and fashion, 177, 179
existentialism, 212
extravagance, 107
extrinsic values, as basis for snobbery, 17–18
F Street Club (Washington, D.C.), 139
Fadiman, Clifton, 144
fads, trends, 11, 178–79
Bloomsbury writers/artists, 148
in colleges, 129–30
in culinary preferences, 220
independence from, 26
Faguet, Emile, 14
Fallows, James, 127
Falwell, Jerry, 39
fame
definitions of, 194–95
relative nature of, 22–23
and status, 188
See also celebrity(ies)
family egotism, 116
fantasts, snobs as, 247
fashion, fashionableness, 172–73
academic investigations of, 174–75
Andy Warhol as icon of, 181–83
changing nature of, 33, 174–75, 231, 237–38
defining, 174–76, 228–29
exclusivity and, 177, 179
and knowledge about snobbery, 237
and media/merchandising, 178–81
and money, 179
and name-dropping, 187
as reflection of middle-class values, 177–78
rules governing, 176
and self-esteem, 176–77
status/pleasure from, 176, 237
vs. trends, 74, 178–79
and youth culture, 181
fawning behaviors, 16–17. See also upward-looking snobbery
fear, as motivation, 20
Fiori, Pamela, 111
first-class travel, 112
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 29, 58, 117–18, 237–38
Fizdale, Robert, 164
Flaubert, Gustave, 65
Follett, Wilson, 96
food, fashionable, 217–18. See also culinary snobbery
Ford, Henry, 41
Forster, E. M., 148
Founding Fathers, snobbery among, 30
Four Hundred, 33, 52
Fowler, H.W., 79, 96
France
disparagement of American manners in, 36
snobbery in, 207
See also French
Francophilia, manifestations of, 208, 210–13
Frank, Leo, 164
Frank, Robert H., 111
Franklin, Benjamin, 41
Fraser, Kennedy, 174, 178–79
fraternities/sororities, 5–7, 133–34
Fred Allen Show, 60
French
language, snobbery, 212
spoken by Americans, 212
words for snobbery, 14
French Lessons (Kaplan), 212
French Revolution, 31
Frenzy of Renown, The (Braudy), 198
Freud, Sigmund, 21
Fry, Roger, 148
fur coats, 93–94
Fussell, Paul, 213
Gaskell, Elizabeth, 206
gastronomy. See culinary snobbery
Gates, Bill, 42
gender, 18
German-Jewish clubs, in Chicago, 137
Germanophilic snobbery, 208
Germany, disparagement of American manners in, 36
Gershwin, Ira, 93
Ghost Road, The (Barker), 206
GI Bill, effects on class structure, 125–26
Gilded Age, 53
Gold, Arthur, 164
Goldberg, Marshall, 198
Goldstein, Rebecca, 144
good taste, vs. bad taste, 76
Goodell, Margaret Moore, 13–14
Goodman, Paul, 122
Gould, Anna, 48
Graham, Billy, 39
grammar, and taste, 78–79
Grant, Richard E., 219, 230
Green Acres country club, 136
Grimes, William, 220
Groton (prep school), 125
Habits of Good Society, The (Smith), 173
Hahn, Renaldo, 77
Hamilton, Alexander, 30, 49
Handful of Dust, A (Waugh), 205
hangers-on/groupies, 199. See also upward-looking snobbery
happiness
and feelings of superiority, 15–16
and possessions, 104, 106–7
Harpers & Queen, 246
Harriman, Averell, 110
ongoing prestige of, 129, 131
Haskell, Frances, 75
Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 28
Hazlitt, William, 16–17, 172–73
health foods, 221–23
Heaney, Seamus, 187
Heartburn (Ephron), 118
Hemingway, Ernest, 212
Hepburn, Audrey, 87
Herbert, Zbigniew, 242
hierarchies
deference and, 22
deserved vs. undeserved, 35
See also status
high birth. See ancestry, distinguished
high school, 127
status, social ranking in, 5–6
highbrow culture, 245
Hilfiger, Tommy, 180, 181
Himmelfarb, Milton, 169
HMOs (health maintenance organizations), 39
Hollywood, celebrities in, 190–92. See also celebrity(ies)
homosexuals
incorporation into mainstream society, 170
snobberies among, 168
social vulnerability of, 164–66
and taste, 162
as victim group, 155
honor/reputation, as basis for status, 30
honorary degrees, 27
Hook, Sidney, 148
Hoover Dam, 42
hope, among upward-looking snobs, 20
Horace, 48
Horgan, Paul, 187
House of Mirth, The (Wharton), 51
