Snobbery in the Lounge?

[surely]

Please Please

Everyone, let's have appropriate respect for our resident, what was it queen, empress?

 

[jamespowers]

lol :eusa_clap

I am too tough for such accolades. :kick:
Then again, I appreciate the nod to your superior.

 

[jamespowers]

This is only if I ever had a stupid opinion, yes? [huh] I cannot imagine such a thing.

Certainly Madame Queen. Perish the thought. Guards!!! Sieze that Peasant!

 

[The Dame]

I am also a beer snob. Given the choice between a soda and the usual offerings of Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, etc I'll take the soda every time. :beer:

Hear, hear! Me, too. There was a rather rustic cowboy bar here in town some years ago. When my husband and a friend were there (this was before my time, you understand), they ordered an imported beer. Know what they got? Michelob!

Ever heard of and/or tried Flying Dog's In Heat Wheat? Fabulous unfiltered wheat beer made by a microbrewery in Colorado. Beer nirvana.

 

[surely]

And then again Jamespowers, only a true superior can grant accolades...:cool2:

 

[mtechthang]

Not sure I see what you mean.

We see snobbishness across these forums--against wool hats, baseball caps, modern clothing, and more.

A certain amount of snobbishness abounds in everyday life. We know it's there, sometimes we'll call someone on their attitude, often we just ignore it. Perhaps there are times when we shouldn't ignore it, but I don't think of it as being something that's swept under the rug here in the Lounge. I don't necessarily think it's a problem that needs to be fixed, either. It's just a part of life.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it!

Tom- I don't agree completely. Though it is, perhaps, semantics. As you have correctly differentiated opinionated and snobbish, I can't see that the prejudging of wool hats, modern clothes, or baseball caps is snobbish but rather fits the definition of opinionated. One could, of course, be against those things with purely non-snobbish effect. Snobbish is the attitude of dismissal, as you stated, just because I feel that way. As such it isn't the same as opinionated. I think the consensus of opinion here is that those items are inferior to our beloved or preferred beaver fur, vintage (or just quality), and fedoras. Now if one of us starts promoting wearing fedoras to play baseball- That'd be snobby.

Seriously though, I don't disagree with the tone of what you've said. Snobbery is mean and lacks manners whereas opinionated could be either (i.e., contain snob motives/actions). And one can be opinionated in an ill mannered way (though your post certainly serves as an example of opinion stated in a well mannered way!).

As a fairly new guy here, I can say that I've been disagreed with but I've never felt snobbed (is that a word- snubbed?). Except, of course, when I deserved it from betters (your highness isn't capable of it!).

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I may even snub an empress when she looks away. That's how snide of a snob I surely am. I snicker and sneer at others who don't know a snippet about snobbery. I often walk out in a huff and snuff at the sight.

 

[jamespowers]

Surely, so if one is "granted accolades" but the giver is not one's superior, does that make it . . . (wait for it). . . an accolite? :eusa_doh:

Acolytes can grant accolades to a superior. Then again, a superior has to consider the source of such accolades. Such an inferior should well recognize as such and thus, logically, grant accolades to his better.

 

[CassD]

On a lighter note

I'm apparently Carole Lombard

"You scored 14% grit, 9% wit, 57% flair, and 33% class!

You're a little bit of a fruitcake, but you always act out in style. You have a good sense of humor, are game for almost anything, but you like to have nice things about you and are attracted to the high life. You're stylish and modern, but you've got a few rough edges that keep you from attaining true sophistication. Your leading men include William Powell, Fredric March, and Clark Gable. Watch out for small planes."

Does being linked to her personality give me permission to be a bit snobbish

 

[surely]

Snobbishness is based upon opinion. Websters defines a snob as "an individual, often a social climber, arrogantly convinced of the superiority of his own tastes and interests." The difference between the snob and the opinionated is that the snob's opinion is that what they prefer is superior simply because that's what they (or those they aspire to be like) have decided that it is, whereas the opinionated persons opinion is (hopefully) based in fact, experience, or both. Of course, that's not to say that the strongly opinionated person cannot come across as an arrogant jerk, but I suspect that when that happens they're crossing over into snobbishness.

I myself am quite guilty of snobbishness towards the area I currently live in. I don't fit in here in rural southern Ohio. I wouldn't know how to even if I tried. I do a lot of the same things others do around here, such as driving a tractor to mow the fields, but look with distaste at things many people around here do for fun that they don't see is wrong. Things like trespassing on other people's property to ride their 4-wheelers (tearing up fields in the process) is one example. I am also a beer snob. Given the choice between a soda and the usual offerings of Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, etc I'll take the soda every time. :beer:

We see snobbishness across these forums--against wool hats, baseball caps, modern clothing, and more.

A certain amount of snobbishness abounds in everyday life. We know it's there, sometimes we'll call someone on their attitude, often we just ignore it. Perhaps there are times when we shouldn't ignore it, but I don't think of it as being something that's swept under the rug here in the Lounge. I don't necessarily think it's a problem that needs to be fixed, either. It's just a part of life.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it!

