Snobbery
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of virtucrats, 155–59
politicians, mocking of, 31–32
Ponder, Max, 224–25
Porcellian Club, 54
possessions
changing status of, 108
children as, 115
desire for, 104–5
and happiness, 104, 106–7
quality of, 26–27, 105–8
See also status symbols
Post, Emily, 79
Powell, Anthony, 65
power
and politics, 153
status conferred by, 21
See also prestige
Power! How to Get It, How to Use It (Korda), 144
prep schools, 125
presidency, U.S., prestige of, 97
prestige, 95–98
changing views of, 38–46, 98–99
desire for, among snobs, 99
trappings of, 46
pretension, 247
pride, in family, 115–16
Princess Casamassima, The (James), 65
Princeton University, 9
privilege, consciousness of, among underprivileged, 67
producers, television, 45
professional snobbery, 38
professors, changing status of, 94
property location
changing status of, 112
fashions in, 110–12
Protestant Establishment, The (Baltzell), 55, 56
Proust, Marcel, 65, 88, 171
on fashion, 174
on prestige, 98
on snobbery, 17, 30, 251
publishing business, snobbery in, 143–44
“Pushful American, The” (Mencken/Nathan), 32–33
put-downs, as one-upmanship, 24
Pygmalion (Shaw), 247
quality of possessions
and happiness, 105–8
vs. snob value, 26–27
quotas, for university admissions, 125
racism, vs. snobbery, 7
Radziwill, Lee, 167–68, 181
rank, and merit, 35
Raphael, Frederic, 174
Rather, Dan, 196
Ravinia Summer Music Festival, 89–90
Rawlings baseball gloves, 104–5
Reagan, Nancy, 113
Reagan, Ronald, 113, 117
refinement, taste as, 77–80
Reform Club (London), 134–35
Reid, Helen, 54
Reid, Ogden, 54
Reitlinger, Gerald, 75
rejection, snob’s fear of, 20
religion/religious affiliation, 5
loss of authority of, 41
segregation of fraternities/ sororities by, 7–8
Wasps, 55
Renard, Jules, 64, 75, 113
Renault, Mary, 220
rentier class, 50–51
Republican Party, 156
respect, earned vs. unearned, 22
restaurant snobbery, 143, 218–19
Restoration comedy, 28
reverse snobbery, 6, 10–12, 26, 108
and culinary fads, 220
and educational snobbery, 131
and fashion, 175
Richardson, Hamilton, 166
Richardson, John, 168, 185
ridicule, fear of, 80
among jews/homosexuals, 166–67
as basis for snobbery, 77
Riley, Pat, 180
Ringen, Stein, 66–67
Rise and Fall of Class in Britain, The (Cannadine), 71–72
Rise of Silas Lapham, The (How- ells), 79–80
Robber Barons, 53
Rockfeller, John D., Sr., 52
Rolling Stones, 66
Rollyson, Carl, 149
Roman Empire, snobbery in, xi–xii
Romanticism, 78
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 54
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 55
Rose, Phyllis, 159
Rosen, Jonathan, 40
Rosen, Sherwin, 86–87
Rothschild, Baron de, 96, 164
Rovani, Pierre-Antoine, 225–26
royalty, American adulation of, 49
Rushdie, Salman, 158–59
Russian Revolution, effects of, on aristocracy, 48
Sagan, Prince de, 48
Saint-Simon, Duc de, 18, 78, 176
Salinger, J. D., 105
San Francisco, 11
Sanders, George, 207, 208
Santa Fe, 46
Santayana, George, 105, 110, 205, 208, 241
SAT, 59
social impact of, 126–27
scientific snobbery, 8
screenwriters, 45
Seabrook, John, 245–46
Searle, John, 42
Sebastian, Mihail, 165, 231
self-consciousness
and awareness of status, 93–94
as intrinsic to snobbishness, 31, 89–90
self-esteem/self-worth
and fashion, 176–77
need for snobbery to reinforce, 248–49, 251
Sert, Misia, 164, 207
servants, hiring, changing cachet of, 112–13
Shakespeare, William, 28
Shaw, George Bernard, 43
Sheen, Fulton, 39
Sherman, Cindy, 44
Shils, Edward, 76
Shklar, Judith N., 29
shopping locations, status of, 113
Simmel, Georg, 175, 177–78
