Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Bourgeoisie

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Bourgeoisie is more than a word. It means something different depending on when and where it's being used.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave. So it's short stuff, you basic person. You calling me bougie? Yeah. No, I'm not. I wouldn't do that. I think it's kind of a mean thing to say to somebody, at least in America. In France they're like, yes, you're right, thank you. In America, it's a bit of a put down. That's right, and that's what we're talking about today. We're talking about a word, bourgeois, b-o-U-R-G-E-O-I-S, not

to be confused with bourgeoisie, correct? Well, yeah, they're very closely related. Bourgeois can mean a, it can be an adjective and a noun. If it's a noun, you're talking about one person who is bourgeois. So that's their behavior, or it's the one person. Bourgeoisie is all of the people who are bourgeois. It's a noun only. Okay, everybody, there's gonna be a quiz

at the end of this episode. But if you talk to Americans, a lot of Americans probably hear bourgeois and they think, oh, fancy, fancy, fancy. Right. And that is not the case because bourgeois refers to, like you called me, basics, sort of a middle-class basic individual. Yes.

Or group of individuals. Right. But there's a long road between the original version of bourgeois that we'll talk about and then the American version that it has now. And right smack dab in the middle are the commies, specifically Karl Marx. I don't understand why Joseph Engels never gets his due because he and Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto, but it's always just Karl Marx, Karl Marx, you know, must drive Engels crazy. But in 1848, they published

the Communist Manifesto. And in that, they adopted the word that had formerly been middle class people. It wasn't really much of a put down. It was just a useful word for a while. He equated them with the people who owned the capital that the labor was produced on and decided that they were exploiting the proletariat, the working class, right? That's right. And he was writing in German, so of course he did not say bourgeois,

he said, Burgerliche Gesellschaft. Oh, beautiful. And English. You make German sound beautiful, Chuckliche Gesellschaft. And English. You make German sound beautiful, Chuck. Thank you. Danke. In America, they may translate that as civil society or maybe a bourgeois society.

But either way you slice it, what he's saying is the bourgeoisie are the bad people. They're exploitive. They're not actually doing anything. They just own the stuff that the people who are actually doing something are using to do the thing that they're doing. But really, the bourgeoisie are the ones who are making the money off the working class and their labor, right? So it was not, at this time, it was not viewed as a very popular, or it wasn't praise, how about that? No one ever used it for praise by this time. And when it finally crossed the Atlantic to America

around the early 20th century, the Wobblies, the industrial workers of the world, who were, I believe, we talked about them before, and they were split between communists and anarchists. And there was a big struggle I think between the two but regardless of whether you're a communist or an anarchist at the beginning of the 20th century you were not a fan of the bourgeoisie and Yeah, so the Wobblies did not like the bourgeoisie either and they in fact came up with a new slang term for them

That's right. The slang word was Bushwa BUSHWA slang term for them. That's right. The slang word was bushwa, B-U-S-H-W-A. And what's weird, I think that was in a quote from a 1970 article. What's weird though is that that word, bushwa, eventually was sort of morphed into a slang for BS. Like somebody's full of hot air or BS, someone, you know, is full of bourgeois. Right. We have to thank our friends at the Grammophobia blog for digging that stuff up. That's right.

And then so it also kind of morphed in a new way, kind of the way that we view it today, but a little, yeah, I guess it was pretty much the way we view it today. It first pops up in black culture where it kind of morphed, thanks to Gladys Knight and the Pips. They had a disco hit in 1980 called Bougie Bougie. Can we hear a snippet? No, we can't, unfortunately.

But if you want to hear any of the song, Bougie Bougie, you can find it on YouTube or just about anywhere where you can listen to it free and clear. But it's a great song and I strongly recommend people go listen to it. Yeah, and that would be B-O-U-R-G-I-E, comma B-O-U-R-G-I-E.

Right, and the whole point of the song is it's about somebody who comes from the working class or a poorer background, but started to make money and now they're flaunting it. They have like a new car with a sunroof. They have new clothes. And it was a commentary on them, but also kind of like a snide one too. Like these people are being tacky in a way and forgetting who they are, where they come from, I guess. Yeah, it is kind of like that new money, old money thing, which is just so, you know? Yeah. I say we take a break, Chuck.

