Snobbery in the Lounge?

[HoosierDaddy]

Actually it is more about a stream of unconsciousness But perhaps you don't understand. PM me for clarification.

Now THAT is the epitome of snobbishness!!! A PM! Like cupping the hands and whispering so no one else can hear....
Good show oldman!!!

 

[Feraud]

Who...I... huh?...

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Who...I... huh?...

HAS IT BEEN THREE DAYS YET?

 

[Feraud]

HAS IT BEEN THREE DAYS YET?

Oh yeah!! And someone owes me 20 bucks! lol

 

[surely]

I'm getting the impression that there are some here that don't like something other then the fact we are using server memory. Is it because some of us are enjoying it and they don't get it? Well come on in, and quip away, you won't be criticised.

May I encourage whoever to reread the serious posts in this thread, reflect on them awhile and then try to make a substantive contribution. Your expanded thoughts will be much appreciated. But if you wish to make your typical cryptic comments they will be taken in stride. And if you want to take pot shots (I wish) then OK, hit me with your best shot.

Remember, we are looking at the nature of a phenomenon that no doubt goes way back, even before recorded history, to a time when people began interacting. So let the interaction continue.

 

[KilroyCD]

And now a word from our sponsor...

 

[Feraud]

MMMM....satisfies munchies and thirst.:beer:

 

[surely]

Now THAT is the epitome of snobbishness!!! A PM! Like cupping the hands and whispering so no one else can hear....
Good show oldman!!!

Speak up there sonny, hearing ain't so good after all them rock concerts.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Speak up there sonny, hearing ain't so good after all them rock concerts.

Try taking your fingers outa your ears! That has no place in snobbishness!
....but maybe someone will start a Brat in the Lounge thread.....

 

[surely]

Doran

Finally, this is my response to Doran's earlier post which I just put after this post. I'm having some pbms with formatting a complex response so lets see how it goes.

Doran
1." A dedication to certain things may also involve a disgust or at least dislike towards certain other things -- that is just the nature of the monkey.

The issue here is not whether one likes, dislikes or is disgusted.
It is how one manifests their feelings. You are not accountable for hating another race or whatever, but you are when you act in a hateful way.
In Canada there are hate laws, in the US I don't think there are but one is still accountable for a real injury.

That is one excellent reason for this thread: to allow us to use self control and to understand where the line of acceptability is.

2. NO! I would not call by a long shot the behavior you described as snobby. But yes I agree that presumptuous dummies need to be stifled. My focus here is on those who have a severe case of expertitis.

3. To discriminate is even necessary if we want to tell the difference between things, to tell a good hat from a bad, a fine wine from a prosaic one.
To define & defend oneself is probably necessary to achieve the goal of individuality (self actualization); but to attack or treat others with dismissive snobbery will likely prevent reaching that goal.

4. Ah, how do/can we know that what we know is really known?

Every opinion is an equal data point in say a scientific study, even outliers. But my opinions on some topics are certainly more impt to me then yours but on other topics yours may be.
In a sense that is what this Lounge is all about: exposing ones opinions or tastes to others for both support & constructive criticism. I chose to use expose because that to me implies trust, and I'm here to proclaim as loudly as I can that people do not trust snobs, only other snobs & fools do.


Through this interaction various ideas are stirred into the cauldron of discourse, where after a few boils & troubles and blending of elements, we will get either a very bland outcome or, and these are rarer, a forged open of a higher order then previously existed. [ooo eee, I'm gettin into gear now ]
OK

The idea , so often misunderstood, that all men are created equal meant equal before the law and is now referenced as equal rights. This should stop the silly 'not everybody's opinion are equal' argument.

 

[surely]

OK, this is Doran's original thread. Sorry about the lack of organization.

Interesting thread. Only found it today; have read most of the first and last pages, but not everything in the middle. My thoughts:

1. One cannot expect a forum dedicated to quality clothing of a fairly limited era to never verge on behavior that some will call snobby. This was pointed out pretty early on and I don't think anyone disagrees with it. If we think (and it is more or less an article of faith or assumption that we think this) that hat x is great, then unless we love all things equally it is not crazy that we think that hat non-x, the hat that is so different from hat x that it defines hat x BY its difference, is not great. The FL is not just a "general how are you" forum, it is one dedicated to certain things. A dedication to certain things may also involve a disgust or at least dislike towards certain other things -- that is just the nature of the monkey (see point #3, below).