Simon & Schuster, 144
Sinatra, Frank, 191
Singer, Irving, 105
Siskel, Gene, 93
Sister Carrie (Dreiser), 218
Sitwell, Edith, 188
slob food, 220
Smith, Logan Pearsall, 173
Smith, Sydney, 121–22
Smith, William Kennedy, 140
snob-firee zone. See non-snobbish behavior
snob-jobbery, 45–46
snob, origins/definitions of, 13, 17–19
snobbery, historical context, 28–37
snobbish behavior
definition of, 14–15
vs. elitism, 27
essential meanness of, 4
test for, 25–26
ubiquitousness of, xi
See also non-snobbish behavior
snobisme, 14
social class, 5
associations with character/ private behavior, 65, 153–54
difficulties defining, 67–71
and eating preferences, 222
and fashion, 174–75
snobbery as divorced from, 243–44
and status, 92
and taste, 78
Wharton’s depictions of, 50–51
social climbing, 14
in a democracy, ambiguities of, 29–31
and economic prosperity, 67
hope and fear as motivation for, 20
instability of, in U.S., 32–33
as intrinsic to democracy, 29
name-dropping as, 192–93
social conditions, and snobbery, xi, 245–46
social insecurity, and taste-setting/ trend-setting, 164
social prestige, and professional attainment, 38–39
Social Register, 244
social status
in fixed vs. democratic systems, 28–29, 31
of possessions, changes in, 108
social superiority, victim groups and, 155
Society, 244
changing definitions of, 33–34
Socrates, anti-materialism of, 103–4
Solanas, Valerie, 183
Sonnenberg, Ben, 189–90
Sontag, Susan, 148–50, 152
Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Richardson), 185
Sparrow, John, 188
sports, anti-Semitism in, 166
Stafford, Jean, 145
Stalinists, low status of, 145
Standard Club (Chicago), 137–38, 139–40
standards, high, and snobbery, 26–27
Stanford University, 12, 128–29
Stanley and the Women (Amis), 65–66
&n
bsp; status, 5
awareness of, 94
changeableness of, 32–33
competition for, 34
defining, 91–92, 95
and fashion, 176
and prestige, 95–99
revolutions/transformations in, 94–95
and snobbery, 95
Status Seekers, The (Packard), 93
status symbols
cars, 10, 92
changing nature of, 93–95
children as, 115–20, 117–20
college education as, 121–22, 123
as personal advertising, 92–93
possessions as, 109–14
Stein, Jules, 189
Stewart, Martha, 178
Strachey, Lytton, 148
sumptuary laws, 176
superclass, 67
superiority, feelings of, 24
importance of holding on to, 241–43
tenuousness of, 16
See also downward-looking snobbery
Supreme Court, prestige of, 97
Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon (Rollyson and Paddock), 149
Swift family, 52
Swift, Jonathan, 161
Symons, Julian, 188
Talbert, Bill, 166
Talk, 235
taste, 4, 25
and beauty, 75–76
and class identity, 69, 73
vs. fashion, 74
in food, and class, 223–24
French emphasis on, 207
idiosyncratic nature of, 74
and moral worth, 81
and snobbery, 76–82
Taste and the Antique (Haskell), 75
Tavern Club (Chicago), 135, 220
Tawney, R. H., 64
Tchelitchew, Pavel, 52
teaching, declining social prestige of, 42–43
television, and celebrity, 45, 196–97
television journalists, honorary degrees of, 27
tennis, anti-Semitism in, 166
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 28
Theory of the Leisure Class (Veb- len), 177
Theroux, Paul, 18
Third World immigrants, as victim group, 155
Thomson, Virgil, 22
title searches, aristocratic, 48
titles, reverence for, in U.S., 34
To Be or Not to Be (Brooks), 169
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 29, 31, 32, 209–10
Tolstoy, Leo, 116
Town & Country, 111
Trabert, Tony, 166
trends. See fads, trends; fashion, fashionableness
Trilling, Diana, 26
Trilling, Lionel, 76, 231
Trollope, Frances, 35–36
