Some like it haute!

Lofty tastes

Whether we like to admit it or not, we are a status and brand-conscious lot. We revel in buying a certain brand of product, maintaining a certain way of life, and associating with a certain class of people, just to be part of a group everyone thinks is exclusive and sophisticated. Lakshmi Palecanda holds a mirror up to this habit of ours that’s deeply ingrained in our psyche

A few years ago, I went to a wedding wearing costume jewelry. Impressed with the way my necklace-earring set looked, a woman begged to be told how much it had cost, and where she could buy a similar piece. It had cost Rs 500 and came from a store selling temple jewelry, and I said so. The instant she found that I was not wearing authentic gold jewelry, the woman’s attitude changed completely. She went from fawning and obsequious to repulsed and revolted in a heartbeat. You would have thought I was a three-day-old fish left at room temperature in high summer!

Of course, this was not the first time I had encountered snobbery. People who think that they are superior based on their wealth, birth, status or upbringing, and look down on the rest of us, are dime a dozen. And we all know at least a few snobs.

It is hard to define snobbery. But we all certainly know what it is, because we’ve all been at the receiving end, one time or another. “Do you actually buy that brand?” asks someone, making you feel like you’ve just bought poached ivory, when all you have done is bought a different version of a product. “I buy those things for my maids,” says someone else, when you proudly sail out in some new accessory. “I never go there. The crowd there is so common,” says another, as if talking about the local Neanderthal hangout. And you know that you’ve just become the victim of a snob.

The way I see it, snobs are those who think they are superior based on standards set by others. It is status consciousness, the thought that they are adhering to what others say is superior. If someone buys a Mercedes or a BMW, not because they like the brand, but because it is regarded as ‘the’ best brand, that person is a snob.

Level talk

Buying a certain brand of product, maintaining a certain way of life, and associating with a certain class of people, just to be part of a group everyone thinks is exclusive and sophisticated are the hallmarks of snobs. Looking down on those who don’t belong to the important ‘crowd’ is what they do. The behaviour they exhibit is prejudice they feel against someone who they judge as being below their ‘level’ and therefore, not worthy of respect. Having a decided preference for something is not snobbery, but deriving a sense of superiority because of it is classic snobbery.

Therefore, the idea at the heart of snobbery is that others’ opinions are all-important, transcending common sense and healthy self-esteem. It arises out of a sense of insecurity, of not knowing one’s own place in society, and of having low opinion of one’s own value.

That being said, all of us are snobs in our own ways. Granted, we may not have an overdeveloped idea of our own superiority, or hurt those who we consider inferior. But we have a definite idea of what is ‘right’, and therefore, an equally rigid idea of what is not, and we constantly judge each other. Therefore, we have our own brands of snobbery.

The origins of snobbery are lost in the mists of time. Where did it first manifest itself, do you think? Did a cavewoman, Oona, visiting a neighbour, Oochie, say, “You eat aurochs (pre-historic oxen)? My husband hunts them just for fun, and when he bags one, we just give them to our slaves!” Or did an early specimen of Homo sapiens sapiens, Og, say to another, Zog, “My friends and I always go to the pointy hill to hunt deer. That is the place for them. Other deer are no good.”

But, however, this characteristic manifested itself originally, it is not just alive and well, it is exceedingly robust these days. Consumerism has taken over life, and the flood of consumer goods that are available has swamped us all. Many versions of each product are being released each day, but the problem is that the versions are not very different from each other, except maybe in quality and pricing. However, manufacturers have to come up with some way to get us to buy them.

Advertisers take the easiest and cheapest route by appealing to our basic insecurities of where we fit in the social milieu, and to our base instinct to look down on others as our inferiors. Hence products become ‘the hallmark of the best, the crème de la crème, the top of the social hierarchy, being cool’. We buy into their ideas and buy their products, because we are made to feel special. Sneering at those who cannot afford those products, or those who don’t opt for them, keeps us feeling special.

There are two problems with snobbery. One is that it makes the others feel inferior and hurts their feelings. The other problem is for the snob himself. He doesn’t have an open mind, and therefore, doesn’t get to enjoy everything that life has to offer, and to learn everything that is out there.

There are snobs in every sphere of human life, and it is a lot of fun watching them. And once we acknowledge that we are also snobbish, it becomes even more entertaining to observe our own behaviour.

There are people in every religion, race, and caste who think their religious rites are vastly superior to those of the others, hence the term ‘holier than thou’. These people tend to be very orthodox and think themselves superior. They are the ones who are usually in the forefront of philosophical discussions and religious observances, and talk as if they were intimate friends of the gods, the prophets and the enlightened ones. They also carry religious rites to extremes, doing weird stuff like washing coconuts before breaking them during puja, and look down on the rest of us heathens.