2. A description of the inner outlook (so to speak) of the sort of person that some will describe as a snob is asked for. Here is my best shot. The below attitudes in quotation marks are not, I hope, things that anyone would outright say, but their thinking might run along these lines.

a.) "I have read the books you are so fond of, and, taken in the larger context of both the literary movement to which they belong, and its direct precursors, and, taken also in the context of Western literature altogether, with which I have a great and hard-won familiarity, I find your favorite books at best moderately impressive." (NB: take out the words "literature" and "literary movements" and "books" and insert "hats," "films," "musical compositions," or whatever, and you have it.)
Is this snobby? Some would say yes, some no. We do, in fact, find the opinions of people who have, indeed, read (and read passionately) a great deal of literature, or have a great knowledge of a subject to be more valuable than those who have not.
It is when someone DOES NOT have the necessary background to render a well-thought-out judgment that I am more bothered.

b.) Closely connected to a.) is this attitude: "I see that you are deeply interested in x, or else at least you affect to be deeply interested in x. Well, I used to be very, very interested in x. I spent 15 years of my life identifying with x, and researching it and, if you will, living the x lifestyle. I used to get into loud arguments defending x from its detractors. After 15 years, however, I have examined x from literally every single possible angle, and I have read and spent years thinking about every possible argument in favor of x and against x, and after this time, I find the arguments against x to be much, much more believable. I now regard x as harmful, stupid, ugly, and/or silly. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time sometimes taking seriously anyone who uncritically embraces x, and from your ignorance of the set of arguments against x, I think that you indeed are embracing x uncritically."

Again, is this snobby? To some, yes. If, again, it were worded this way aloud, then it would probably sound unsufferably snobby. It is probably, however, the underlying attitude of the persons who have indulged in behavior that has been regarded as snobby. There are things that I hear from time to time that do provoke this reaction in me (such as anyone who sincerely thinks that anarchy is a viable system under which millions or billions of human beings could conceivably live).

3. John Lanchester in his brilliant short novel/cookbook The Debt to Pleasure has the narrator argue that we are defined more by our hates than by our likes. It is easy, the narrator says, to like something. Liking things is gooey. It does not define us. We can like almost anything and everything. However, when we hate something, we cut it off from ourselves and there is an edge defining us from it, a sharp edge. It is our hates that give us our shape and define us as thinking persons. While the narrator later turns out to be an insane psychopath, I have never read this passage without the uncomfortable feeling that he is right (at least to an extent). Snobbism is partly about defining ourselves against the things that we find disgusting or at least repulsive -- defining ourselves and defending ourselves from such things. Distinguishing ourselves from these things and from persons who, we think, are wantonly embracing them.

4. Epistemology cannot be evaded in this question. What is the basis for knowledge in a (snobbish) person's claim to be more knowledgable about something than someone else? Does he indeed know more? Perhaps he does.

Is every opinion equal?
If your answer to this question is yes, then you must ask yourself why would every opinion be equal? All things are not equal in nature or in geometry.
And why do I need to believe that every opinion is equal?
Only an overextension of our democratic impulses, of our beliefs that all men must be created equal, makes us wish fervently to assume that all things are equal.

 

[KilroyCD]

Finally, this is my response to Doran's earlier post which I just put after this post. I'm having some pbms with formatting a complex response so lets see how it goes.

Doran
1." A dedication to certain things may also involve a disgust or at least dislike towards certain other things -- that is just the nature of the monkey.

The issue here is not whether one likes, dislikes or is disgusted.
It is how one manifests their feelings. You are not accountable for hating another race or whatever, but you are when you act in a hateful way.
In Canada there are hate laws, in the US I don't think there are but one is still accountable for a real injury.

That is one excellent reason for this thread: to allow us to use self control and to understand where the line of acceptability is.