Trotsky, Leon, 154
Trotskyists, cachet of, 145
Truman, Harry, 127
Trump, Donald, 196
Turn of the Century (Andersen), 108, 118, 236–37
Tynan, Kenneth, 231–33
universities
contributions of Robber Barons to, 53
honorary degrees from, 27
quality vs. snob value, 25–26
See also educational snobbery; intellectual snobbery
University of Chicago, 86
advantages of attending, 129
intellectual snobbery at, 8–9, 146
University of Illinois, 6–7, 8
upper class, American
civic-mindedness, public generosity, 53
criteria for entry into, 52
difficulty defining, 62–63
egalitarian qualities of, 70
James family’s entrance into, 51
Wharton’s depiction of, 49–51
upscale, 221. See also fashion, fashionableness
Upstairs, Downstairs (TV show), popularity of, 112–13
upward-looking snobbery, 20, 23
fawning behavior, 16–17
hangers-on/groupies and, 199
marriage as, 48–49
and middle-class society, 32
reluctance to admit to, 24
See also social climbing; status
U.S. Army, merit and status in, 35
Valéry, Paul, 230
value, intrinsic, 25–26
values, extrinsic, as basis for snobbery, 17–18, 25–26
vanden Heuvel, Katrina, 189
Vanity Fair (magazine), 234
Veblen, Thorstein, 110, 177
vegetarianism, 221–23
Versace, Gianni, 180
veterinarians, 38
victim groups
Jews as, 169
political power of, 155
and virtucrats, 158–59
Vidal, Gore, 167–68
political snobbery of, 160–61
Virginia “gentility,” 30
virtucrats, 155–57
and political correctness, 158
vs. politically serious individuals, 158
and victim groups, 158–59
vulgarity, 76
Wain, John, 148–49
Warburg family, 164
Warhol, Andy, 181–83, 200
Was It Something I Said? (Block), 40
Washington, George, 49
Waspocracy, xii
Wasps (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), 54–55
affiliations, academic and reli-gieus, 55
association with the Establishment, 56
declining prestige of, 56–61
as definers of culture, 57–58
envy of, by others, 58
guilt among, 58–59
waterfront property, 113
Waugh, Evelyn, 153, 205
Way of the Wasp, The (Brookhiser), 58
Way We Lived Then, The (Dunne), 189–92
Wayfarers (Chicago), 140–41
wealth, financial attainment, 5
and celebrity, 200
and upper-class status, 52
Webb, Clifton, 207
Weiss, Michael J., 71
Wendell, Barrett, 207, 208
Wharton, Edith, 29, 48
on American cooking, 216
depiction of American upper class, 49–51
on taste, 77
on Walter Berry, 88
What Price Fame? (Cowen), 200
Wilde, Oscar, 52, 164, 175, 195
Wilder, Billy, 87
Will, George, 196–97
Wilson, Edmund, 87, 149, 187
wine connoisseurship, 24, 224–26
Winfrey, Oprah, 196
Wings of the Dove, The (James), 36
Wise, Stephen, 39
with-it-ry. See fashion, fashionableness
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 80–81
Wolfe, Alan, 94–95
Wolfe, Tom, 66, 69, 121, 176
women
admission to elitist educational institutions, 126
as victim group, 155
“Women of This World, The” (Beattie), 222
Wood, Gordon S., 30, 131
Woolf, Virginia, 15, 36, 148, 243
work, type of, as basis for snobbery, 38. See also professional snobbery
World War Two, effects of on elitism, 125–26
Worsthorne, Peregrine, 66
wristwatches, as status symbol, 108–9
writers, snobbery among, 151
Yale University, 9, 57
“Yarvton,” 129
Tear of Reading Proust, The (Rose), 159
yekke, 137
yiches, 115–16
youth culture, 181
Zedong, Mao, 35
Ziegler, Philip, 80
About the Author
Joseph Epstein is a lecturer in English and writing at Northwestern University and the former editor of The American Scholar. He is the author of many books, including the story collection Fabulous Small Jews. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and other magazines.
g books on Archive.