21 AUGUST 1999, Page 26

Bourgeois? Cool

From Mr Victor Black Sir: The Spectator, of all publications, should not be allowed to get away with sloppy thinking. In the excellent editorial on the eclipse (14 August), the phrase 'dull bourgeois mind' was used.

This description is surely long out of date. As a term of political abuse, it was popular during the sad period when Marx- ism was the fashion in intellectual circles.

But how much of European art, litera- ture or scientific progress in this century was the work of the aristocracy or the work- ing class? Is it not time we stopped ridicul- ing the most valuable contributors to our civilisation? Vive la bourgeoisie!

Victor Black

Lower Farm House, Coln Rogers, Gloucestershire