On Snobbery
I was recently watching a video by book critic and YouTuber Steve Donoghue on the topic of snobbery. He defines snobbery as “the uncritical dismissal of a category.”
Similarly, Alain de Botton defined snobs in his famous TED talk as:
“A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you, and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are.”
In other words, snobbery entails, at first, assigning a category to the object of our snobbery: lowbrow, highbrow, rich, poor, white collar, blue collar, Asian, Western, etc. In the second step, the snob applies a whole list of stereotypical characteristics of that category to the object or person under consideration. For example, someone looking at a poor person may assume they are uneducated, lazy, and have other characteristics in the same vein. Note that none of these stereotypes need to be true. They are just what the snob thinks are true.
Coming back to Donoghue’s video, he mentions three kinds of snobs: nostalgic snobs, intellectual snobs, and moral snobs. I will concentrate here on the intellectual snobs. The intellectual snobs (in the world of books) are the ones who believe that some genres of writing, e.g., romance novels, are inherently inferior to other genres. They outrightly dismiss those genres, and often also dismiss the readers who read and enjoy them. Instead, they strictly restrict their reading to certain genres, e.g., literary fiction.
One of the reasons behind their snobbery, Donoghue says, is that they have never actually read the stuff they scoff at. They are ignorant. Hearing him say that reminded me of an incident from my childhood.
This is from a time when I was still in school. The Hindi-dubbed version of DuckTales had become very popular among the children of my extended family. They sat glued to their television sets whenever DuckTales was playing, and giggled constantly as they watched. However, I was at an age when I considered myself above silly, mindless, and meaningless cartoons, and I was not afraid to express my opinion.
Get Meenakshi b’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
One of my cousins, who is much older than I, saw my condescending attitude and asked me, “Have you even seen this programme that you hate so much?” His tone and the truth in his words gave me pause. So, I watched a few episodes of the said programme, and I realized: what’s not to like. I was hooked.
Life is short, and we avoid certain experiences so that we may make time for other, seemingly better experiences. I agree that choices need to be made. However, those choices need not be accompanied by a dismissal of all other experiences as being inferior or unworthy. Additionally, there is a risk that if we stick to our rules too strongly, we might make our circle of preference too small and tight, and deprive ourselves of some wholesome and entertaining art in the name of high standards.
I try to be less quick to make non-critical judgements nowadays. I fail sometimes, and succeed at other times. Donoghue’s video reminded me that I need to keep trying.
Do watch the video. He talks about the topic of snobbery in great detail. However, my favourite part is when he plays the part of a snobbish reader and says:
They may tell their valet to go and get them a copy of “What’s it called again? Sand? Oh no, Dune. I hear the little science fiction people think that’s their best book. Would you please get me a copy of that? And preferably one without a garish cover.”
You may also like:
2. The wasp
