Bourgeois Bohemians

I recently read a very interesting article about - well, I may as well just link it and copy and paste relevant bits, it's important for what I'm going to say here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2000/may/28/focus.news1

"They are 'bourgeois bohemians' - or 'Bobos' - and they're the new 'enlightened élite' 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."

I read this article and I got to thinking about it, and I was struck by the amount of people I know who fit this kind of mold. How many people I know mediate, or do yoga, or smell incense or get in touch with their souls and God or talk about inner peace and enlightenment and saving the world and not eating meat and all those lovely and amazing hippy values - but still have phones, drive in cars, eat slave-trade foods and fail to churn through their recycling bins. One bit in particular struck me, it said something like:
"There is almost no difference in this day and age between the latte-sipping artist and the chai-sipping business executive."
What great hypocracy is this? What horrendous miscarriage of ideals! I thought even more about it, and I realised that this desire for spiritual meaning is all well and good, but the execution of it these days is just appauling. When you really get down to it, applying all these labels and values to yourself in search of spirituality is all fine and well, but the second you stop being blind to the hypocracy you are making, the comfortable illusions shatters. I relate quite well to those high-flying hippies - these 'Bobos', but now, unfortunately, I'm never going to be able to take them seriously again.
AND NOW TO SUGGEST MY REMEDY.
When a culture arises, there is always a counter-culture. I say to you, go forth and eat what you like. Waste and squander resources. Care not for the environment. Counter this growing farce with brutal honesty. I'm not saying don't be a giving person - but be honest with who you are and what you really believe and are capable of. For example:
"Yes, I think what they are doing to the rainforest is horrible, but I really love my coffee."
"No, I don't think I'm doing enough for recycling, but I can't be bothered going through my garbage for it."
"Those poor starving children in Africa are suffering so much, but I'm not really inclined to give up any of my money for them, that's too much effort."
"I like to think there's a God, but I'm not going to go hunting for him because I'm too practical."
You see? The only way to pierce this strange, comforting veneer that these Bobos have erected about themselves like armour is to wield honesty. Perhaps it will get them looking at what they aren't doing, and perhaps they will set aside this foolish notion that it is they who are going to save the world. This also has the added benefit of being very lazy and simplistic, rather than the intense, driven ideals of the Bobo.
I'd start living by it tomorrow, but I honestly can't be bothered. (See! It's working already!)