Cheers,
Tom

Tom, I agree with your first paragraph. Next you confuse feeling snobby and acting that way. That is, the actual behavior is what we can safely look at.

I want to say something here even though I haven't thought it out yet. I treat snobbery as a serious social wrong on the level of racism. Reflect a little: racism is discrimination based on race and extended to gender etc. Snobbery is discrimination based on wealth, status, intellect or taste.

Snobs can think and feel whatever and whenever they want, it's when they engage in snobbery behavior in public that they become accountable.

 

[Avalon]

Because I'm a dork. With apologies to Story's bunny:

 

[surely]

CassD, with that reading you need to change your name to ClassyD.
Did ya catch that boulder on her finger?

 

[Dr Doran]

Elements of the Puzzle

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.

 

[jamespowers]

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 it. 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.

That is just your thoughts on two pages?! I hate to see what you would post if you read the whole thread! The Encyclopedia Britannica at the Lounge.

 

[The Dame]

I want to say something here even though I haven't thought it out yet. I treat snobbery as a serious social wrong on the level of racism. Reflect a little: racism is discrimination based on race and extended to gender etc. Snobbery is discrimination based on wealth, status, intellect or taste.

I'm not sure I'm willing to go so far as to equate snobbery with racism. With racism (or sexism), one is being discriminated against for things over which s/he has no control - skin color and gender - one didn't choose one's skin color or gender, and in most instances cannot change either (transsexuals excepted). With snobbery, most of the things you listed - wealth, status, intellect [I'm actually going to insert education here] or taste, these are all things which we can and do control to greater or lesser degree, and they are not permanent, nor God given, nor objective measures of worth. People are always going to place a subjective value on certain qualities. Where I draw the line with snobbery is when someone goes out of his or her way to ostracize, criticize, humiliate or otherwise torment someone they view as inferior to them, whatever they base that on (money, job title, alma mater, family tree, favorite beer ... ad nauseum, ad infinitum - the list is endless). It is this intentionally hurtful behavior that needs to be called on the carpet whenever we encounter it, not the mere existence of a snobby attitude. We all have preferences and most of us think our preferences superior to others' - we just don't all go out of our way to belittle someone whose preferences don't mesh with our own.

 

[Dr Doran]

I'm not sure I'm willing to go so far as to equate snobbery with racism. With racism (or sexism), one is being discriminated against for things over which s/he has no control - skin color and gender - one didn't choose one's skin color or gender, and in most instances cannot change either (transsexuals excepted). With snobbery, most of the things you listed - wealth, status, intellect [I'm actually going to insert education here] or taste, these are all things which we can and do control to greater or lesser degree, and they are not permanent, nor God given, nor objective measures of worth. People are always going to place a subjective value on certain qualities. Where I draw the line with snobbery is when someone goes out of his or her way to ostracize, criticize, humiliate or otherwise torment someone they view as inferior to them, whatever they base that on (money, job title, alma mater, family tree, favorite beer ... ad nauseum, ad infinitum - the list is endless). It is this intentionally hurtful behavior that needs to be called on the carpet whenever we encounter it, not the mere existence of a snobby attitude. We all have preferences and most of us think our preferences superior to others' - we just don't all go out of our way to belittle someone whose preferences don't mesh with our own.

This is very much in line with my own ideas on the subject, Dame. I think that Surely was surely (sorry) correct in wishing to point out that snobby behavior in the sense of ostracism is very ugly.
I have verged on it, or perhaps even committed it, usually in the name of a (perhaps misguided) love of the cultural products that I regard as worthy of special respect, and it is not a good thing to do.
I am not sure what to say about the racism comparandum simply because racism is such an incredibly loose word especially in Berkeley, where I live, where it is used to describe everything from genocide to a dislike of bagels to being careful or vigilant around members of age and population groups who are statistically more likely to commit violent crimes.

The sticky issues, in my opinion, are the ones I outlined in the long post above.

 

[Dr Doran]

That is just your thoughts on two pages?! I hate to see what you would post if you read the whole thread! The Encyclopedia Britannica at the Lounge.

lol

 

[The Dame]

This is very much in line with my own ideas on the subject, Dame.

Yes, it seems we were posting simultaneously (or very nearly).

 

[jamespowers]

lol

Ok, ok I read the whole thing and it explains a lot about dirty filthy hippies I never thought of.

 

[mtechthang]

Yeah. What he said!

That is just your thoughts on two pages?! I hate to see what you would post if you read the whole thread! The Encyclopedia Britannica at the Lounge.

So far today I seem incapable of deep thinking (and I sure haven't been funny!). :eusa_doh: But to add to what jamespowers said, isn't this extended quote on first and last pages kind of like eating the two pieces of bread and commenting on the sandwich?

:cheers1: