What does "radical chic" really mean?

Any linguist will tell you that language is a living thing, that it changes according to use, and that it is driven primarily by two opposing forces: a centripetal one, which pushes those who use it to fix and hold on to the original meaning of a word, and a centrifugal one, which instead leads to old terms being used in new meanings. One such word is "radical chic," a term coined in 1970 by the great Tom Wolfe, who described in New York Magazine how the circle around the wealthy composer Leonard Bernstein hosted elegant dinners at his Park Avenue home to raise money for the Black Panthers, a group that was in no way aligned with Manhattan's very wealthy cultural elite. The cover of the issue, which hit newsstands on 8 June 1970, shows three ladies in very elegant evening dresses raising a fist clenched in a black leather glove. With delightfully wicked humour, Wolfe describes how all the attendants that evening were white, as it would not have been appropriate for a Black Panther evening to choose different ethnicities. However, the article notes that «the current wave of radical chic has sparked a desperate search for white caretakers» among the rich and famous in New York City.

In its original meaning, the term denoted a cultural moment rather than an individual person, describing the cognitive dissonance that resulted from wanting to maintain all the privileges of one's social class while supporting radical political causes. «What a flood of taboo thoughts come to mind at these Radical Chic events,» Wolfe writes with great malice. The divide and dissonance Wolfe points out extended to dress: One could neither dress opulently nor wear the black turtlenecks and breeches "of the people". At the famous Park Avenue dinner, only Felicia Bernstein knew how to dress. Wolfe writes: «She wears the simplest black dress imaginable, with no jewellery except a simple gold necklace. It is perfect. It has dignity without any class symbolism.» Wolfe couldn't have known it, but he was describing quiet luxury. Today, with the polarity between rich conservatives and poor radicals gone, the waters are murkier than ever: the two factions are now the culture wars, dividing the world into two equally fanatical factions, the alt-right redpillati and the champions of the traditional family versus the woke movement that wants to reform society with one terrible Marvel movie after another.

But only the masks have changed - the game is the same as in the days of Wolfe and his «limousine liberals». However, the meaning of the term "radical chic" has changed considerably. In Italy, Indro Montanelli was responsible for shifting the meaning of the term; in March '72, he addressed an open letter to Camilla Cederna (in a tone that was quite unpleasant, by the way), basically accusing her of profound hypocrisy and inconsistency, from "queen of the salons" to "bombshell lover" Over time, the term has taken two different paths: On the one hand, the always political connotation of those privileged people who embrace social reform to pretend to be progressive simply because they are protected by their socio-economic status; on the other hand, in everyday contexts, the term describes those who pose as bogus intellectuals, flaunting refined tastes and always opposing any manifestation of the "mainstream"," such as a latter-day hipster. On Twitter, for example, the term Radical Chic is associated with words such as "professors"," "intellectuals" and "know-it-alls", who are seen as fierce competitors, to paraphrase a tweet, «of the good people who work, sweat and run the country», who are always accused of hypocritical do-gooderism and who, according to another Twitter user, are endowed with «an "unforgivable penchant for subjunctives, consecutio temporum and detachment from reality».

A view that, when applied to political issues such as global warming, economic reform and migration policy, is characterised by a disturbing anti-scientificism that separates the abstract, bookish knowledge of wealthy intellectuals from the subjective, post-factual knowledge, unfiltered by political correctness, of the common man who, in biblical terms, "sweats" - which implicitly gives the latter more dignity than the radical chic chic who apparently wants to live like a nobleman from the time of the Louis the Fourtheenth. The association is dangerous: while private universities are certainly reserved for the wealthy, the desire to cultivate one's personal culture and expand one's consciousness is not political but humanistic in nature. And from the words of the anonymous users we have quoted, it almost seems as if the desire to educate oneself already means that one wants to rise above one's social class, while ignorance would be something to be claimed, as those who work and sweat certainly do not have time to learn big words and deepen knowledge, that is not directly aimed at monetary gain - a somewhat petty view, it ignores the strong intellectual tradition of the left (think Gramsci) and is promoted by a politics that certainly does not want voters who are able to discriminate, understand nuance and recognise the complexity of a given issue.

The educated radical chic is thus an enemy who, to repeat, "believes he has the truth in his pocket" - an expression that implies that the person speaking also believes he has the truth in his pocket. The conflict has widened. Indeed, there are those who called Martin Scorsese a radical chic when he said that Marvel movies are not cinema; there are those who call prestige restaurants radical chic and contrast them with the real, authentic trattoria, which itself becomes radical chic when it tries to modernise the décor and menus after 60 years of family management.

Wes Anderson is a radical chic, Christian De Sica a nationally beloved icon. Both a lover of classical music and a fan of alternative music are radical chic because they snub radio music, but anyone who champions one cause more than another is also radical chic - as long as the two sides vying to be right each have a truly radical point of view (like advocating the death penalty) and a more thoughtful, guaranteed one that presents more mediated and complex solutions. After all, this is semantics, a game of meanings that hides social conflicts as old as civilisation itself, where social resentments, envy, misunderstandings and hypocrisies add up. But one of the definitions Treccani has given to the term suggests a certain wisdom: According to the encyclopaedia, radical chic «masquerades as an advocate and promoter of political and social reform or change that is strident and vague rather than substantive» And in these years of social activism, when we all have that friend on Instagram who has tarred us with dates, social grievances and fundraisers, where even make-up has become an area of political contestation, the most insidious danger is that of superficiality and wishful thinking, the moralising of appearances, the idea that it's enough to hold a rally and block traffic or shout a "How dare you?" to change things without knowing and interacting with the power structures that already exist and think they can change the world with the "power of friendship" and good vibes. Because who is afraid of radical chic?