Howe, Irving, 145–46
Howells, William Dean, 79–80
Huxley, Aldous, 243
idealism, and prestige, 43
inferiority, fear of/insecurity
as intrinsic to snobbery, 16–17, 30
and restaurant snobbery, 218
and taste-setting, 164
innate/universal nature of snobbery, xi, 241
intellectual snobbery, 8, 142–43
acquiring, 146–48
Eurocentrism of, 148
vs. intelligence, 148
at New York Review of Books, 149–50, 151–52
and publishing business, 143–44
Sontag and, 148–50
at University of Chicago, 8–9
intermarriage, 139
International Croquet Association, 113
inventors, declining prestige of, 41–42
Irish immigrants/Catholics, exclusion from Wasp ascendancy, 54
It phenomenon, 228
Italian food terms, adoption of, 217
Italians, lack of snobbery among, 208
Ivy League universities, and the American upper class, 53
Jackson, Andrew, 31
Jackson, Jesse, 39
Jacobsohn, Peter, 203–4
Jacobsohn, Siegfried, 203
Jacobson, Dan, 168
Jacobson, Walter, 200
Jaguar, as status symbol, 10, 92
James, Clive, 67
James, Henry, 29, 31–32, 36–37, 48, 65, 98, 242
on admission to Reform Club, 134–35
on aristocracy, 47
on attraction of Europe to Americans, 204–5, 209, 213
on women and culture, 170–71
James, Henry, Sr., 51
Jarrell, Randall, 208
Jefferson, Thomas, 31
Jennings, Peter, 196
Jews
and class identity, 69
club membership and, 136–37, 139
exclusion from Wasp ascendancy, 54
incorporation into mainstream society, 125, 169–70
quotas against, 9
snobbery among, 7, 145, 168
social insecurity/vulnerability of, 164
&nbs
p; stereotypes of, 3
and taste, 162
as victim group, 155, 169
Jockey Club (Paris), 134
Johnson, Lyndon, 88
Johnson, Samuel, 31, 91
Jordan, Vernon, 40
Journal (Renard), 64
journalism
Alsop’s career in, 54
changing social status of, 43, 94
Joyce, James, 15
Judenrein, 7–8
Kahn, Otto, 165
Kaplan, Alice, 212
Keats, John, 64
Kempton, Murray, 131
Kennedy family, as aristocracy, 34–35
Kennedy, John F., 34
Kennedy, Ted, 34
Kenward, Betty, 246–47
Kenyon College, 130
King Charles spaniels, 113–14
Kingsmill, Hugh, 17
Kissinger, Henry, 199–200
Klein, Calvin, 180
Knopf, Alfred, 144
Korda, Alexander, 144
Korda, Michael, 144
Kramer, Hilton, 74
Kronenberg, Louis, 65
Kupcinet, Irv, 200
kvell, 115
La Rochefoucauld, Aimery de, 30, 161
Lanchester, John, 66
Larkin, Philip, 233
Lauren, Ralph, 57–58, 178, 180
Laver, James, 173–74
lawyers, declining social prestige of, 39–40
Le Francais (Chicago), 25
Leibovitz, Annie, 87
Lemann, Nicholas, 59
Leopardi, Giacomo, 242–43
Lewis, Sinclair, 65
liberals, as virtucrats, 157
libraries, public, contributions of Robber Barons to, 53
Lichtenberg, G. C., 178, 195
Lieberman, Joseph, 134
Liebling, A.J., 216
Life Studies (Lowell), 150
lifestyle, and class, 71
Lincoln, Abraham, 31
Lindbergh, Charles, 41
Linowitz, Sol M., 139
literature, snobs in, stereotyping of, 162–63
Longworth, Alice Roosevelt, 54
looking down on others. See downward-looking snobbery
Lost Illusions (Balzac), 176
Louis XIV, 96, 176
Lowell, Robert, 83–84, 150
lower-class society, 67
food tastes of, 223–24
loyalty, changing views of, 46
Luxury Fever (Frank), 111
lying, as intrinsic to snobbery, 18
Lynes, Russell, 145
Mack, Ray, 141
Madan, Geoffrey, 77
Madonna, 196
mafia, status conferred by, 21
Mahler, Alma, 178
Mailer, Norman, 150–51
Malcolm, Janet, 187
manners/etiquette, 75
and good taste, 79
as mark of upper class, 50
marine biology, prestige of, 43
Mark Cross, 105–6
marketing experts, definitions of class, 70–71
marriages, as upward-looking snobbery, 48–49
Marshall, George, 87
Marx, Groucho, 134
Marx, Karl, 63–64
Maryland “gentility,” 30
Mastroianni, Marcello, 87
materialism, negative connotations of, 103
McAllister, Ward, 33, 52
McCarthy, Mary, 216
McCartney, Paul, 84
McKinsey & Company, 44
media, and celebrity, 195
medical profession
declining prestige of, 39
