Pseudo-Bourgeois Parasites

I've called them "missionaries" and "neo-Jacobins" before, but I think I've finally found a really good description of the rats that have been gnawing on Serbia for decades. Quoting extensively from a splendid text by Saša Gajić of NSPM, titled "Serbian Pseudo-bourgeois Narcissism" :

"Our pseudo-bourgeois elite originated in Communist times, having supplanted the old bourgeois class that was by and large physically exterminated. They grew into a semi-parasitic class of eager political cronies, drawing constant benefits from their privileged position. When the old system collapsed, these circles simply switched to a diet of foreign donations.

For decades, the pseudo-bourgeois have been reinforced by ambitious arrivals from the countryside, mostly students, who compensated for their superiority complex (accompanied by an actual inferiority complex) and hatred for their home towns by artificially "civilizing" themselves through adopting whatever was considered modern in city culture, all in the service of a fanatical desire never to return to the countryside and "succeed in the city"...

If, during their conceited efforts to "rise above the average," they somehow managed to travel abroad, mostly through one or two summer internships in the West, they became convinced of possessing all the wisdom of the world, which set them apart from the "unenlightened" masses.

Members of this caste are not only incapable of performing the functional role of the traditional societal elite, but are ideologically and intellectually mired in a handful of vacuous beliefs drawn from the image they are trying to present and former ideological convictions. They are incapable even to soberly observe current developments in the world, nor perceive the tendencies therein. Although with eyes wide open to the "great world" they've seen as tourists or interns, domestic pseudo-bourgeois have in fact adopted only a load of obsolete prejudices, and have no real clue about the world they claim to value so much. Indeed, they are incapable of actually making their way in the world, because they are essentially incompetent to make an effort, change their mind, or engage in honest work. Their unearned privileges and social status are only possible here, and are maintained not by constructive social engagement, but by direct or indirect service to outside interests."

(Original here; any translation errors are my own)