian lifestyle and at the same time claims the economic advantages and privileges of a bourgeoisie

The proletarianised bohemian intelligentsia is the enemy, writes Dalrymple, of

thrift, honesty, reliability, respectability, solidity, respect for learning, willingness to postpone gratification and politeness.

Detestable petit-bourgeois attitudes

For more than 150 years, bourgeois respectability has been under concerted and rarely contradicted literary and intellectual attack, Dalrymple writes. The striving for respectability of the petite bourgeoisie is viewed as

not merely dull, but hypocritical and immoral. Better outright egotism than such hypocrisy, for at least egotism is sincere. Do what you like because, underneath a veneer of righteousness, that is what everyone does anyway. Riches being extracted solely by exploitation of the poor, the morality of the rich is only a smokescreen for their depredations. Besides, morality is a bore: it cramps one’s style.