snobbery within, 38
Medicare, and loss of prestige among physicians, 39
Melville, Herman, 24
Mencken, H. L., 32–33, 111, 223
Menjou, Adolphe, 207
merchandising, use of snobbery, 180
merit, status conferred by, 21
meritocracy
and decline of Wasp ascendancy, 59
and educational system, 126–27
and prestige, 97–98
middle-class society, 71–72
essential snobbery of, 32
and fashion, 177–78
food tastes, 223–24
Waugh’s definition of, 153–54
Middle West, religious segregation, 7–8
military career
disparagement of among jews, 4
merit and status in, 35
Miller, Arthur, 44
millionaires, 62
declining prestige of, 45–46
Mind-Body Problem, The (Goldstein), 144
Minerva, 76
misanthropy, snobbery as, 243
Miss Manners, 79
Modem American Usage (Follett), 96
Modem English Usage (Fowler), 79, 96
Molière, 28
money
and American regional aristocracy, 51
and fashion, 179
importance of, 5
and social class, 52, 68
and status, 92, 95
Money (Amis), 205
Montaigne, Michel de, 114
Montesquiou, Robert de, 18
moral snobbery, 156–57. See also virtucrats
among victim groups, 155
Morrison, Toni, 44
Moveable Feast, A (Hemingway), 212
movies. See also celebrity(ies)
and celebrity, 197
portrayal of snobs in, 207
prestige of working in, 45
stars, changing status of, 94
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 87
Mr. Phillips (Lanchester), 66
Muggeridge, Malcolm, 34, 93
Mugnier, Arthur, 195
Murphy, Gerald and Sara, 105–6, 209, 227
music, taste in, 145
Musil, Robert, 178
Nabokov, Vladimir, 87
name-dropping, 8, 21, 184–85
as art, 186–87
casual, 192
by celebrities, 187
as competition, 187
by Dunne, 189–92
effects of, 188–89
as expression of status, 93
and insecurity, 190
and political snobbery, 159
secondary, 189–90
as social climbing, 187–88, 192–93
naming children, 117
Nathan, George Jean, 32–33
neighborhoods, fashionable, 230
New Trier High School (Chicago), 127–28
New York City
Café Society, 53
fashionableness of, 229–30
Four Hundred, 52–53
intellectual snobbery in, 145
New York Herald Tribune, 31, 53, 54
New York Review of Books, 149–50, 151–52
New York Times Magazine, 94
New York University (NYU), 130
New Yorker, 234–36
“Nice Little Knack for Name-Dropping, A” (Epstein), 184
Nicholas Senn High School (Chicago), status at, 5–6
Nichols, Mike, 8
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 74
Nineteen Eighty-four (Orwell), 60, 66
Nisbet, Robert, 34
nobrow culture, 245
Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture (Seabrook), 245–46, 245
non-snobbish behavior, 83–90, 208
Northwestern University, 49, 131
nouveau riche, 14
novelists, portrayal of class distinctions by, 65–66
Nussbaum, Martha, 59–60
occupational snobbery, 38
O’Hara, John, 58, 110, 141, 178, 189–90, 247–48
old world vs. new world, 35–36
Onassis, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, 35, 180
one-upmanship, 15–16
among celebrities, 196
and possessions, 111
and putdowns, 24
opportunity, and educa
tion, 123
ordering, hierarchical, and deference, 22
Ordinary Vices (Shklar), 29
“Organization Kid, The” (Brooks), 116
Orwell, George, 60, 66, 68
Osier, William, 39
osteopathy, 38
Packard, Vance, 92–93
Paddock, Lisa, 149
Palafox, Antonio, 166
“Pandora” (James), 31–32
Paris, fashionableness of, 229–30
parvenus, 14, 51
patriciates (royal families)
Kennedy family as, 34–35
regional, 49
Peabody, Endicott, 125
Peale, Norman Vincent, 40
Pearlstein, Philip, 182
performing arts, prestige of, 45
personal relationships, status-seeking and, 96
Plaza Hotel (New York City), 11
pleasure, reasons for, as test of snobbery, 24–26
podiatrists, 38
political correctness, 158
in food/eating habits, 221–22
victim groups and, 155
political opinion, and social status, 145–46, 154
political snobbery
name-dropping, 159
vs. power, 153
and righteousness of viewpoint, 159–61