2. NO! I would not call by a long shot the behavior you described. But yes I agree that presumptuous dummies need to be stifled. My focus here is on those who have a severe case of expertitis.

3. The hate can be a good thing
To discriminate is even necessary if we want to tell the difference between thing, to tell a good hat from a bad, a fine wine from a prosaic one.
To define & defend oneself is probably necessary to achieve the goal of individuality (self actualization); but to attack or treat others dismissively snobbery) will likely prevent reaching that goal.

4. Ah, how do/can we know that what we know is really known?

Every opinion is an equal data point in say a scientific study, even outliers. But my opinions on some topics are certainly more impt to me then yours but on other topics yours may be.
In a sense that is what this Lounge is all about: exposing ones opinions or tastes to others for both support & constructive criticism. I chose to use expose because that to me implies trust, and I'm here to proclaim as loudly as I can that people do not trust snobs, only other snobs & fools do.


Through this interaction various ideas are stirred into the cauldron of discourse, where after a few boils & troubles and blending of elements, we will get either a very bland outcome or, and these are rarer, a forged open of a higher order then previously existed. [ooo eee, I'm gettin into gear now ]
OK

The idea , so often misunderstood, that all men are created equal meant equal before the law and is now referenced as equal rights. This should stop the silly 'not everybody's opinion are equal' argument.

What! No Non Sequiturs? We are not amused...

 

[Dr Doran]

Finally, this is my response to Doran's earlier post which I just put after this post. I'm having some pbms with formatting a complex response so lets see how it goes.

Doran
1." A dedication to certain things may also involve a disgust or at least dislike towards certain other things -- that is just the nature of the monkey.

The issue here is not whether one likes, dislikes or is disgusted.
It is how one manifests their feelings. You are not accountable for hating another race or whatever, but you are when you act in a hateful way.
In Canada there are hate laws, in the US I don't think there are but one is still accountable for a real injury.

That is one excellent reason for this thread: to allow us to use self control and to understand where the line of acceptability is.

2. NO! I would not call by a long shot the behavior you described as snobby. But yes I agree that presumptuous dummies need to be stifled. My focus here is on those who have a severe case of expertitis.

3. To discriminate is even necessary if we want to tell the difference between things, to tell a good hat from a bad, a fine wine from a prosaic one.
To define & defend oneself is probably necessary to achieve the goal of individuality (self actualization); but to attack or treat others with dismissive snobbery will likely prevent reaching that goal.

4. Ah, how do/can we know that what we know is really known?

Every opinion is an equal data point in say a scientific study, even outliers. But my opinions on some topics are certainly more impt to me then yours but on other topics yours may be.
In a sense that is what this Lounge is all about: exposing ones opinions or tastes to others for both support & constructive criticism. I chose to use expose because that to me implies trust, and I'm here to proclaim as loudly as I can that people do not trust snobs, only other snobs & fools do.


Through this interaction various ideas are stirred into the cauldron of discourse, where after a few boils & troubles and blending of elements, we will get either a very bland outcome or, and these are rarer, a forged open of a higher order then previously existed. [ooo eee, I'm gettin into gear now ]
OK

The idea , so often misunderstood, that all men are created equal meant equal before the law and is now referenced as equal rights. This should stop the silly 'not everybody's opinion are equal' argument.

Well, most of this is fair, whether I agree with each point or not, except for your last point, whose meaning I cannot fathom. And, as one expects with Surely (at least when he is being serious), almost all of it is well-thought-out and also most admirably even-tempered. You are very gifted at these things, and you are also running this thread with an even-keeled-ness that I would say is an example to emulate.

I am curious about two things, though.

1.) If one complains about snobbery, that's fine; but there are other, quite symmetrical, things, to decry: such as slob-snobbery*, which I endure often. This is when someone sniffs and snipes at my suit, tie, and fedora. The usual claim is that I am being overdressed, or that I resemble Indiana Jones, or something equally dumb (see Dumbest Comments thread for examples). Is this also "equal to racism"? That seems like a stretch (although, again, racism is a loose word these days, especially in some quarters such as Berkeley, California, where I live).

