Yuppies, Technocrats & Neoliberals: Chilly Thoughts on the National Future

Walk north on a balmy evening from Lincoln Center in Manhattan along Columbus Avenue for fifteen or twenty blocks and treat yourself to a vision of youth ala mode. No costume is outré when clothes are expected to make statements comprehensible to peers, if not to touring cultural anthropologists and marveling senior citizens. Boutiques, sidewalk cafes, and sanctuaries of gelati, tofutti, and premium ice cream jostle each other. Lines form in front of particularly popular “in” establishments like Ruelles, where the sounds of soft rock entice customers into a Gay Nineties interior whose walls feature buxom female nudes. Overheard conversations conduct themselves in the educated tones of the college credentialed. Loud along the...