The Case Against Snobbery

Snob n. a person who believes himself or herself an expert or connoisseur in a given field and is condescending toward or disdainful of those who hold other opinions or have different tastes regarding this field.

There’s a little (or a lot) of snobbery in all of us.

“I’m a bit of a snob about [such and such].” I’ve heard myself use this phrase before. I’ve also been coming to the conclusion lately that a snob is not a really helpful thing to be in this world—not to you, not to those around you. There are music snobs, film snobs, food snobs, book snobs, clothes snobs, political snobs, people snobs…. In fine, snobs can be found wherever there is culture. And there is culture everywhere, isn’t there?

The problems with snobs are manifold. Let’s begin with the fact that there are too many of us (and I’ll include myself, because I’m still reforming) in this world. And let’s continue with the fact that we are not actually experts about what we like, but only believe ourselves to be. That rings pathetic, in my opinion. And another thing: since when has being “condescending” or “disdainful” ever been a nice or particularly helpful thing to be?

I recently had a conversation with someone about music (big surprise) during which we established that we had nearly identical tastes. (And yes, the phrase “I am a music snob” was actually spoken out loud by one or both of us.) The conversation that followed consisted of talk about how awesome each artist was, and why, and blah blah blah. What was the outcome of this exchange? Well, both of us felt validated by having had another person, in essence, say “Yes, you are, in fact, cool because you like the same things I do.” (Which, pronouncing something valid only because “you like/agree with it” is a pretty shallow criterion, let’s be honest.) And the other thing is, neither of us had any reason to open our minds to new possibilities. Neither of us were challenged to try something new. As fellow snobs, the outcome of our exchange was simply to become even more deeply entrenched in our likes and dislikes. And even though this is an example dealing with mere music snobbery—which I consider pretty benign. Don’t even get me started on political snobbery—does anyone else see the problem with this attitude? This narrow-minded, Queen of Hearts, “there is no way but my way” approach to life?

But music snobbery’s not such a big deal. Or is it?

What’s the point of being snobbish? What’s the point of closing your mind to new possibilities? I’m not talking about letting every kind of garbage in. But what’s the point of not considering the other facets of something? It could be that once all is said and done, you will still feel the same way about the things you do. I think that’s valid, as long as “disdain” is not still part of the equation.

All of this is, of course, coming from a reformed—and still reforming—snob. But I’m just writing this to say that I find snobbery in all of its many forms tired and snotty and off-putting in almost every way, and as a young single adult I’m being constantly barraged by it by my peers and by my elders.

All this in-your-face individualism is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I would love to hear your thoughts, if you have thought about this, too.