酷毙了的“波波族”

It's hard to miss them: the epitome7 of casual 'geek chic'8 and organised within the warranty of their Palm Pilots9, they sip labour-intensive cafelattes10, 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 artefacts11 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-spa12 -but don't talk about raising their taxes.

They are 'Bourgeois Bohemians' -or 'Bobos' -and they're the new 'enlightened elite' 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.

你很难不去注意他们：身着“酷毙了”的休闲装，日程在掌上电脑的“打理下”安排得井然有序，啜饮着精工细磨的牛奶咖啡，对着豪华手机侃侃而谈，同时思考着如何开展文化启蒙运动。在美国，当他们为买一个50美元的钛制刮刀而驾驶着耗油量大的多功能厢式跑车奔赴高级购物中心时，他们为环境忧虑着；当他们脚踏适于登珠穆朗玛峰的登山靴在特色店淘弄西藏的手工艺品时，心里却还惦记着自己的科技股票。他们觉得花5美元买一副草编手套不算什么，而花500美元去享受一次日间时尚水疗这样的另类休闲就更不在话下了——但千万别跟他们说增税的事儿。

这些人就是“布尔乔亚-波西米亚族”——或者说“波波族”——他们是信息时代新兴的“知识型精英”，他们富足而又繁忙的生活似乎是舒适享受与道德良知、事业成功与创新叛逆的结合体。 这些三四十岁、受过良好教育的人将20世纪60年代的反文化和80年代的实利主义这两种逻辑上相互抵触的东西融合成一种新的社会精神特质。