Yes, I was about to say that. Nice work. The New Year is the perfect excuse to reset, refocus, and try something new, like drinking more mindfully with Seedlip non-alcoholic spirits. Seedlip is a non-alcoholic spirit carefully crafted from a unique blend of botanicals and spices made to be mixed in your favorite non-alcoholic cocktails. Ask your local bartender to shake up a Seedlip cocktail for you or craft your own at home. Kick off 2025 right by visiting Seedlipdrinks.com to check out special dry January deals, recipes and more. That's S-E-E-D-L-I-P-D-R-I-N-K-S.com. I P D R I N K S dot com. John Stewart is back in the host chair at the daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the daily show years edition podcast.

The daily show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious, satirical takes on entertainment politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to The Daily Show, Ears Edition on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, if you want to go back to the original bougie, if you want to go back to France,

the original meaning is from a French word B-O-U-R-G, which I guess would that be Borg? Yeah, kind of like Berg on the end of a town. Okay, and that's like a small town or a small market. In the Middle Ages, the people that lived there sort of adopted that name for themselves. So it kind of, this word is just morphing and morphing all over the place over the years. They were one step up from like a farming peasant, so

they were sort of the middle class of the time. Right, which is just the way that it was. Again, I said it was like a useful word. It wasn't like a put down, it wasn't like a compliment, it was like you are bourgeois. That's that. Descriptor. Right, very nice.

And it wasn't until the 17th century, specifically I think in 1670, when Molière, the French playwright, came up with a musical comedy, he was hilarious, called La Bourgeois Gentleman, or The Bourgeois Gentleman. And this is when it takes bourgeois and makes fun of it. It's Molière was punching down to the middle class and essentially doing the exact same thing

that Gladys Knight and the Pips were doing with bougie bougie. He was basically making fun of some middle class social climber who was trying to make a name for himself in French society. That's right. And that would be the definition that is most sort of thought of today in the 21st century when someone says bougie. Another modern musical example is Atlanta's own

from the ATL, Migos. You ever listen to Migos? Oh yeah. It's good stuff. They have a song called Bad and Bougie, in this case spelled B-O-U-J-E, and it sort of leans back on that, what the pips were talking about, sort of a new fancy lifestyle. Yes, but two things were different.

One, the Migos made their money cooking crack in a crock pot, which is a proprietary eponym, and usually there was a Uzi in the same room too. And two, they were proud of being bougie and all the new money and tacky ways that they threw it around. That was the thing. It wasn't a put down, they were like, yeah, I'm bougie. You should have seen the money I had before,

now look what I got. Yeah, yeah, totally. It was a great song. Yeah. Okay, so that's where we are today. Bougie, it's essentially a put down depending on whether you've claimed it yourself. If most of the time,

if you're calling someone bougie in America, you're basically saying, like you said at the outset, they're basic, their lifestyle and their life is just kind of boring and pedestrian in the middle of the road and what's the point kind of thing. Usually it's from somebody who, well, they're just being mean essentially, right?

Yeah. But in France, that's not the case. Yeah, in modern France, it does not mean pedestrian. It's a little more like good, well-mannered, well-educated. There's like three levels supposedly of a Parisian bourgeois. The nobility or people that are kind of close to nobility, the rich or the creme de la creme. You have the bourgeois de Provence, doctors, attorneys, middle class types. And then the Petite Bourgeois, who are shopkeepers, artists, kind of self-starting, self-employed people.

Yeah, and even though there seems to be a bit of a hierarchy to it, they all are, they're behaving the same way. I think it just depends on how much money you have is what it's really kind of carved out between. But the Bourgeois in France is exactly what Americans who don't know what bourgeois means think of. They're correct, but they're just thinking specifically of the French bourgeois. And yeah, I guess that's about it for being bougie and bourgeois and bourgeoisie and Karl

Marx and Joseph Engels and Migos and Gladys Knight and the whole lot of it, Chuck. Well, we'll follow up in 10 years and see if the definitions changed again. Great idea. In the meantime, short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, myHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.