Setting the ‘right’ order

There are language snobs, of both English and Indian languages. Indian language snobs are those who debate the merits of their own mother tongue in English, and send their children to English medium schools. And English snobs are those who claim to be better in the usage of the Queen’s language than the Queen herself, and won’t hesitate to correct their friends and neighbours publicly.

Then, there are food snobs. Oh, there are almost as many kinds of food snobs as there are foods. Some people think organic produce is the best, even though scientific studies have been inconclusive. But you have people who will pay through their nose to get organic produce, just to be able to talk about it.

There are some who insist that food should be freshly cooked for every meal. To be sure, freshly-cooked food does taste great, but one has to think of the life of the cook as well. There are those who swear that foods cooked over fire are better than microwaved food. Again, there may be a particle of truth in it, but it is not all true.

The funniest is the way we react to free food versus overpriced ‘cuisine’. We find fault with home-cooked food, especially when we haven’t cooked it ourselves, and also food at weddings, if it doesn’t satisfy our ‘discerning’ palate. But, put us in an overpriced restaurant with reviews from the people who we look up to, give us poorly-cooked food, and we will eat it, no questions asked, and pay a humongous bill, to boot. Who says we aren’t all snobs?

And then there are wine snobs, who pretend to know everything about wines. They drop vintage names and years without understanding anything about them, and can be easily fooled by just pouring any old wine into a special bottle. Rose, Merlot, Cabernet-Sauvignon — so who cares if you like something that happens to be cheap or not so cool with the ‘in’ crowd?

Another category where there are plenty of snobs is vehicles. People who own bikes won’t travel by bus, and once they buy cars, won’t use their bikes. I knew a person who thought that people who owned cars should not travel by town buses — something about buses being only for lower classes. However, as I’m too timid and scatterbrained to drive, I frequently take town buses to get around. On those occasions, when someone asks me what vehicle I came in, I say I came by a four-wheeler, a big one at that. “So you drive?” they ask. “No, I have a driver,” I say, “and also a conductor.” It is a lot of fun to watch their reaction, a dead giveaway, when they figure out that I’m talking about a town bus.

Looking within

However, I’m not above taking advantage of reflected glory. To me, a car is just a thing on four wheels that gets you from point A to point B without stopping at designated areas. In our apartment building, there is a man who owns a Mercedes. Seeing the Mercedes parked in the common garage, a relative commented in an awed voice, “Wow, you guys have a Merc here! That is so great.” I cast my eyes downwards modestly and smiled in a deprecating fashion, as if I had anything at all to do with it.

There are technology and gadget snobs. These people go around calling themselves ‘Gadget Gurus’, and devour every piece of overpriced silicon and plastic that anybody ever puts on the market. They swear that A is their brand of choice, and that they’ll never be caught dead with B. They go around debating the bits and the bytes, the pixels and mega pixels, spending thousands... only to be outdone by the next fad. Other than the minds of women, cell phones and electronic gadgets are the most mysterious objects in the universe — so why waste life by swearing allegiance to them and messing with the rest of us who use only the power switch?

And then there are fashion snobs. These folks don’t wear something, but wear somebody. They think what you wear is very important because it tells others who you are. In their mind, wearing high-end clothing, using popular name-brands and talking about the current who’s-who shows others how cool they are. Not for them is comfortable clothing, sensible food or an egalitarian sharing of ideas.

The best & the costliest

There is snobbery associated with prices also. When there are a range of products ranging from cheap to high priced, we are afraid of going for the cheap stuff, thinking that they may be of poor quality. By the same token, we also think that the expensive stuff has to be of best quality. Our common sense may tell us that both these extremes may not necessarily be true, but our innate snobbery prevents us from believing it. And buying expensive and ‘designer’ stuff is one way of showing that you’ve made it. For unless you paste your bank statements to your face, you have to show off your power and wealth only through fancy clothes and gadgets.

And then there is brand snobbery. When you go out, you have to dress up to show that you are a success, and what better way than buying what ‘the in-crowd people’ buy?

I could go on and on, and I’m sure, so could you. And we haven’t even talked of reverse snobbery, which is being snobbish about not being superior. Talk about the human mind being a morass of thoughts!

And I’m also sure that by now you’ve discovered what I’m a snob about. Yes, I confess: I’m a snob when it comes to not being snobbish... if that makes any sense!