Snobbery
What is a Snob? Here is a dictionary definition: “A person who vulgarly affects gentility, or who pretends to a superiority he does not possess ; one who apes and cringes to his superiors, and is overbearing to those upon whom he looks as beneath him ; one who regards wealth and position rather than character.” It is significant that the word “snob” is connected with the word “snub”; for a snob is one who snubs anyone whom he considers to be in a lower position to himself. Thackeray wrote the amusing “The Book of Snobs”, in which he gave humorous pictures of snobs of different types. There he gave a list of snobs of various kinds: “A tuft-hunter is a snob; a parasite is a snob; a man who allows the manhood within him to be awed by a coronet is a snob ; the man who worships wealth is a snob.”
Snobs may be classified. For instance, we may adopt Thackeray’s classification: “There are relative and positive snobs. I mean by positive, such persons as are snobs every-where, in all companies, from morning till night, from youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with snobbishness; and others who are snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of life.”
Or we may divide them into superior snobs, and inferior snobs. That is, snobs who are up, and look down; and snobs who are down, and look up. The snobs who are up and look down are vulgar people who have risen in life and become wealthy and prosperous. Exalted with their new and unaccustomed position, they carefully forget “the hole of the pit whence they were digged”, their former poverty and low position, and carefully snub and avoid all poorer people who might remind them of it. They look down on all beneath them in social position, and refuse to mix with them in any way.
Then there are snobs who are down and look up. Their whole ambition is to be recognized and patronized by people above them. They look down on those still lower down, and avoid people of their own. social position; for all their time is taken up with trying to climb into social circles above theirs. But snobs of all classes have one characteristic in common; they all “regard wealth and position rather than character”. They will sell their souls for a smile from a duke or a compliment from a millionaire and would die rather than be seen on friendly terms with shopkeeper or a clerk.
