The spectre of vulgarity haunts today’s world. Its power extends every day. It is a modern virus that spreads through contamination. Media, sex, politics, social mores, art, advertisement and fashion… Everything seems to give into provocation, excess, confusion, trash. The uglier it is, the cruder, the more violent, and the more successful it becomes. There is not a day where we do not feel disgusted by the world where we live. Is vulgarity a fatality that befalls us all? Are the ‘vulgarocrates’ going to rule the world? How to resist to the tide of vulgarity that threatens to submerge us all? Limite Vulgaire answers all these questions and offers a framework for analysing the phenomenon. From string underwear to Vuitton bags and the ‘pip-holes’ misbehaviour, from mass tourism to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s dubious jokes, to Bernard Tapie cockiness, hard sex and porn movies; stock-options, ‘destroy’ fashion, rap music… every aspect is described, analysed, assessed according to the standards of a «vulgarometre». Funny, thought-provoking, serious, controversial, ultra-controversial… and, obviously, vulgar, this book is illustrated with test cases and true stories. Twenty-five years after Pierre Bourdieu’s La distinction, this book raises the issue of what it is that generates a drop in social status; exploring the limits of an egalitarian society, it questions gender relations as well as the relation between classes and people, and offers an appraisal of today’s democracy.

Hélène Sirven is a lecturer at the University of Paris-I, and specializes in exotic and contemporary anthropology.
Philippe Trétiack is a correspondent for the magazine Elle and a writer. He has published a series of essays on the fight against the mafia, social unrest, the crisis in architecture, politics… His latest publications include: Grave mode (Stock, 2003), Oui, vous pouvez devenir journaliste en 45 minutes chrono and Oui, vous pouvez devenir chinois en 45 minutes chrono (2007) in collaboration with Pierre Antilogus and published by NIL.