2.) You say you see snobbery here on the Lounge (hence the title of this thread). But ... let me ask you something. You apparently are something of an ex- (or still-) beatnik and ex-hippie. And I think you think of yourself as a gadfly to the Lounge like Socrates thought he was was to Athens, and there is nothing really wrong with that. But .... let us say that there was a forum for people of your ilk. Let us say that it was called the Acid Lounge and it was formatted with threads like the Fedora Lounge but instead of a black background it had a tie-dyed background, and the threads concerned historic Grateful Dead recordings, how to bake marijuana brownies, how to tie-dye shirts, proper success methods for spare-changing, notes on Abbie Hoffman, memoirs of the Weather Underground, music threads on Janis Joplin, stuff on hennaing one's hair, things about squatting in temporarily abandoned Victorians, threads on homesteading in Arkansas a la Mother Earth News. Well, if I came along and started talking about how cool Kurt Weill was, lauding 1930s Weimar Republic Berlin jazz, starting an Art Deco thread, talking about how I hate drugs and think of "drug culture" as slob-snobbery, talking about how foxy Marlene Dietrich is, about how great it is to have high arm-holes on suits and how to polish one's shoes properly, how to be polite and elegant, a thread on beautiful 1940s ties, fine Hungarian colognes, how Aeschylus and T S Eliot are way better than any North Beach beat poets, and that sort of thing, I suspect I would not be taken too kindly. Would it be appropriate of me to think of it as snobbery? What I would do is not hang out on that forum. I'd find (or create) a forum that suited my interests better ... not fight an uphill battle against the prevailing fascinations of its members. Why bother? I'm not going to convert them to wearing 1940s ties.

* beware, new coinage

 

[Diamondback]

* beware, new coinage

And brilliant coinage:eusa_clap--I've seen the behavior before, just never knew how to describe it other than "reverse classism". May I lift that expression for my own use?

And you'd be surprised at the place Abbie Hoffmann can have in a straitlaced, suit-and-tie environment... lol (Hey, I'll rip off any tactic that works, regardless of its origin!)

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Perhaps the most refined snob is one so enthralled with selfworth that failing to realize he/she is one....matters very little in their own personal air of refinement.......

 

[Dr Doran]

And brilliant coinage:eusa_clap--I've seen the behavior before, just never knew how to describe it other than "reverse classism". May I lift that expression for my own use?

And you'd be surprised at the place Abbie Hoffmann can have in a straitlaced, suit-and-tie environment... lol (Hey, I'll rip off any tactic that works, regardless of its origin!)

Please use it ... and STEAL THIS BOOK

 

[Dr Doran]

Perhaps the most refined snob is one so enthralled with selfworth that failing to realize he/she is one....matters very little in their own personal air of refinement.......

Hmmm ... will have to think about that one ... (?) I certainly hope you are not opening yourself up to the charge that you are the sort of person who will attack as a snob anyone who writes more than 3 coherent sentences or mentions an author accepted in the canon of The Culture Formerly Known As High Culture.

 

[Jovan]

actually, it just smells like another 'stream of consciousness' thread....because we needed two.

:whistling

(I know this post will probably be removed too. That's okay. I just think it's funny how you're saying these things in a thread about snobbishness. )

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Hmmm ... will have to think about that one ... (?) I certainly hope you are not opening yourself up to the charge that you are the sort of person who will attack as a snob anyone who writes more than 3 coherent sentences or mentions an author accepted in the canon of The Culture Formerly Known As High Culture.

I most certainly have opened myself up to worse charges than that...but..no...absolutely not! Plus...I don't usually attack anyone who has accepted high culture cannons. Too lofty for me to depose...I would suppose..
Crap...I can't think of a couple more sentences...let alone reasonable ones....or an author.
Wait!...Hemingway!!!!

 

[Diamondback]

Plus...I don't usually attack anyone who has accepted high culture cannons. Too lofty for me to depose...I would suppose..

20mm or 37mm "high culture" enough? After all, they were good enough to arm our flyboys with in WWII...

lol